Nintendo has been a pioneer in the industry for opening up video gaming to a wide audience, introducing the genre of "casual gaming" and putting it on the map.  Now mainsream media has taken in interest in gaming as well, as the entire industry expands into a worldwide phenomenon.

The Wall Street Journal interviews Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who speaks of the "challenge" in keeping Nintendo going at its current pace.  A few issues touched upon were the unveilings at Nintendo's E3 press conference:

WSJ: You finally unveiled Wii Music, the game that Super Mario Brothers creator Shigeru Miyamoto demonstrated three years ago.

Mr. Iwata: Wii Music completes what Miyamoto wrote in his proposal when he came up with the idea for the Wii. He was saying that he needs to think up more ideas now.

WSJ: Since you first launched Wii, you've introduced several accessories, such as the steering wheel to play racing games and the gun-like Wii Zapper to shoot targets in a game. This month you unveiled the Wii Motion Plus and Wii Speak. Are there any more accessories in the pipeline?

Mr. Iwata: Most of the ideas for accessories that we had initially come up with are out now. We might think up some more, and we might make them if we do, but we don't have any plans to release a whole lot more.

WSJ: Will Wii owners be forced to buy a Wii Motion Plus for each controller they own to play newer games?

Mr. Iwata: There will be games that will be enhanced by the Wii Motion Plus as well as games that can only be played with it. Users will need four if they have four controllers, but we're going to try to offer it for as little as possible. We haven't announced the price yet, but the cost of making the Wii Motion Plus is not that much, so I think we can make it very affordable.

WSJ: You once said you hoped that new game players who were drawn to the easy-to-play games would eventually start buying more traditional games like Mario. Is that happening?

Mr. Iwata: Of the people whose first videogame purchase was Brain Age, about 35% bought more games within 90 days. Of those, more than 10% have now bought 11 titles or more.

Reflective upon the apparent rivalry between the three companies, Sony and Microsoft now offer downloading services on the PS3 and Xbox 360, respectively, in an effort to attract their own casual gamers and media-philes.  However, Iwata states quite clearly that Nintendo has no intention of competing "with the exact same services against companies like Sony, which has a movie studio, and Microsoft, which has a lot of money."

Nintendo is also experimenting with different functions for the DS, most of which people might expect to find on a Blackberry or smartphone.  Iwata is reluctant to offer a definite word on development, commenting that the company is trying to think of new ways for the DS to be used more often in everyday life.  By offering such services, they can grab even more consumers who may be looking for a handheld device, not a gaming platform.

Iwata did not give any confirmation to the rumors of a new console.  While their hardware team has started a new project, he explains that not every such project makes it past development stages.  For now, the only definite thing is Nintendo's dedication to expanding their market:

"We're still an entertainment company first and foremost, but the definition of videogames has changed. If we keep our view of what a videogame constitutes as broad as possible, then naturally we're going to be doing things that people might say aren't games.

...Our sales may have grown beyond expectations, but there are still a lot of people who have never played videogames. I think there are still many new kinds of games that we can offer to pique the interest of people whom we haven't managed to attract yet. After we complete our mission in developed countries, then we'll have to start thinking about how to make our products appealing in developing countries. We'll have a whole new dimension of issues to tackle like pricing, quantity availability and regional adaptation. We're not going to meet our goals that easily."

No word on whether Nintendo will be hopping the price cut bandwagon by slashing prices on their products, which are not expensive on their own but can add up after a while.  Peripherals have always been a big part of the company's profits.  Then again, the Wii itself may as well be printing money for how far it has carried them.