Once again, this information comes from the eShop Iwata Asks…
Iwata: All right, Nakano-san. Among our various topics today, development of 3D Classics got off to the earliest start.
Nakano: Yeah. We started toward the end of 2009, so we’ve been working on it for a while.
Iwata: How did you come to be in charge of it?
Nakano: My boss said he wanted to recreate classic titles with a focus on stereoscopic graphics for the Nintendo 3DS system. I ended up collaborating with Arika6, since they have experience in a wide variety of fields and are an extremely reliable company when it comes to suggesting and implementing new methods of visual presentation.
Iwata: Several were suggested as candidates for becoming 3D Classics. What was the first one you made?
The 3DS eShop is a significant upgrade over the DSi’s shop. Whereas it took forever just to connect to the service on DSi, Nintendo has sped things up quite a bit for the 3DS.
You may be curious as to how Nintendo accomplished the upgrade in speed. Satoru Iwata and Kazuto Nakaya explained:
Iwata: Oh, I see. And one of the other goals from the start this time was to increase the speed with which the screen changes. The Nintendo DSi Shop was browser-based, so in order to change the screen, the server made information for the browser to read, and that was then constructed on the screen, so screen transition wasn’t very fast. What did you do to speed it up?
Nakaya: We used a method whereby a database of likely content for display is created, then assembled and read first—like with the Nintendo Channel.
The latest Iwata Asks focusing on upcoming Nintendo features is now available. Much of the discussion focuses on the eShop, but Iwata and a few other employees took some time to talk about Nintendo Video as well. Iwata says that the service will be released “in the near future”.
Iwata: Now I’d like to ask some questions to Imai-san. The video download service you are working on won’t be available when Nintendo eShop opens, but this service will become possible via software distributed through the shop in the near future, so I’d like to ask you about it here today.
The world has never seen anything like this service. How did you begin thinking about this?
Imai: This service allows your Nintendo 3DS system to use the SpotPass4 feature to download 3D videos, so users can view new 3D videos each day. Until now, people have only been able to see 3D images in movies. That experience will now become much closer to them. And what’s more, if SpotPass is activated, the videos come in automatically. So first of all, I wanted users to feel that increased accessibility. They don’t have to wear any special glasses to use it in the first place, and I want to make it so that people can use it without feelilng any obstacles at all!
Iwata: They come in before you know it, so you open your Nintendo 3DS system, and even if you’re somewhere unconnected to the Internet, you can watch new 3D videos every day.
This information comes from SEGA’s executive vice president of marketing Alan Pritchard…
“Aliens: Colonial Marines for the Wii U was part of Nintendo’s briefing, so that was great. And Sega and Gearbox have been fortunate enough to be involved with Nintendo from the start. It was a prototype, but we do have it playing on the [Wii U] dev kit. We need to know more about the exact launch timing [of the Wii U] and if it is something that will work for our Aliens franchise. Is it something that is going to be simultaneous? To be up there with the other first- and third-party tech demos…it’s good that we’re part of that thinking for the platform.
It was interesting that Nintendo didn’t really talk about the Wii [during its briefing], which is obviously a platform that is still important for most third-party publishers.
We have some big titles [for the Wii]. Mario & Sonic is a semi-first-party game so that’s going to be important for us this year. We do have some Wii games left in development, and we do have some Wii product in our product road map. We do have some future stuff. How the Wii lands compared to PS2…I don’t think we know though about that yet. They have potential future price drops up their sleeve. But it does need new content, as well as a catalog to drive the new hardware through. Obviously, it’s going to be big for this Christmas, and I think the Wii will be a very viable platform through next Christmas.”
