Nintendo says they’re doing everything they can to help third-parties on 3DS, building relationships at GDC, big interest in 3DS
This information comes from Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America’s Sr. Director, Corporate Communications…
“We’re doing everything we can to help [third parties] promote their products, to get their products visibility. That’s actually one of the great things about the Spot Pass capability of the 3DS – it’s the ability for those publishers to push information out to the customers, whether they have the game or not. They can learn more about the game, and once they’ve purchased it, they can get additional updates to keep it current. So 3DS is really a system that will grow with the gamers and publishers and give them a great venue.”
Mr. Scibetta was then asked if Nintendo had developed new deals with developers/publishers at GDC…
“Absolutely. GDC is a key place to build and maintain relationships. Our development teams do that and they share best practices in terms of what the 3DS hardware is capable of doing, encourage developers to use certain techniques, or to make games come to life in the best way possible. GDC is key for us to talk with developers… and share with them concepts that will help them enjoy momentum on our platforms.”
Lastly, Mr. Scibetta discussed the interest in 3DS…
“I would say interest in 3DS is as strong as we’ve ever seen for any platform from the development community… That’s why you see 18 games on day one and an additional 12 in the launch window. Only 5 of those are from Nintendo.”
Nintendo is taking a more active role in aiding third-parties than ever before, but it remains to be seen if they will succeed. Nintendo’s titles have pretty much always performed well in some capacity, though there have been many instances in which high-quality third-party releases simply bomb on the market. I’m hoping things will be a bit different this time around!
