Nintendo’s Damon Baker on why North America doesn’t have the standard New 3DS, engaging with the community
Damon Baker, Nintendo of America’s senior manager in marketing and licensing, has offered further comments regarding the company’s decision to only release the New 3DS XL in North America. Unlike other territories, the standard model that supports cover plates is not being sold in the states.
Baker told Nintendo Life:
Yeah (laughs). Look, the face plates are super cool, but we’re a different market. And now we have clear differentiation between those three systems. Before, there was a very limited difference between the 3DS and 3DS XL: other than size. It was the same resolution, same functionality… now, there’s the 2DS, 3DS, and New 3DS XL, all of which have their own functionality and features. The different price points give it a clear message for consumers. The core audience… we weren’t going to win with them on that decision. But we had to think about expanding the user base, we had to be able to market it and make it easy to pick up for consumers.
Baker also commented on the topic of community feedback online. Regarding this, and how Nintendo’s social media accounts tend to avoid direct engagement with consumers, he said:
I’m there daily, multiple times a day. You have to go there with an open mind. I’d love to get to a point where we have marketing channels where we can promote direct communication with the community, where people comment on stuff and Nintendo can communicate back. That’s my dream. Right now, PR is driving our social media, we’re not actively engaging the community, or very rarely. People have a fascination with Nintendo and want to be close to it and we feed off that excitement. We need to be more active there.
