Nintendo CEO Defends 3DS Handheld

More than a year and a half after it was introduced, the Nintendo 3DS handheld has managed to become successful in Japan, but the device is not yet a massive success on European and North American markets.

Satoru Iwata, serving as both president and chief executive officer at Nintendo, has told shareholders in Japan at an annual meeting that, “Video game consoles have long been ‘parasites’ of TV sets at home. What we should say first is that while the Nintendo 3DS has a certain degree of sales momentum in Japan, the momentum in the US and Europe is currently weak.”

The Nintendo leader says that sales of the new handheld are solid on the Japanese market and that they exceed the projections that were made at the beginning of the year.

He added, “This means that about 55% of all gaming hardware sales in Japan consist of the Nintendo 3DS. Now, with the level of sales momentum for the Nintendo 3DS created since the last year end, we would say the center of the Japanese video game market has been the Nintendo 3DS.”

The CEO assured shareholders that the company is continuing to look for ways to improve sales, but one of its main problems is that gamers in the United States tend to associate video game with home consoles and not with handhelds.

The original DS device had weak sales in the first two and a half years in the United States, but it then managed to take off and become one of the most successful hardware platforms in the history of gaming.

The 3DS is set to get a new version, called the LL in Japan and the XL in the rest of the world, which will introduce a bigger screen.

It’s not clear whether Nintendo also plans to introduce a price cut for the previous version when it is launched to spur sales.

Via: Nintendo CEO Defends 3DS Handheld