Nintendo's former chairman sat down with the Nihon Keizai Shimbum recently and discussed many topics. The full interview can be found below.

Translation Assisted by Tsuno Okashi .

Question: The Famicom (NES) recently celebrated its twentieth anniversary, your thoughts?

Yamauchi-san: Fortunately, many people have the chance to enjoy it. It became impossible to procure a fixed number of parts to continue manufacturing the console, so production will stop this year. Our intention however is to keep the Famicom alive. There were clearly masterpieces of software available for it, and we're examining how we can keep those titles alive with today's technology.

Question: What are your thoughts on Sony's recent announcement regarding plans to develop a portable game machine - PSP?

Yamauchi-san: Sony's PSP isn't expected to hit the market until late 2004, and there's still many unknown details about it. There have been analysts who think Nintendo has a monopoly over the handheld market and Sony maybe able to break it - I don't think they understand the game business. New product competition in this industry is important. Although Nintendo's core business is software, having another hardware developer will allow us to judge the superority or inferority of our machine. But software for both machines will be much different, and it would be a mistake to consider them in direct competition.

Question: The game software industry is under mounting pressure and many developers can't survive on their own anymore. What do you think of the movement toward alliances?

Yamauchi-san: There have always been differences between players in Asia and those in North America and Europe, and I think those differences are becoming more clear. Sales of GameCube software fell short in North America and Europe last year, and I believe that's due to the popularity of violent games on other consoles. The culture of Japan is much different and less accepting of such titles. Our target market is the entire world, so it's very difficult to develop software that appeals to everyone - and that's the lifeline of our business. That's why it's hard to achieve success in America and Europe for Japanese developers, even the most talented ones.

Question: What are Nintendo's plans to activate the industry this year?

Yamauchi-san: Developers are faced with the choice of mergers, which can have both positives and negatives. If each developer is talented and they compliment each other, new opportunities may blossom through a merger. Nintendo plans to collaborate with several developers for new software titles this year which players can expect during the Christmas season.