14 DAY TRIAL // Nintendo seems to really want to close the gap that has formed between the company and its core audience since the Wii's launch with the Nintendo 3DS. The hardware components that power the newly announced device along with Nintendo's support are aimed at attracting as many third-party developers as possible to create hardcore gaming experiences on the handheld.
For a while now, Nintendo has seemed focused on creating a good medium for its own internally developed titles and for casual gamer-oriented products with the Wii. The lack of sales that has plagued mature and critically acclaimed titles like MadWorld, Dead Space: Extraction and House of the Dead: Overkill has shied away many of the studios that have been otherwise successful on the Xbox 360, the PlayStation 3 and the PC, alienating Nintendo's traditional audience in the process.
Satoru Iwata, the company's president, declared in an interview with Japanese press outlet Nikkei that the Nintendo 3DS was meant to bring back all of these people to Nintendo's side and help developers “expand into elaborate games targeting serious gamers.” He also said that the software that could be found on the Nintendo DS catered mostly to non-gamers and that Nintendo planned to change that with its future handheld console.
The third-party line-up announced at E3 seems to back up this promise with titles like Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D - The Naked Sample, Dragon Quest, Dead or Alive 3D, Resident Evil Revelations, Ninja Gaiden and Dragon Ball gracing the Nintendo 3DS when it finally launches. Nintendo itself will bring back many of its first-party core franchises for the 3DS, with Kid Icarus Uprising and The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 3D being already in development for the portable system, and many more titles from the NES and SNES era coming as well.