Video game publisher and hardware creator Nintendo surprised the entire gaming world by announcing that it was significantly cutting the price of the 3DS handheld in order to make it more attractive to possible customers while also offering a number of free games to early adopters.
The move is expected to lower the revenue and profit of the company in the short term, but its most important executive believes that capturing a big market share now is the only way to ensure that the 3DS is a success in the long term.
Speaking to investors Satoru Iwata, who is the president of
Nintendo, has said, “We feel that those who have experienced the system appreciate its attraction, but this appreciation has not necessarily been expanding at the speed which we had expected.”
He added, “Without creating such a circumstance, we would not be able to realize explosive sales in the year-end sales season.”
Iwata believes that it has a number of high-profile video games for the device, including Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land, that will be launched in time for Christmas and that they need a big install base in order to have a big impact.
The president of Nintendo says that getting more 3DS handhelds to gamers will also persuade developers to create more games for it, which in turn will lead to bigger hardware sales further down the line.
After the price cut for the 3DS was announced, Iwata also revealed that the leadership team at Nintendo has applied big salary cuts in order to show solidarity with the investors, who are in for a bumpy few quarters.
Come the end of 2011, the
Nintendo 3DS will have to compete with the new PlayStation Vita from Sony, which will be priced at 250 dollars and will apparently have more processing power.
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