An attendee at today's Nintendo's shareholders meeting informs the world about what happened.

Following yesterday's surprising news that the 3DS was to receive a price cut around the world Nintendo spoke to its shareholders today to undoubtedly try and ease any concerns they may have. President Satoru Iwata addressed the company's shareholders and discussed not only the price cut but also the Wii U, Mr. Iwata's pay cheque and much more. While Nintendo typically post a full transcription a week or so after the meeting one attendee, David Gibson, tweeted certain key points that inform this report.

The 3DS price cut was obviously a big concern for shareholders and Mr. Iwata was keen to reassure them that this wasn't a panicked response but rather a business strategy. He noted that with the GameCube they missed the opportunity to cut the price and this informed their decision to do so with the 3DS. However, according to Satoru Iwata the 3DS' ability to output in 3D isn't the most important aspect of the console. He stresses that other features and third party developers are important to the success of the Nintendo 3DS.

Nintendo chose to cut the price of the 3DS now because it sends a message to retailers and developers that Nintendo want this console to be purchased by as many people as possible and this helps ensure its future. Furthermore it helps to make sure the install base is increased ahead of key software titles due out later in the year. Mr. Iwata notes that one North American retailer stated that it "feel[s] like Christmas is already here".

Satoru Iwata has taken personal responsibility for the below-anticipated 3DS sales and has taken a 50% salary cut, while other executives have had their salaries cut by 30% and bonuses have also been reduced. He hopes to recover the trust of their shareholders by recovering the 3DS sales and in the short-term Nintendo won't be offering share buy-backs. He states that the focus is on the long-term and they aim to increase shareholder return through improving 3DS sales by the end of the year.

Moving on somewhat Mr. Iwata discussed the digital games market and how Nintendo is focusing more on that. Their aim is to provide a strong focus on digital gaming with the 3DS and Wii U and so far they have been doing trial and error tests. A plan outlining their strategy for digital and packaged distribution, and the synergy between the two, will be released soon but Nintendo seem keen to push the fact they are looking into the kind of digital content that they can supply but mobile phones cannot. Apparently Nintendo aims to combine the social and real networks to increase profits and is hoping to have new software for this financial year and next.

Mr. Iwata also spoke about the importance of Nintendo being flexible and to work with other platforms. The details seem a bit vague at the moment, whether that is because of Nintendo or Mr. Gibson's report is unknown, but there is talk of the need to take advantage of other platforms that don't have to increase the value of software, without necessarily placing their own properties on other platforms. The full official report should hopefully clear up what Nintendo mean by this.

Finally Nintendo briefly touched upon the Wii U. As well as mentioning it as part of their upcoming digital strategy the console itself was discussed as a complete change from the original Wii. As the console offers multi-screen gaming it is not just limited to the television any more. Mr. Iwata also noted that they believe televisions will be online and connected to smart phones, although again the official report should hopefully clear up what relevance this has.

Obviously the main purpose of the meeting was to reassure investors so the majority of the talk was about the 3DS. It seems that Nintendo approached this as a business decision rather than a response to a threat from other companies, with Satoru Iwata even stating that he sees no correlation between Sony's sales increasing and Nintendo's decreasing. Hopefully both the official report and their plans for digital content will be released soon so we can see what exactly Nintendo have in store.