14 DAY TRIAL // The newly announced handheld from Nintendo, the 3DS, will apparently be the biggest hardware launch for the company since 2004. It might have been unveiled in a hurry in a short press release for fear that the Japanese gaming media might actually leak details about it ahead of the company, but Nintendo is now shifting into full salesmanship mode and talking about the philosophy behind the new hardware.
Regie Fils-Aime, the president of Nintendo of America, told Bloomberg that, “We have ideas of what we want to bring to the consumer that we can’t do with the current. The Nintendo 3DS for us is our next handheld platform.” He added that, “Fundamentally, this business is about software, not hardware. Software is what drives engagement by the consumer. For us technology is not the end, it’s the means to an end, which is around a great consumer experience.”
Internal Nintendo data shows that, for the first time since it was introduced, sales of the DS lineup of handhelds will go down globally and the company is also pretty worried about the fact that sales of video-games for the platform are going down. At the moment, more than 125 million units of the DS have been sold worldwide.
Nintendo is saying that the 3DS will allow players to play full-3D titles without the use of any special glasses when it comes out. The hardware creator has not talked about the technology behind the device, but more details will be offered to the audience at the Nintendo presentation at E3. The 3DS is seen by most analysts as an answer to the iPad launch from Apple and to future plans for the PlayStation Portable from Sony. Nintendo is probably hoping that putting out a whole-new device will allow the company to reduce the level of piracy that is affecting its hardware.