14 DAY TRIAL // The two biggest problems of the Nintendo 3DS have been solved, at least according to Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president, who believes that we will see a major increase in the sales figures of the handheld platform soon.
Nintendo's new 3DS device sold quite well since its release at the beginning of Spring, but fell short of the company's expectations, with people opting to wait until they purchase the new handheld.
Reggie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo's American division, admits, via Kotaku, that there were two major problems with the 3DS at its release, including the lack of a big first-party game and the missing online support.
"When we launched, we had a fantastic day one and a very strong week one," he told Kotaku, adding, "But when we started talking to consumers who were aware or interested, but hadn't yet bought, they told us two things: first, I need a big Nintendo franchise for our purchase. The second thing was I need the network to be up. I need the connected experiences to be there."
While there were some interesting titles when the 3DS was first release, with Capcom's Super Street Fighter IV 3D selling over 1 million units, the rest of the launch lineup was pretty disappointing.
The 3DS' online service were also crippled, so to speak, as the online eShop wasn't ready when the device was released, and players couldn't even access a web browser when they were hooked up to wireless connections.
Now though, things have been improved, as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D is released this week, while the eShop update was deployed right at the beginning of the E3 2011 conference.
"So now we jump to where we are," said Fils-Aime. "We're going to follow with a steady drumbeat of Star Fox and Kid Icarus and two Mario titles and the Luigi title. We've just done the first network update. We've got the eShop up and running. We've got the 3D movie service still on track for the summer. We've got Netflix still on track for the summer. So I think we're well underway to having that addressed as well."
Fils-Aime concludes by saying that, "My expectation is that with the adjustments we've made, we're going to be back with strong momentum on the 3DS."