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[Somnid]

Eh. Their rotten attitude towards non-mass market gamers didn't really begin to surface until AFTER they were making big bank on those games you mentioned, and others of their ilk. Since then, they've been playing it safe to the point of rivaling Namco for the shittiest localization track record of this generation. They won't even bring out a triple AAA, critically acclaimed 2nd party RPG over without a shitstorm of bad PR (as well as some solid numbers from Europe) pressuring them into releasing it as a GameStop exclusive. Whereas in the Gamecube era, they brought us things like Baten Kaitos Origins, Odama, Animal Crossing (pretty risky for its time), and just about everything they released over in Japan.

Yeah, sorry this is a touchy subject. Haha.

It should be pointed out the bomb of Baiten Kaitos Origins is probably a huge reason why NOA was soured on Monolith Soft games.

Yes, you have correctly identified one of the stupid, short-sighted behaviors of NOA which they will need to change if they want 3DS to be a successful, high-selling system instead of an embarrassing footnote.

As stupid as it may be it doesn't apply to the 3DS yet, and it was really irrelevant in the case of Wii sales. Fixing this is like a 5% increase not a 3x.

 

[RoninChaos]

If there was a way to control those games effectively on the iphone then the demand for them would be a lot higher and so the publishers would charge more money for them.

That's not why. It's because that price point is expected on the iOS platform. It's the same reason why iOS games like Plants Vs. Zombies are 3 bucks on iOS, and 15-20 on consoles. It's not because of a controller or how the games are played. There isn't a 12 dollar premium tacked on because they had to program the games to recognize the A button. GTFO with that bullshit.

People will continue to talk about the price of iOS games, particularly when it's the same games that are available for a fraction of the price. The price difference only exists because the companies think it will fly. Period.

 

[Sleepy]

I'd buy Super Mario World in a heart beat. Same with Yoshi's Island.

Yes, please! Zelda: A Link to the Past, also.

 

[stuminus3]

Nintendo would sell more systems by finding everyone who has it in their heads that iOS gaming is something that it's not, then proceeding to slap seven shades of sensible into them.

(Posted from my iPhone)

 

[DrForester]

I think it all comes down to software variety. In Japan there has been huge 3DS support with a variety of software to choose from.

Meanwhile in North America, no noteworthy titles have been released this year aside from Kid Icarus and Resident Evil.



I think the problem stems from:

1. Japanese titles never reaching western shores, or not quick enough.

Games likes Kingdom Hearts and Pokemon Black 2 and White 2 (yeah yeah DS games) have a large gap between their eastern and western releases.

In addition there are titles like Fire Emblem that we can't even say for sure if it will be coming to North America.



2. Western developers continue to develop games with western markets in mind.

So it shouldn't be hard to figure why they aren't jumping on the 3DS bandwagon, and instead choose to develop for IOS, Android, and other online marketplaces.

I think Nintendo needs to first cultivate an online marketplace by backing low cost indie games, and from there if they find success, the big western developers will join in.




Essentially what it comes down to, is that once again a Nintendo platform will supply only core Nintendo IP and not much else for overseas territories.

The 3DS may continue to succeed during holiday periods when the likes of Mario and Pokemon are released, but its not hard to see why it doesn't have legs to continue going all year round.

Long story short, 3DS needs more games and more reasons to buy instead of Mario + Mario Kart. I really think that a strong download space would help aside from the $40 retail titles.

Isn't black and white 2 only going to have a few months between releases? It's coming thus fall, and not next spring, right?

 

[99%]

I'd buy a 3DS if games were a tenner, 20 euro tops.

40+ euro for portable titles ain't normal. Especially if you see what kind of amazing games come out on PC for under 20/10 euro, or iOS for under 10.

 

[storl026]

-Kill off the DS even more than it has been killed already. Every store around me has a ton of DS units lying around. Get rid of them; they confuse people. Make the 3DS the main Nintendo display in the store. Reduce the DS game stock to some smaller shelves. The games don't move that many units in comparison to how much you'd want the 3DS to succeed, so make it easy for people to understand the (single?) product line.

-Lower retail prices of most games to $30. Trumpet that to the heavens.

The bolded item is the best thing they could possibly do. Keeping the DS and 3DS equally prominent on store shelves is confusing as hell to the consumer.

The <$30 game proposal is the one I want to happen the most.

 

[Mpl90]

Yeah, NoA needs to be...different. NoJ is being aggressive as FUCK, and we're seeing the results on 3DS. Even NoE beat NoA's initiatives, especially in this last period with the Operation Rainfall games released.

But I have a feeling thing won't be as drastic as we've seen in these last years on Wii. After all, Spirit Camera has been released in US. It's that right now 3DS is still young, so the market is evolving continously, and so you can bring here games that, in other circumstances, wouldn't be released. NoA will bring Fire Emblem too, I'm absolutely sure of this, and it'll bring the most games possible in the first years. Especially since they need to sustain the platform, be active.After those...who knows.

Hell, they're bringing Pikmin 2 NPC, probably to create a sort of hype for Pikmin 3. And they're continuing promoting Kid Icarus with tournaments and AR cards well, and let's all remember the AD campaign before launch. This is something IMHO. Still too little, but maybe something is moving

Unfortunately, Wii has suffered, probably, problems in selling certain kinds of software with NoA too...and this isn't such a great excuse for their actions in 2008-2009, with Disaster, Another Code, and the others not released, since they should've released them HOWEVER. Now that things got worse, here you have the Gamestop exclusives / deals with other publishers ( another little sign of improvement: giving freedom to others to pick Nintendo games ).

There are big problems, which need to be solved. And NoA is lucky that it seems Western third party for 3DS is going to improve sensibly at this E3, because certainly, seeing how they're so passive, I don't believe so much Reggie has started doing his job like...he should.

 

[M3d10n]

But again. You are talking about Mario for $5. But $5 is the price Nintendo has set in stone for Every NES title. But not every NES title is Mario. The problem I have is the "one size fits all per console type" pricing mentality. Super Mario Bros will be priced the same as a game like Deadly Towers, ranked the worst NES game of the entire catalogue. That's not how nostalgia should work. Every game from 1988 receives the same price, no matter the quality?

They should bundle lesser games together, like Sega has been doing. There are games that aren't exactly terrible per see, but that are hard to swallow even if they were $0.99. Bundle those together with more popular games and people will think it's better value.

 

[TheNatural]

No, Nintendo just prices these products for a magical fairyland where home emulation doesn't exist and these games have some expectation of continued value forever (a choice that has resulted in poor performance of their VC products) while people selling their old games on iOS by and large price them to actually move in volume.



Yes, you have correctly identified one of the stupid, short-sighted behaviors of NOA which they will need to change if they want 3DS to be a successful, high-selling system instead of an embarrassing footnote.



Yup, much like some of the other worst regional branches in gaming history, NOA have two fatal flaws: they think customers should come to them (rather than going out and aggressively courting them) and they don't actually think people want the products their parent company is making.

I agree with most of this. The main problem is there are never any sales for DD content like on Steam or anything else. But there are often many sales on retail products.

Hell Wal-Mart has a continued Buy 3 for $30 sale going on:

http://www.walma*******/ip/Buy-2-Ge...=08407433773694458631&wmlspartner=lw9MynSeamY

Why pay $7 or $10 for something that aren't even full games when with a little bit of looking you can get stuff like Street Fighter and other games for a little more than $10 a pop?

 

[BigDug13]

I agree with most of this. The main problem is there are never any sales for DD content like on Steam or anything else. But there are often many sales on retail products.

Hell Wal-Mart has a continued Buy 3 for $30 sale going on:

http://www.walma*******/ip/Buy-2-Ge...=08407433773694458631&wmlspartner=lw9MynSeamY

Why pay $7 or $10 for something that aren't even full games when with a little bit of looking you can get stuff like Street Fighter and other games for a little more than $10 a pop?

This is a big reason why they want to kill off the physical game market eventually. No more sales unless they dictate it.

 

[AniHawk]

why is r-t.com (no dashline) banned?

 

[Nilaul]

Seven words:

Pokemon Mainline Game in 3D on 3DS

 

[Pociask]

If Nintendo truly wants to make a significant impact on sales, they need to make it socially acceptable for anyone, of any age, to be carrying a 3DS with them at any time. Got your 3ds at the office? To use the awesome PDA functionality and suite of office software, of course. Grocery store? Well, between my Mint.com App and my Personal Cooking Trainer 3 App, it's kind of a must have.

Chew on this. Nintendo, with the DS back in 2004, essentially released a portable, touch screen based computer. How the heck did they let Apple corner the market on this kind of thing with the iPad, which wasn't released until 2010? In 2004, Apple was still just making digital music players!

I dunno. Apple leveraged a digital music player into a must-have social status item. They need to figure out how to do that, too. People only want to carry around so many devices.

Of course, they can continue down the games-only path, which has worked well for them so far. As long as a Nintendo device is the only way to play a Nintendo game, it will continue to work for them - how well, though, is an open question.

 

[Boney]

If Nintendo were smart, they'd put facebook shit on animal crossing

 

[Linkhero1]

There's no white 3DS in America is there? If not then they need to launch a 3DS in white.

Personally, I'd love a green one.

 

[donny2112]

How the heck did they let Apple corner the market on this kind of thing with the iPad, which wasn't released until 2010? In 2004, Apple was still just making digital music players!

iPod Touch? iPhone?

Nintendo had some office-type app stuff in Japan, I think, and they did license PALM software early on. Just never really went anywhere with it.

 

[Sophia]

If Nintendo were smart, they'd put facebook shit on animal crossing

Actually wouldn't mind having more iOs app like functionality on the 3DS. It's not the reason I got the system, but such gestures would be nice.

 

[Mpl90]

An idea I came up to make Pokèmon B&W2 a 3DS system seller.
In Japan, right now, there are the "Starter Bundles" for MH3G and Super Mario 3D Land. Two colors, console + game at less than what console + game would cost normally.

Why shouldn't they do something similar with Pokèmon?

"Pokèmon Trainer Starter Bundle"

3DS Black with Pokèmon Black 2, 3DS White with Pokèmon White 2, preinstalled Pokèmon AR App in both and a coupon to download the renewed Pokèdex at a reduced price. Price: 200 Dollars.

In this way, they would

1) Sell the game to the people who still play with DS, but starting attracting other people in buying a 3DS, since the price is cheap
2) Make people go in the eShop for the cheaper Pokèdex. In this way, they discover it and they discover also what 3DS has to offer both with Downloadable Games and with Retail Games, especially since Pokèmon will be out after the release of NMSB2, the first game with the double release.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

I agree with most of this. The main problem is there are never any sales for DD content like on Steam or anything else. But there are often many sales on retail products.

Hell Wal-Mart has a continued Buy 3 for $30 sale going on:

The perpetual Wal-Mart sale is a result of failure to match supply and demand, rather than some sales trick Wal-Mart is better at than eShop.

 

[fbi]

Ditching physical media is a great step, no one wants to carry around 10 cartridges, especially when you can get a 32gb sd card for 20 bucks on ebay.

does anyone know if the older 3ds games like Oot and 3dland will be downloadable?

 

[DXB-KNIGHT]

Pray that the Yen goes down?

 

[qq more]

Ditching physical media is a great step, no one wants to carry around 10 cartridges, especially when you can get a 32gb sd card for 20 bucks on ebay.

I really hope you mean "ditching" as in just having digital download versions of retail games available too rather than ditching physical copies completely. I prefer having a physical game collection whenever possible. Plus, ditching physical completely didn't work out for the PSP Go so well.

 

[fbi]

I really hope you mean "ditching" as in just having digital download versions of retail games rather than ditching physical copies completely. I prefer having a physical game collection whenever possible. Plus, ditching physical completely didn't work out for the PSP Go so well.

well yeah, I mean thats how the iphone makes it's money, cheaper prices, download the games, carry a device which has 30 games on it. Thats what I want. There's a reason the piracy carts are popular with the ds and part of it is free games but I think part of it could also be having hundreds of games and not hundreds of cartridges. Convenience is a factor these days.

 

[BurntPork]

People here still think what he meant was 3DS selling 3x as much as it does in Japan? Wow...

They obviously meant Nintendo overall.

 

[mckmas8808]

Ditching physical media is a great step, no one wants to carry around 10 cartridges, especially when you can get a 32gb sd card for 20 bucks on ebay.

does anyone know if the older 3ds games like Oot and 3dland will be downloadable?

So you are saying they should go online distribution only?

 

[Mammoth Jones]

It's simple:

Make games that push systems. What games would have millions in the US clamoring for a 3DS?

 

[Somnid]

People here still think what he meant was 3DS selling 3x as much as it does in Japan? Wow...

They obviously meant Nintendo overall.

You could have read the quote:

However, considering that the U.S. market is two or three times the size of its Japanese equivalent, I believe that the sales of the Nintendo 3DS in the U.S. are far below the level that it could potentially reach. Also, unlike Japan, the United States still has a relatively large market for the Nintendo DS.

I don't think there is any mistaking that.

 

[yogloo]

How about 3D porn?

 

[ScreenSplitter]

Get Game Freak to stop pissing around on the DS?

 

[Pociask]

iPod Touch? iPhone?

Nintendo had some office-type app stuff in Japan, I think, and they did license PALM software early on. Just never really went anywhere with it.

The iPhone and iPod touch weren't released until 2007. The iPod in 2004 had a tiny screen that could show the name of the band/song/album.

I think Nintendo with the DS reached the limit of a game-playing capable device. Certainly there are things that Nintendo can do to reach that level again. And personally, I am fine with a game playing only device! But I think the only next level Nintendo can reach is the ubiquity of a smart phone type device. Maybe it's a phone, maybe it's not, but it would have to be something that everyone could feel responsible carrying all the time.