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Iwata on making the 3DS a hit overseas - 1st party titles, smartphone impact, Animal Crossing 1st half 2013
The challenge for Nintendo 3DS exists in the overseas market, not the Japanese market. We need to think about the method and its possibility of making what we have done in Japan happen there.
Thinking back to the Nintendo DS system, it did not gain momentum in the overseas markets until its sales pace in Japan had accelerated. However, since now is a time when smart devices are widespread and overseas video game developers are less interested in developing software for handheld platforms, some may doubt if Nintendo can actually make it.
Before we released "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" in Japan last year, some said that, amid the expanding popularity of smart devices, few adult female consumers would play games on a dedicated gaming device as they did with Nintendo DS. With the big sales of this game, however, we think that it was proven that an indispensable, original title could overcome the popularity of smart devices and deflation of the value of software.
To export the momentum to the overseas markets, we plan to actively release our key titles for Nintendo 3DS which could potentially lead the markets this year.
"Pokémon X/Pokémon Y," to be launched in October worldwide, could be the most-anticipated one and "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," released in Japan last year, will be available in the first half of this year.
We have already announced that "Fire Emblem Awakening," "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity," "Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon," "Brain Age: Concentration Training" and "LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins" will be released in the first half of this year. For the overseas Nintendo 3DS markets, this year will be a good harvest time of what we have developed for these two years. We plan to intensively and actively sell approximately 10 key titles on our own in order to change the Nintendo 3DS system from a handheld device just to play the Mario series to the one to enjoy a variety of games. Naturally, we will keep the momentum of already-released titles with much sales potential by, for example, having them digitally distributed.
link
Thinking back to the Nintendo DS system, it did not gain momentum in the overseas markets until its sales pace in Japan had accelerated. However, since now is a time when smart devices are widespread and overseas video game developers are less interested in developing software for handheld platforms, some may doubt if Nintendo can actually make it.
Before we released "Animal Crossing: New Leaf" in Japan last year, some said that, amid the expanding popularity of smart devices, few adult female consumers would play games on a dedicated gaming device as they did with Nintendo DS. With the big sales of this game, however, we think that it was proven that an indispensable, original title could overcome the popularity of smart devices and deflation of the value of software.
To export the momentum to the overseas markets, we plan to actively release our key titles for Nintendo 3DS which could potentially lead the markets this year.
"Pokémon X/Pokémon Y," to be launched in October worldwide, could be the most-anticipated one and "Animal Crossing: New Leaf," released in Japan last year, will be available in the first half of this year.
We have already announced that "Fire Emblem Awakening," "Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Gates to Infinity," "Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon," "Brain Age: Concentration Training" and "LEGO City Undercover: The Chase Begins" will be released in the first half of this year. For the overseas Nintendo 3DS markets, this year will be a good harvest time of what we have developed for these two years. We plan to intensively and actively sell approximately 10 key titles on our own in order to change the Nintendo 3DS system from a handheld device just to play the Mario series to the one to enjoy a variety of games. Naturally, we will keep the momentum of already-released titles with much sales potential by, for example, having them digitally distributed.
link