Nintendo wants the 3DS to be as big as its previous 140m selling handheld device. But will competition from smartphones allow it?
The pre-orders are in, the midnight openings are arranged, the Redknapp family have no doubt recorded a charming TV advert in preparation. Yes, Friday sees the UK launch of the Nintendo 3DS console, and with hundreds of stores staying opening until midnight on Thursday to serve eager gamers, the industry is expecting a bumper weekend of hardware sales.
"It's been really interesting watching how retail has behaved since January," says Michael French, editor-in-chief of gaming news sources MCV and Develop. "I don't we've ever seen so much price cutting and really aggressive promotion of a platform on price before. It points to strong demand from consumers. The fact that Morrisons would drop the price to �187 which is not far off the cost of the unit for them, shows they're confident they can attract a lot of people in and then sell enough extra software to make a profit."
But can Nintendo really do it again? Can the company that has existed for the past 10 years on a hardware business model of 'gimmicky interfaces for mainstream audiences' seduce us into buying another chunk of specialised gaming plastic?
The problem is, today's marketplace is very different to the one in which the Wii and DS flourished. Over the past two years we have seen the rise of social gaming, the explosion of smartphone gaming, the dawn of tablet gaming? Now, mainstream consumers have a wealth of gadgets available to them if they want to occasionally play a video game, which means all the people who once went to the DS for titles such as Nintendogs, Advance Wars and Brain Training can get very similar experiences on their iPhones or Android devices ? but they can pay �1 for them. And check their email afterwards.
There is certainly a school of thought in the industry that suggests the days of the specialist games device are over. Last week, Brian Meehan, vice-president of sales at smartphone developer Sourcebits, told Modojo, "My kids will never own a DS or PSP. They have everything via smartphones and tablets [?] Angry Birds is the world's new [Super] Mario Bros." This might sound like madness to veteran gamers who'll always favour the rich depths of a Miyamoto adventure over flinging birds at pigs. But for a burgeoning stratum of app developers, there's no sense in the old school model of producing long-form Triple A titles for the retail market ? not while a bird-flinging game created by a team of Finnish students can do 100m downloads and get them over $40m in VC funding.
Nintendo is certainly aware of the threat posed by mobile gaming, but has been rather dismissive in response. As part of his keynote speech at the Game Developers Conference earlier this month, Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata spoke about his fear for "high value" games in a marketplace dominated by smartphone app stores:
"These platforms have no motivation to maintain the high value of video game software ? for them, content is something created by someone else. Their goal is just to gather as much software as possible, because quantity is what makes the money flow - the value of video game software does not matter to them."
The problem is, fighting on a quality vs quantity ticket is getting less and less feasible. As industry analyst Nicholas Lovell noted recently in a blogpost on the subject, smartphone games aren't necessarily lower in quality because they're cheap (or even free). Titles such as Chaos Rings, Infinity Blade and Rockstar's stunning conversion of GTA: Chinatown Wars show that deep, challenging titles are available on smartphone platforms.
Nevertheless, Iwata's views were later reflected and expanded upon by 3DS project leader Hideki Konno, who picked up on the argument that games for dedicated handheld consoles are now too expensive, considering that you can buy one that looks quite similar on Google Market for �1. In response Konno told Gamasutra:
"So now in terms of one dollar games, or free games, or whatever that is out there in the market, I mean, really, we're not going to be competing with that; we're just going to continually strive to not just maintain, but increase, the quality of the entertainment that we're providing, and let it sort itself out."
Konno did, however, concede that Nintendo's online app stores for the Nintendo DS and Wii have been disappointing, with poor interfaces and a lack of compelling content. He insisted that the 3DS eShop would be much more intuitive and well populated ? which is at least a nod toward the need for a digital download offering. But essentially, Nintendo's message is, it will not compete on price with Apple and Android, it's not looking to enter the freemium space with its games. Instead, it's going to continue making really good titles and see how that goes.
In many ways ? ignoring, for a moment, the increasing competition from the best smartphone titles ? this makes perfect sense: Nintendo has always placed great value on quality and heritage. As Rob Hearn, editor of handheld gaming site Pocket Gamer, argues, "Nintendo are responding to the smartphone sector in a very sensible way. They're aware that the casual market they used to have with the DS has gone to iPhone and the other smartphone platforms, but at the same time they don't want to compete directly by lowering their prices or encouraging cheap third-party development on their platform. So if you look at the 3DS lineup they've gone the other way ? they're saying, "remember Zelda? Remember Pilotwings?" They're piling in with these big recognisable franchises to underline the fact that they're different ? they're not a manufacturer of 59p games."
But the key challenge now is to capitalise on the unique strengths of the 3DS. Relying on a few big software franchises that have been slightly refitted with a stereoscopic sheen may not be enough. Just as Wii made motion control a central component of a brand new series of titles like Wii Play and Wii Fit, the 3DS has got to create its own superstars.
"In the last year or so we have seen teens and 'tweens' migrate from Nintendo's amazingly successful DS to the iPod," says David Braben, founder of Frontier Developments, which created the adorable Kinectimals for Microsoft's Kinect launch. "The 3DS is Nintendo's hope to pull them back, and in terms of 'bells and whistles' it has a good chance. I am sure the launch will be great and we will see eager fans rush out and buy it, but the longer-term challenge will be whether parents fork out (again) for another expensive device. It will come down to the 'must have' nature of the games and the draw of the 3D. It certainly has a big 'wow' factor on first look so it has a chance to do very well, but the extent of its ultimate success will depend on what the games do with the 3D, and whether players end up turning down the 3D after playing for a few hours."
Hearn concurs and wonders whether the strengths of the console may ultimately lie away from its 3D selling point. "Nintendo needs to think about what to do when the novelty of 3D wears off ? which it will do as people get headaches or turn the 3D down to extend battery life. They need to think about the other things the 3DS can do which separate it from other platforms. And they are to a certain extent: they're drawing a lot of attention to the augmented reality stuff. AR has been around for a while, but just as Apple took video calling and made it into FaceTime, I think Nintendo might be the one to finally make AR into something people actually use."
But let's say the aim is to compete, not on novelty hardware features, but with better, more interesting games. During his GDC keynote, Iwata expressed concerns that the industry was not preparing the next generation of great game designers because the skills required to create current Triple A titles are too specific ? artists and programmers are no longer getting a general education in development. To many, it showed that Nintendo is breathtakingly out-of-touch, seemingly unaware of the expanding global indie development scene, which has fostered break-out hits such as Limbo, Minecraft, Angry Birds and Doodle Jump ? the sorts of titles that Nintendo's producers should be scouring the planet for.
Instead, it seems to be erecting barriers. Last week, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime told Gamasutra that Nintendo was interested in speaking to independent developers, but up to a point: "Where we've drawn the line is we are not looking to do business today with the garage developer. In our view, that's not a business we want to pursue." The problem is, the distinction is nebulous and getting more hazy by the day.
Plus, even the acceptable indie studios don't seem to be getting much of a look-in with 3DS. I spoke to several independent UK developers, each of which has previously worked on Nintendo DS titles, and none have received 3DS dev kits ? even though Nintendo, according to sources contacted by industry magazine Develop, a wider dev kit programme was meant to start in January. "Nintendo do things by their own rules," says French. "If they think their platform needs to be managed and controlled that's up to them ? the Wii proved this is achievable. But the more smartphones that sell, the more pressure is placed on Nintendo to acknowledge the need for the likes of Angry Birds and Tiny Wings to run on their platforms."
The thing is, right now Nintendo has a platform that people are excited about, and that early adopters will eagerly share with more sceptical pals, spreading the stereoscopic message by that most valuable of 21st century media: word of mouth. Nintendo estimates that it will sell 4m units by the end of March and it will probably achieve this. The glasses-free 3D tag line is a compelling one for those of us who can't afford a new 3D LCD display, but are interested in this new entertainment era. The big question mark is what happens next. With a software lineup dominated by classic franchises, will the company be doing anything more than treading water with this incredible piece of kit?
Hmm, that doesn't really sound like Nintendo. True, the company has always relied on its big brands ? Mario, Zelda, Metroid ? but the veteran industry leader has always been able to offer surprises too; it's highly unlikely we know everything about the capabilities of 3DS or its 2011 software lineup. Indeed, it's telling that, while talking to developers and industry insiders for this article, no one was prepared to say the Big N can't win again. Once upon a time, everyone wrote Nintendo off as a spent force ? then it released Wii. I asked Nicholas Lovell if there could ever be another dedicated games console as successful as the DS, and he said: "My first answer is no, I don't think it will ever happen again. But my second answer is 'Foolish is the analyst who ever bets against Nintendo?'"
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2011/mar/23/nintendo-3ds-analysis
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