One tactic Nintendo has been doing lately is that whenever there is bad news for the company, Nintendo will announce or leak new hardware.
The DS XL was announced to cover up the bad news of DS and Wii sales decline. Instead of having people focus on the decline, Nintendo wanted to get everyone instead to look at the new shiny.
Is it any coincidence that as bad news rolled in about the 3DS lack of sales luster, we begin to get a torrent of ‘new Nintendo console rumors’? Seeing how perception is important in this industry, I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case.
But it is not going to work on this website. All the other sites will be fooled in talking about nothing, but not on Malstrom’s fabulously awesome website.
Here, we will keep the focus on 3DS. Besides, the 3DS offers concrete direction of where Nintendo is going. Everything else is just worthless rumor and speculation. And it is still a far ways off.
Let us look at this interview of Reggie with USA Today:
Is it fair to compare the launch of the Nintendo 3DS and the Nintendo DS?
It really is apples and oranges. When we launched DS we launched going right into the Thanksgiving week (in 2004). From a pure timing seasonality, you are not going to be able to compare the two launches.
Nice try. But the DS has much less supply than the 3DS because the DS launch was global. The 3DS was intentionally not so there would be more supply (which apparently wasn’t needed since the 3DS didn’t sell more).
The DS also had direct competition with the PSP. The 3DS does not. Except in Japan which is not at all what Nintendo expected.
People say that the 3DS didn’t come out with games. But it did. It came out with far better launch games than the DS did. The DS had a N64 port and crap launch software. The 3DS has the sequel to the best selling DS game of Nintendogs and much better third party game support. I wish a Street Fighter game was around during the original DS launch.
OK, reader. Throw out the next question.
There haven’t been sellouts of 3DS? Are you purposefully underpromoting it?
I would characterize it as a launch where we learned significant lessons from the launch of Wii and we made sure to have not only ample supply in the marketplace, but we staged supply so it would not sell out. We had product going direct to store and we also had product in retailers (distribution centers), so they could easily replenish when they had stores running low on inventory. That strategy is why you didn’t see massive sellouts on Nintendo 3DS. Obviously, a sell-through of 400,000 units in one week is exceptional. And the fact that we achieved that without people being worried about massive stockouts and shortages just underscored how we properly executed our supply chain.
Ah hahahahahahahaha!
Folks, they were totally hoping for a sell out. Every console wants to sell out. Every. Single. One.
This answer sounds like something Microsoft would say. “Microsoft, you didn’t sell out of your console at launch.” “That is because of how properly we executed our supply chain.” Ah hahahahaha!
So I suppose the dismal Wii sales in Japan is Iwata’s artful strategy of ‘executing the supply chain’ as well?
Throw me another reader!
Consumers bought just fewer than 400,000 Nintendo 3DS systems in the week after it was launched March 27, said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “We are very satisfied with this start and we look forward to the momentum that we will build on Nintendo 3DS with the launch of the E-Shop, the launch of the 3-D trailers for Hollywood movies and the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time in mid-June, as well as the launch of Netflix later on in the summer.”
Oh, this is comedy gold!
Yamauchi has this batshit insane idea of trying to get Nintendo involved with Hollywood movies. Yamauchi can do batshit insane ideas because Nintendo is his company. I wonder if anyone there has the gumption to tell him that the Hollywood trailer idea is the stupidest idea I have ever seen from Nintendo since the Virtual Boy.
Why?
Forget about Hollywood trailers for a second. Let us pretend they were trailers for Sony’s PSP or PS3 games. Why would it be a bad idea for a Nintendo console to have trailers for Sony’s games?
A reader shyly gets up, raises his hand, and croaks, “Um, Mr. Malstrom! Mr. Malstrom! I know the answer! It is because it is not a good idea to allow your competitor to put his commercials on your product!”
Damn right. It is the stupidest idea to allow your competitor to advertise on your product. This concept is so simple that even the hardcore gamer understands it.
Hollywood is Nintendo’s competitor. By the definition of the 7th Generation frame set in place by Iwata, the competitor to Nintendo is not Sony and Microsoft so much as it is Hollywood and other entertainment. So what is Nintendo doing? They are allowing their competitor to advertise on their product!
Do you see Hollywood advertising Nintendo? Of course not. But Nintendo is doing this stupid, stupid idea because it is Yamauchi’s company. Whatever dumb idea he comes up with, it will be implemented. If everyone at Nintendo is too scared to confront Yamauchi on this insane idea, give me his number and I’ll tell him myself. Nintendo might as well run trailers for Sony on the 3DS. Hollywood is just as much as a competitor as Sony is.
Will Ocarina of Time boost 3DS sales? Well, Ocarina of Time didn’t make the N64 a success. It is highly improbable that a handheld port of such an old game will somehow do more for the 3DS than what it did for the N64. “But Japan is handheld nation!” It wasn’t when Ocarina originally came out.
I think people are confusing their own personal interest in Ocarina of Time to be a mass market interest. A single player game really has no chance, today, at breaking into the mass market. It is greatly amusing to watch people say Ocarina of Time will be to the 3DS as Wii Sports was to the Wii. Boy, are they going to be in for some pain.
And last, Reggie mentions ‘Netflix’. Really? People are going to rush to buy a 3DS because of… Netflix? Come on!
E3 will mostly be about 3DS. I expect lots of information of the 3d Mario, on Mario Kart, on Animal Crossing, and perhaps even an appearance by 2d Mario.
But let us keep the focus on the 3DS.