Reggie on the 3DS momentum, mistakes, third-party support, much more
Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime has opened up on the 3DS. In an interview with IGN, he discusses the reasons behind the 3DS’ loss of momentum, mistakes that were made at launch, third-party, support, and more. You can check out Reggie’s complete answers below.
Reggie on the importance of momentum…
“This is a momentum driven business. When you have momentum, it can work in your favor. When you don’t have momentum, it can be a really tough situation. For us, this is all about making sure we have strong momentum for Nintendo 3DS.”
Reggie on where and why the momentum dipped…
“When we were preparing to launch the 3DS, we had very positive signals. High levels of pre-orders. High levels of buzz. High levels of interest. Even things like search activity, which we measure, were all very positive and very robust. That led to a very strong first day and very strong first few weeks of sell-through. Following that is when we began to see some slowdown of momentum.
“I would characterize the key factors as being… first party games, like Ocarina of Time or Star Fox, should maybe have been made available more quickly after launch. That might have been a missed opportunity. And then secondly, not launching the eShop until June was certainly was something that negatively impacted our momentum. I would point to those two factors as being significant ones that took some of the wind out of our sails following a positive few weeks after launch. As we take away those lessons and apply them to future launches, we need to look at things like key first party titles are launching much earlier in the launch window.”
Reggie on whether or not the 3DS was launched too early…
“What I would say is that… we didn’t launch it too early, but we did allow too much of a gap from the launch to the time when some of these key products or features were available. We needed to narrow that gap.”
Reggie on third-party support for 3DS…
“I think the big third party content is still there and is still coming. The Resident Evil: Mercenaries title that just launched was high quality, and the Resident Evil: Revelations title coming in 2012 is going to be an even more significant step forward. Very positive support coming from Capcom. We have support from Ubisoft, Sega and more. So the games are there. Having said that, I think the launch of 3DS affirmed that it is the role of Nintendo first party content to drive the install base. Those the roles that Ocarina of Time, Star Fox, the Mario games, Kid Icarus and Luigi’s Mansion 2 will play. Those are the titles that will drive the install base. We hoped that third party titles at launch would drive that base, and that didn’t happen to the degree that we needed.”
Reggie on whether or not Nintendo has done enough to distinguish this new portable in the marketplace…
“All of the consumer data we have – and we have a lot – indicates that the consumer understands what the 3DS is, and they understand that it is different than the DS family of handhelds. I do believe we differentiated the product. Having said that, what I don’t think we did was make sure key [demonstrations] of key features were available to take home. Meaning… where was that key first party title that really showed off the capabilities of the system graphically – and not just from a 3D perspective, but overall graphically – as Ocarina of Time does today? That wasn’t there soon enough in the launch window. Where were the digital offerings that rewarded you for taking the device on-the-go, connecting to SpotPass hot spots that we’ve negotiated? That wasn’t available until June. So these were things that consumers knew about, but we weren’t paying them off with functionality until months after the product had launched.”
