Email: Second stick is surely third party pressure

I haven’t had the time to read the last posts yet, but I have to agree with that emailer. The second stick is surely third party pressure on Nintendo. If Nintendo actually wanted, they’d probably have it on the first model. I’d even go as far as to suggest that it was Capcom’s idea, just like they did with the Classic Controller Pro on Wii, they just think their “fans” need a “decent” control method. Like as if no one have ever heard of the “Monster Claw” people have to do when playing Monster Hunter on PSP.

Third parties started saying they would support the 3DS greatly, no talk about problems with it. Then it started to not sell, and they pressured Nintendo to raise the installed base, so we get a price cut. It’s still not selling, so they are already telling Nintendo that they won’t be making their games for the system… but if they had a second analog, they might port their future projects from Vita. Where have we heard that before? When they asked for high definition and more power to port their games from Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 and we got Wii U.
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You can notice that Nintendo is the only company that doesn’t agree much with Dual Analog, even on GameCube, it was a weird stick called C. They skiped Dual Analog at first on the Wii, although the Classic Controller sure has it, the pointer was their way to say they were looking for a new way to play FPS that wasn’t with a terrible analog stick.
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However, we all know that the 3DS is the industry bastard son, so it will do anything for atention. Nintendo acts like the fat kid trying to prove to the cool guys that he can hang with them. Things like this will keep happening with Nintendo until they notice third parties are not their friends.
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But you have nothing to base this on except your imagination and conjecture. Too many people are emphasizing the Classic Controller Pro. Why do people assume Capcom ‘demanded’ this attachment? If Nintendo wants to popularize the attachment, they would market it with Monster Hunter and use Monster Hunter to drive the installation base of the second stick.Nintendo bucked third party pressure with the DS. Nintendo bucked third party pressure with the Wii not being HD (they really hated that one). The PSP and DS did not have two sticks. Yet, for some reason, there is so much pressure from third parties that Nintendo is willing to make the strangest expansion to a handheld we’ve ever seen within months after the launch?
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Let the information and data provide the context instead of a context ‘filling in the non-existent’ information.Right now, the best source we have at what is going on inside Nintendo is 01Net. Since they were proven correct about the stick attachment, it is likely they are correct about other things. This is what they said:
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It’s a mistake beyond belief, but Nintendo honchos finally had to admit, after the 3DS went through the mass production and release stage, that they had made a terrible omission: a right analog stick was a requirement to provide a superior gaming experience. According to our source, right as you read those lines, Nintendo engineers are spending many sleepless nights working on an additional device, which should be sold separately for about 10 dollars. Its shape and fixation mechanism are still unknown, but it needs a tight grip on the right part of the console. Will it have to be removed everytime you want to close the 3DS?

It says here that Nintendo realized their mistake. Third parties didn’t demand it. A ‘superior gaming experience’ sounds like something Nintendo would be striving for to differentiate their platform from the rest of the mobile platforms.

Very recently, Nintendo asked a select group of developers to create titles specifically designed for two analog controls… even if that will entail an additional cost of 10 dollars per console to be played on currently available hardware. Although such noises rarely if ever reach the higher strata of the company, most Nintendo employees working with third-party developers are indeed feeling the heat, as disgruntled studios and publishers become more vocal in their disappointment.

01Net is saying it is Nintendo who is pushing third party companies to make software for two sticks. It is not third party companies pushing Nintendo.

Third-party support is key to the 3DS’s potentiel success. Only they can enrich the software line-up, suffering so far from a relatively low volume of fresh titles, which makes Nintendo’s ongoing policy towards developers all the less coherent. The submission and approval process is described as very costly, time-consuming and often arbitrary in nature.

01Net says third party companies are complaining about the submission and approval process more than anything.
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Worse even, dev kits are still extremely scarce. Although no longer produced by Intelligent Systems – Nintendo’s hardware R&D arm – but outsourced to Tokyo Electric and Marubeni, dev kits are still produced at a ridiculously slow pace (300 units per month), and sold for a hefty price. As a consequence, even six months after the release, the waiting lists are getting more crowded, and many studios are still waiting for a chance to develop on the 3DS. This erratic situation is described by our source as a good example of serious management mishaps inside the Big N, that act as an impediment to developer relations and hardware adoption by consumers.

These third party companies are having problems getting their kits. Why would they be demanding a second stick at this point?

Why would Nintendo be so behind on production of the development kits? One possible reason is that Nintendo realized they screwed up by not putting on a second stick and were busy remedying that situation. Since the hardware design was changing, it makes sense that the dev kit design would be changing too. But this is conjecture based on the information 01Net provides.
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This information corroborates several elements we obtained very recently from various sources. According to them, Nintendo is currently preparing a new 3DS for a 2012 release. This new version would radically tone down the whole “3D“ angle, with a new design and even probably a different name. In that perspective, the radical price-slashing, touted as a measure to boost sales, would also be a way to liquidate current stocks to make way for the sucessor…

So my canoe riding the 3DS tears is not done. According to this, the 3DS price cut was to get rid of the stock. The 3DS redesign will be re-launched in 2012 and the 3DS brand will be replaced. 3d will be ‘toned down’ in marketing.

We must not assume things. Assume = Ass + U + Me. It is easy to imagine third parties ‘demanding’ a second stick, but 01Net presents a different scenario. According to 01Net’s source, it is Nintendo who is driving everyone to adopt the second stick, it isn’t the third parties.