It would be safe to say that 3DS sales have stabilized in Japan. In fact, Japan is where the portable is seeing its best performance these days.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata told investors today that the overseas market has become a “challenge” for the 3DS. Iwata believes the company must “think about the method and its possibility of making what we have done in Japan happen there.”
Iwata said:
The challenge for Nintendo 3DS exists in the overseas market, not the Japanese market. We need to think about the method and its possibility of making what we have done in Japan happen there.
Thinking back to the Nintendo DS system, it did not gain momentum in the overseas markets until its sales pace in Japan had accelerated. However, since now is a time when smart devices are widespread and overseas video game developers are less interested in developing software for handheld platforms, some may doubt if Nintendo can actually make it.
Before we released “Animal Crossing: New Leaf” in Japan last year, some said that, amid the expanding popularity of smart devices, few adult female consumers would play games on a dedicated gaming device as they did with Nintendo DS. With the big sales of this game, however, we think that it was proven that an indispensable, original title could overcome the popularity of smart devices and deflation of the value of software.
