Nintendo president Satoru Iwata spoke confidently about the future of the 3DS and Wii U in explaining last week's digital distribution announcement during the Q&A portion of last week's investors briefing in Tokyo.
"[W]e have not designed [Nintendo 3DS and Wii U] to be mere improved versions of their predecessors," Iwata said. "We have designed them so that they can realize what has been impossible."
Since the launch of Nintendo 3DS last year, Nintendo has put more of an emphasis on developing traditional games for hard-core players and less on Brain Age-style games for casual players. Iwata said that this was a deliberate strategy.
"[R]egrettably, what we prioritized in order to reach out to the new audience [on Wii and DS] was a bit too far from what we prioritized for those who play games as their hobby. Consequently, we presume some people felt that the Wii was not a game system for them or they were not willing to play with the Wii even though some compelling games had been released," he said.
"Once consumers have a notion that 'this system is not for us,' we have learned that it is extremely difficult to change their perceptions later," Iwata said. "Therefore, in promoting the Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U, we have announced that we would like 'width' and 'depth' to coexist. With the Nintendo DS and the Wii, the approach of 'width' was well accepted by many people; however, what we did in terms of 'depth' was not satisfactory for some consumers. This time, we would like consumers to be satisfied in both aspects. In order to do so, we started to work on the 'depth' aspect first, and the current and existing software you can see for the Nintendo 3DS is based on that idea."
If Wii U and 3DS appear to be just enhanced iterations of Nintendo's previous machines, "because the company is yet to provide what it has done for the Nintendo DS with the Brain Age series or for the Wii with Wii Sports and Wii Fit," Iwata said, it is only because Nintendo has not yet introduced software that truly makes them stand out.
He asked for patience, saying that just as "not so many people were able to comprehend the potential" of the killer apps for Wii and DS prior to their release dates, "it is not easy for us to convince many people by explaining what kind of new experiences we are developing now." Iwata was also wary that if he explained projects under development too early, "it is possible that products with similar concepts could be launched before Nintendo itself can finalize and launch the products."
Iwata faced many questions about Nintendo's plan to offer downloadable games both on its own eShop store as well as on shelves at regular game retailers. He denied that digital games have less value than physical ones, because "being able to store a number of software titles in a hardware system" is an advantage consumers might prefer.
