I'd now like to take this opportunity to talk about new fields where we will utilize our cash.
As a company that brings smiles through entertainment, Nintendo's goal has always been to create original entertainment. In a business with extreme fluctuations like the entertainment business, the basic policy of our financial activities has been to secure cash and other liquid assets so we can continually offer products and services that constantly deliver new surprises.
While this basic policy will not change, the Nintendo Switch business has exceeded our expectations, putting us in a strong cash position in these last few years and presenting a good opportunity to reconsider how to most effectively utilize our cash in a variety of strategic and meaningful ways.
Let me describe the fields we plan to actively focus on from a mid- to long- term perspective, given the changes in our current business environment.
These efforts will be made in addition to our conventional research and development and capital expenditures. The new fields where we will utilize our cash can be broadly classified under two themes: building software assets and building a foundation for maintaining and expanding relationships with consumers.
These software assets include games, and we aim to expand our game development frameworks inside the Nintendo group. We are not dismissing the possibility of M&A activities, but our first priority is to organically expand our own organization to continue Nintendo's creative culture. In addition, we will pursue opportunities in non-game entertainment businesses that have high affinity with the game business. To that end, we will work to build software assets in fields other than games. We will also work to develop new video content, following on from the Super Mario movie.
Our other theme, of building a foundation for maintaining and expanding relationships with consumers, will center on expanding the ways that Nintendo Accounts can serve as the foundation for providing consumers with better experiences and better services, and for creating new added value. The aim is not to simply promote the shift to digital, but to build a uniquely Nintendo service infrastructure based on our integrated hardware-software business. To maintain and expand relationships with consumers, we will work to enhance the My Nintendo service, discussed before, and the My Nintendo Store.
Our efforts will also include initiatives to increase the ways to deliver Nintendo software, following the new Nintendo Shops for Asia and South America that we opened after the launch of Nintendo Switch. In addition, we will consider enhancing our direct touchpoints with consumers through efforts such as adding more physical stores, as represented by Nintendo TOKYO, both in Japan and overseas Along with our integrated hardware-software business, which is at the center of everything we do, we also consider utilizing our cash in the research and development of technologies for delivering our software assets, and in the formation of new partnerships that can help bring that about.
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