We recently had a chance to chat to Nintendo of Europe's Managing Director of Marketing & PR Laurent Fischer about WiiWare, the Virtual Console and Nintendo's marketing strategy amongst other things.

At the recent WiiWare and DSiWare Media Summit we were fortunate enough to get a chance to sit down and chat to Laurent Fischer, Nintendo of Europe's Managing Director of Marketing & PR. Mr. Fischer is responsible for a great deal at Nintendo of Europe and we had a chance to ask him all about the WiiWare and DSiWare platforms and Nintendo's plans for the future.

Ashley Jones: It is a pleasure to meet you and thank you for taking the time to be interviewed. Could you please inform our audience who you are and what you do for Nintendo?

Laurent Fischer: Hello I am Laurent Fischer and I am in charge of all the marketing for Nintendo of Europe.

Ashley: Thank you and what is the purpose behind today's event?

Laurent: This event has one very specific purpose. The purpose is to allow, as much as possible, for people to learn about the software that we are ready to make available on the WiiWare platform and the DSiWare platform while also having the opportunity to meet the developer, the human being behind this concept. Additionally they have the chance to try the games out.

Ashley: Obviously you've announced a lot of new titles as well as the new ambassador scheme. What was your reason for introducing this new scheme?

Laurent: Actually we know this is something that is happening anyway. If you look around you, you can see that this is happening; there are a lot of people either not knowing you can go online or knowing it and wanting to go online but having had a bad experience of connecting, be it with Wi-Fi or whatever, and just say "I don't want to go through that process." We also know that there are a lot of people that are doing this kind of thing, just offering to help people connect online so we thought "why don't we reward these people?" They are willing to do this for free and why shouldn't we be there to support them? We have a process that is very easy; if you connect someone you will get a reward of 500 points and of course when someone helps you to connect you will also get a reward, in that you have a good opportunity to go online for free and get used to the process and we hope that this will help to drive a lot of people to go into the online platform on the Wii and DS.

Ashley: When is this scheme being introduced in Europe?

Laurent: This will be launched in October.

BIT.TRIP.VOID is one of the games that may not have been possible without the WiiWare service.

Ashley: There has not been much marketing for the WiiWare and DSiWare. Do you intend to push it further through events such as this or television advertising?

Laurent: Actually we are already have made some television advertisements for the WiiWare and DSiWare but it varies from country to country. We would like to do this as much as possible as it is very important for us to give the platform a good access for all the journalists, and therefore all your readers can understand what kind of proposals the developers present have for the audience, in terms of the WiiWare and DSiWare platforms. Therefore it is very important for us. At the end of the day the key reasons for WiiWare and DSiWare to be there is to provide unique opportunities for people that have a unique game concept, or even a game dream, to make that a reality with the opportunities provided by WiiWare and DSiWare. These platforms then allow for players to have a chance to experience these games.

Ashley: What have the sales figures for DSiWare and WiiWare titles been like? Have they been as popular as you would have liked or expected?

Laurent: We are not releasing any sales figures but all the sales figures have been very encouraging and everything is going in the right direction; we are very positive about the sales.

Ashley: Some people feel the Virtual Console has been somewhat ignored recently, do you plan to continue supporting this platform?

Laurent: The Virtual Console is growing every week there is only one limit that can reached; the games that have been released in the past. Maybe one day we'll reach that limit but I'm not sure if that day is close. The Virtual Console can help people with very different needs, such as people who were able to play the originals but maybe it is not as easy to have 10 consoles connected at once. With the Virtual Console you can enjoy the experience of playing these games within a console context with greater ease. I also believe, and it's something we see more and more, people who are young, or new to video games, who have just recently begun to play. They may one day realise that there is not just the software for this generation of consoles but they can also find out all about video games. They understand there has been a lot of history and a lot of games and what I like is the idea that you will be able to, through the Virtual Console, one day understand that every single game we have on it is a masterpiece and a joy. They can now be seen as a masterpiece by the people who enjoyed them when they were released and also by people now through the Virtual Console. I feel that this is very important to us.

Ashley: So the Wii can act as a Nintendo encyclopedia as it were?

Laurent: I would be even more generous; it is a video game encyclopedia as we are not just releasing Nintendo games on it. I like this idea of a video game library, but not the word 'museum' as its not a museum, its alive. You can compare it to the movie industry; before having DVDs it was difficult as you had to catch the movie in the cinema and when it was gone it was gone forever. Of course you had the option to get all of these things pirated at the market or whatever but it's not so easy. So here you have access to all this history and you can make a real journey through the history and see how clever the people were who made these games within the video games history we are all very happy to be part of.

Ashley: Obviously with digital distribution it is a lot easier to get games out there in different ways. Are Nintendo looking to do with either more WiiWare or DSiWare titles?

Laurent: From the very beginning we have been very clear what the purpose of the WiiWare platform is. What we aim to do is make sure people that cannot access normal distribution channels, such as retail, who have unique ideas that wouldn't work otherwise because its a different story to be published within the retail channels. So what we have with the WiiWare service is the possibility for people to have their software published and in the consumer's hands. Most of the software would never have been able to be released had there not been this platform. This is the key of our approach to WiiWare; to provide possibilities for more ideas and more talented people to be able to get their games released. As such we will always be looking in this direction at Nintendo.

Ashley: What have independent developers feedback been like for those who have released titles on the WiiWare?

Laurent: I think that the general feedback we have from very experienced developers have been able to develop games for years, but could never achieve one specific game concept they had in mind, appreciating that now they can do it. On the other hand we have students who make study projects and suddenly they have the opportunity to become a WiiWare title. Basically all of these are going in the same direction so that the general feedback we have is positive; people are happy because they can do what they want to do and I think that this is really the key benefit of the WiiWare platform.

LostWinds is one of the WiiWare's success stories.

Ashley: You showcased earlier the Aardman studio Flipnote, is this something you plan to do with some other studios?

Laurent: I feel that Aardman studios and the possibilities of the Flipnote software are matched so well together. I am a big fan of Flipnote and what I wanted to do is make sure that, as much as possible, people can see what Flipnote is capable of doing so that many people could enjoy that. When we talked about what Flipnote is it is basically a unique tool to help you create animation. So when we thought about who was the best to talk about animation Aardman naturally came up. When you see what they have done it fits so well within the spirit of Aardman's animation and also Flipnote's spirit so we said "okay, why not?" It was just such an obvious choice.

Ashley: The one we saw earlier was a very good.

Laurent: Yes. I've been trying to see the other ones, as there are eleven to go, because I personally enjoyed it too.

Ashley: Was it yourselves who contacted Aardman or did they contact you?

Laurent: We contacted them because it was so obvious when we played Flipnote that we needed to get them involved. We then showed them what we have and asked if they would like to do some work for it and they agreed. Again, it was an obvious match.

Ashley: Since the DSi was announced fans have hoped for a DS Virtual Console. Have there been any discussions at Nintendo to introduce this?

Laurent: We have no plans to introduce the Virtual Console for the DSi.

Ashley: What are your reasons for this?

Laurent: It is not within our current strategy.

Ashley: Okay. Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule.

Laurent: Thank you.

Once again we would like to thank Laurent Fischer for taking the time to be interviewed and Nintendo for hosting the event. Expect more interviews in the coming days.