Analysts: 3DS Needs Mario and Pokemon to Continue Momentum

The Nintendo 3DS is enjoying its best weeks ever on the Japanese market and is also seeing a revival in the United States and analysts believe that the only thing that the hardware developer needs to do in 2012 is to keep launching high profile titles developed in house in order to keep up momentum.

Michael Pachter, who is an analyst working with Wedbush Securities, told IndustryGamers that, “All Nintendo has to do is provide software support. Its already announced lineup is stellar, but we don't have dates. It would help immensely if they would get a few out in February or March.”

Billy Pidgeon, who is a senior market analyst at M2 Research, added, “The perception of a full and constant software pipeline will stoke interest in hardware going forward. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 are a great start and will continue to sell along with new 3DS hardware. But to keep the base growing and to sell more software, Nintendo needs to release more titles of this caliber at regular intervals.”

Nintendo is not ready to deliver more high profile games in early 2012 and will initially rely on third party titles, the biggest of them being Resident Evil: Revelations, to keep the Nintendo 3DS interesting through the first three months of the year.

The big game to arrive from Nintendo itself is Kid Icarus: Uprising, which will be launched on March 23 and might not have the sale potential of a Mario or Legend of Zelda game.

Then Nintendo will have to focus on delivering the launch titles for the Wii U home console, which is expected to arrive during the summer season, and might be forced to limit the time is spends on supporting the 3DS.

This might lead to another sales slump and might require big launches during the fall or another price cut to make the handheld relevant again.