Nintendo’s Global president Satoru Iwata has confessed that whilst the Nintendo 3DS achieved commendable sales at launch, figures since then have failed to meet the company’s expectations.
“It’s fair to say that while Nintendo 3DS had a strong launch day, the results since then have not met our expectations,” Iwata explained. “By which I mean to say that although pre-orders for this system were very strong and initial impressions of this system were very positive, those early indicators stand in conflict with where the system is at today. So, I can’t say there are no issues at present.”
He continued, “So, what we have analysed up to this point is that the initial move by the early adopters has not translated into broader movement by the broader market in the ways that we had expected.”
Iwata believes that the delay in further Nintendo 3DS software hitting retail, as well as the launch of the Nintendo eShop and 3D video services, meant that Nintendo couldn’t meet consumers high expectations.
“The current situation resulted from the fact that the delay of developing Nintendo 3DS software and launching online services, like Nintendo eShop, 3D video services and so forth, occurred simultaneously, so we could not meet people’s high expectations that they had before its launch, and we did not see momentum after the launch,” Iwata reasoned.
“I think that we’ll be able to show you that as Nintendo eShop and 3D video services come online, and a number of key software titles become available, we’ll be able to regain momentum for this hardware.”
He continued to disregard comments that the Nintendo 3DS’ form wasn’t different enough from its predecessor.
“Regarding the form factor, I think that people who purchase video game systems tend to purchase it for the experience that the system offers, so while I do agree that it’s important for us to work on creating products with appealing form factors, I don’t think that the current state of the Nintendo 3DS is because of a result of not having a significantly different form factor from our other handheld systems,” Iwata commented. “But, as you have pointed out that you have a concern about the form factor, then as we continue to look at what we do with the system, we’ll continue to take that into account and see what we can do to satisfy that concern.”
[Thanks, Eurogamer]
Nintendo: 3DS sales “have not met our expectations”
