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Nintendo says they 'haven't solved' the unified digital account problem yet, 3D isn't dead
A portion of a GamesIndustry interview with Nintendo's Scott Moffitt...
Q: As someone who's made a pretty significant investment in digital purchases for 3DS, I feel there may be some games that work better on 2DS than on 3DS -- Virtual Console, for instance. But the 3DS games that have 3D functionality, I'd rather keep them on the 3DS. It's not really possible to do that...
Scott Moffitt: It's not tied to an account. Yeah. We haven't solved that yet.
Q: Are you working on solving it? It sounds like, to date, Nintendo has been pretty content to keep things as they are.
Scott Moffitt: If you look at the account system, the network ID system that exists now on Wii U, that's an effort for us to move beyond a device-centric approach to an account-centric approach. But we haven't done it on the handheld side of the business at this point. We hear that feedback. We hear that criticism, or whatever you want to call it, from time to time. We're not blind to it. But it's not something we've solved.
Q: The removal of the 3D visualization -- is that an admission that 3D wasn't really that big a deal to begin with?
Scott Moffitt: Not at all. Clearly our development efforts all include 3D games. Our installed base, we have eight million units installed. If 3D wasn't selling and wasn't part of our future, we wouldn't be seeing and enjoying the robust sales we have on 3DS right now. I think you know that the 3DS is the number one gaming platform on the market. We're having a very good year with 3DS. Our games continue to sell extremely well. Our forecast for pretty much everything we've launched this year has surprised us on the positive side. We've been very happy with the 3DS part of our business. This is really all about addressing that next opportunity in the US market.
Full interview here
Q: As someone who's made a pretty significant investment in digital purchases for 3DS, I feel there may be some games that work better on 2DS than on 3DS -- Virtual Console, for instance. But the 3DS games that have 3D functionality, I'd rather keep them on the 3DS. It's not really possible to do that...
Scott Moffitt: It's not tied to an account. Yeah. We haven't solved that yet.
Q: Are you working on solving it? It sounds like, to date, Nintendo has been pretty content to keep things as they are.
Scott Moffitt: If you look at the account system, the network ID system that exists now on Wii U, that's an effort for us to move beyond a device-centric approach to an account-centric approach. But we haven't done it on the handheld side of the business at this point. We hear that feedback. We hear that criticism, or whatever you want to call it, from time to time. We're not blind to it. But it's not something we've solved.
Q: The removal of the 3D visualization -- is that an admission that 3D wasn't really that big a deal to begin with?
Scott Moffitt: Not at all. Clearly our development efforts all include 3D games. Our installed base, we have eight million units installed. If 3D wasn't selling and wasn't part of our future, we wouldn't be seeing and enjoying the robust sales we have on 3DS right now. I think you know that the 3DS is the number one gaming platform on the market. We're having a very good year with 3DS. Our games continue to sell extremely well. Our forecast for pretty much everything we've launched this year has surprised us on the positive side. We've been very happy with the 3DS part of our business. This is really all about addressing that next opportunity in the US market.