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The buzz on the Nintendo 3DS hasn't been good, I recently mentioned to Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime.
I hear people complaining about a lack of must-play games and a lack of reasons to boot up the machine. The $250 handheld hardware, while impressive, is called too expensive. Nintendo even failed—by about 400,000 units—to sell its hoped-for four million 3DS systems by the end of March.
There were actually two problems holding prospective 3DS purchasers back, Fils-Aime told me, two problems he believes the company has addressed.
"When we launched, we had a fantastic day one and a very strong week one," he said during our recent interview. "We talked to consumers. Consumers were highly satisfied with the device. They loved the built-in applications. They loved the game experiences. We had high levels of awareness. We had high levels of intent-to-purchase.
"But when we started talking to consumers who were aware or interested, but hadn't yet bought, they told us two things: first, I need a big Nintendo franchise for our purchase. The second thing was I need the network to be up. I need the connected experiences to be there."
That first problem that Fils-Aime mentioned was surely the byproduct of a launch line-up that included a Nintendogs, but no Mario, no Zelda, no Smash Bros. or any flagship game. The second problem was even more awkward: the inclusion, on the 3DS' touch screen of a non-functional web browser that, when touched, indicated that the machine's online services would be activated by Nintendo at a later date.
more here
they would have been smart to delay the 3DS launch until they had some worthy titles to go along with it.
I hear people complaining about a lack of must-play games and a lack of reasons to boot up the machine. The $250 handheld hardware, while impressive, is called too expensive. Nintendo even failed—by about 400,000 units—to sell its hoped-for four million 3DS systems by the end of March.
There were actually two problems holding prospective 3DS purchasers back, Fils-Aime told me, two problems he believes the company has addressed.
"When we launched, we had a fantastic day one and a very strong week one," he said during our recent interview. "We talked to consumers. Consumers were highly satisfied with the device. They loved the built-in applications. They loved the game experiences. We had high levels of awareness. We had high levels of intent-to-purchase.
"But when we started talking to consumers who were aware or interested, but hadn't yet bought, they told us two things: first, I need a big Nintendo franchise for our purchase. The second thing was I need the network to be up. I need the connected experiences to be there."
That first problem that Fils-Aime mentioned was surely the byproduct of a launch line-up that included a Nintendogs, but no Mario, no Zelda, no Smash Bros. or any flagship game. The second problem was even more awkward: the inclusion, on the 3DS' touch screen of a non-functional web browser that, when touched, indicated that the machine's online services would be activated by Nintendo at a later date.
more here
they would have been smart to delay the 3DS launch until they had some worthy titles to go along with it.
