Nintendo aims to amend its Articles of Incorporation at the end of next month, and some of the changes will see the venerable game company expanding its remit to potentially do business in new areas, including restaurant management and PC software development.
This follows and supports a recent announcement that Nintendo will be revising its corporate structure next month and, among other things, adding a new executive officer system to “establish a more flexible management structure.”
The company has been broadening its interests of late, expanding into everything from mobile games to theme parks to movies, and this proposed revision to its charter seems designed to cement that trend.
Nintendo noted that the proposed amendments are intended to help “add and change the purposes of the Company in preparation for business diversification,” which makes sense given that a company’s Articles of Incorporation are basically a high-level overview of what the company does and how it does it.
On June 29th Nintendo plans to implement the amendment at a shareholders meeting, and if it goes as proposed the “purpose of the company” will expand to four new areas:
Development, manufacturing and sale of medical devices and health devices
Development, manufacturing and sale of computer software
Management of and investment in eating establishments (in addition to stores and other entertainment sites)
Licensing of intellectual property rights
Of course, just because Nintendo is adding these to its list of potential businesses doesn’t mean it will follow through: the company still counts “manufacturing and sale of sound equipment and vehicles” among its purposes, for example, but doesn’t maintain a notable vehicle business.
The company has also already dabbled in some of these areas before, having announced and then iced a “quality of life” health initiative and laid plans to amp up its longtime IP licensing efforts.