Email: 3DS, what will it be?

Dear Sean

The english is not my main language but i’ll try anyway to write the best i can because i have some kind of “doubt” about the gaming industry, and following your blog i notice how you can almost “predict” what is going to happen next with games and consoles, and i have a small doubt about one in particular.

What i would like to ask you is some kind of “prediction” about what will happen with the next generation consoles, more precisely i need to know what do you think about the 3DS. I have many friends (nintendo nerds and not only) talking about it costantly, about it’s potential, about it’s “power” as handheld console etc, but i somehow feel like that is going to become some kind of “trap”.

I’ll try to be more clear, what makes me suspicious is not the potential of the console, which is unbelivable indeed, but the “games” that will be made for it; indeed something i noticed (and maybe you have noticed too) is that Nintendo has some kind of “cycle” since the end of the Snes era, something like this: New console -> Mario -> Zelda -> Mario Kart -> Smash Bros -> Metroid -> Donkey Kong -> new console -> Mario…

And what i’m thinking right now is that the cycle is going to repeat with the 3DS too, including the “poor third party games support”, not much because of the console itself, but because of something that i resume in a phrase like “Nintendo consoles are innovative but Nintendo is not”. I’ve taken this quote from a my friend, but if you think for example that although the N64 was a more powerful console than the PSX, the second one had more games and with better quality too even if the platform was “weaker” in terms of performance, and something similar happened with the PS2 against the gamecube.

Another reason why i think that the 3DS could be a trap is a phrase a my friend sayd long ago, when he was supposed to choose between N64 and PSX, he sayd “I get a N64 because is more powerful”, with the result that when i bought a PSX he was costantly at my home playing with it saying “N64 has shitty games”, and this is something that, as you sayd in a your article, makes me somehow think about the 3DS like the N64. My thought is that even if very powerful, it will not least for too long because of the “mind” of it’s producers, making maybe nice games but only for the first year to then drop down in creativity and “making games supposed to be just sold for the trademark” as i say, but i’m not an expert in marketing, so i would like to listen to your opinion as you seem more expert than me in this “field”

I would like to precise that i’m not a fanboy of any kind, i don’t have a PS3 or an Xbox (i have a Wii, and now i’m regretting that console) but i’m a PC gamer.

Thank you for your help and hoping to haven’t give you any disturb (and still sorry for any grammar mistake in the message)

I agree completely with your N64 reference. The 3DS is going the way in spirit as the N64 did. It is not an inclusive console. Just as the N64 cut off people like me, the 3DS is going to be cutting off DS and Gameboy users.

One of the bedrock ideas of disruption is what is called ‘overshooting the market’. Nintendo realized the N64 was overshooting the market when they released the Wii. “Make simpler games,” they said. Now, what is the 3DS but overshooting the handheld market? I don’t need all this stuff in a handheld. I need simple games. 3d games were  a failure on the DS, what makes anyone think that they will suddenly be in demand in the handheld market?

Now, the 3DS is having a better launch than the DS did. The DS was, after all, rushed. There is much better software for launch for the 3DS than the DS which is probably a big reason why Nintendo doesn’t feel worried.

It is not that I do not think Nintendo realizes they are overshooting the handheld market. It is that I do not think Nintendo cares. Nintendo is obsessed with 3d technology, and their view is that the software developers will do whatever the hell they please and your role, as the consumer, is only to go along for the ride. The bigshots at the software side are very unhappy with you, the consumers, for not going wild over 3d Mario (despite what form and how easy they make it), for not wishing Metroid: Other M be the full replacement of the Metroid series, for still demanding more 2d games, and not being excited about Aonuma designing Zelda games for his son’s entertainment.

The 3DS reminds me very much of the N64. Tons of Industry and hardcore gamer excitement over it with a silent, but large, slice of the userbase being disinterested. However, a big difference between then and now is that the 3DS, unlike the N64, doesn’t have intense competition. But when something overshoots the market, it creates opportunities for competitors.