IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Nintendo's Reggie Talks 3DS, iPhone, Wii HD and More

Posted June 22, 2010 by James Brightman

Last week during the E3 Expo, IndustryGamers sat down with Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime, who was clearly under the weather and graciously answered our questions anyway. While Reggie might not have been at optimum health, he certainly feels Nintendo's business is. With a slew of games unveiled for Wii and the huge buzz surrounding the 3DS, Nintendo is feeling supremely confident. Here's our conversation.

IndustryGamers: To begin, I’d like to get your reaction to some of what the competition showed. This is an exciting E3 for all three companies. Microsoft had Kinect, Sony had PlayStation Move and of course they had the big 3D console gaming push that they have at a corporate level. So, what is your reaction to some of these competing technologies? How do you feel about how Nintendo stacks up against Microsoft and Sony at this point?

Reggie Fils-Aime: You know, candidly, my personal reaction to what our competitors are doing is meaningless. In the end, the consumer is going to vote with their time, and the consumer is going to vote with their wallets and pocketbooks as to which products and experiences are the most compelling. From that standpoint we’re confident that the consumer will continue to choose Nintendo not only from a home console standpoint but also from a handheld standpoint. In terms of what’s providing the most compelling experiences, the best value in terms of what you get for what you pay, and certainly the multiple lines around our booth would seem to suggest that that should be true.

IG: Nintendo’s clearly embracing 3D on the handheld side… does that mean you guys are soon going to be looking into it on the console side the way Sony has been?

Reggie: You know, the reason we focused on 3D in a handheld is because, first, we could control the experience, meaning the screen is part of the device. We provide a way for the consumer to individually tune into that experience with the depth slider on the side. And for us that’s the best way to bring a 3D experience to the consumer today. In the future, when there are set standards for 3D television sets, when the prices for those sets come down to reasonable levels, certainly there may be a 3D experience in the home, but then the last hurdle will always be the glasses. And you know $125, $150 a pop, which is what they’re running today, for a family of four on top of everything else, that’s a huge commitment. So, there are a lot of open questions in our view as to whether 3D in the home is going to be the same type of “wow” that 3D in the hand is.

IG: Is the 3DS model that we’ve been seeing on the show floor… is that the final model, or are there going to be some tweaks to the design?

Reggie: You know typically, at an E3, our engineers are looking for feedback. You know, we have an army of Nintendo representatives out on our show floor talking to attendees, getting reactions to everything in the device: the depth slider, the buttons, the sliding pad that is, essentially, an analog-type stick. These are things that we’re looking to get reaction to, including the overall button placement. When we get all that feedback, then we’ll finalize the design.

IG: Is that why we have not heard anything about a launch date or pricing?

Reggie: Well, the reason we haven’t announced a launch date or pricing is that, first, we wanted to get reaction here. Secondly, we’ll be making individual market decisions in terms of what’s happening in Japan, what’s happening in the Americas, what’s happening in Europe. The one thing, for sure, is that we will launch in all of our major markets by March 31, 2011.

IG: In terms of the audience that the 3DS is aimed at... I had some feedback from some publishers that I spoke with, and it seems that they were telling me that you guys really are trying to position the 3DS towards more of a mature audience, because for the longest time Nintendo has been thought of as being “kiddie,” going all the way back to the Game Boy. With some of the content that we’ve already seen, whether it’s Resident Evil or Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater, it seems like there is more of a push towards the hardcore and the mature with the 3DS. Is that a fair assessment?

Reggie: Well, first, to correct a misperception, you can’t sell over 120 million devices across the world by only focusing on a “kiddie” market. So, the Nintendo DS is a very broad machine, enjoyed by, yes, consumers who are seven years old, as well as consumers who are ninety-seven years old. The way I would describe the market for the Nintendo 3DS would be the launch market that we had with the Nintendo DS plus the launch market that maybe PSP had. And the reason I frame it that way is we will attract all the Nintendo fans and all the Nintendo early adopters with products like Kid Icarus, and then we’ll incrementally add the consumer who loves Metal Gear, or the consumer who loves Resident Evil. That’s why in my view “DS plus” is a probably a better way to think about what the addressable market is. 

IG: Right. I’m sure you’ve had plenty of meetings this week with some of your retail partners and publishing partners. What kind of feedback have you been getting on the publishing side, on the retail side, the analysts… what have you been hearing? 

Reggie: Well, what all of our partners have been saying is, first, the Nintendo 3DS delivers on its proposition and delivers in a big way. If I had a dollar for every “wow” I heard in one of our partner meetings, I’d be a very, very wealthy man. The fact of the matter is that in addition to the Nintendo 3DS, we’re also getting very positive comments on Zelda, on Kirby, on Donkey Kong Country Returns. We’ve had fantastic receptions to Epic Mickey, as well as Goldeneye. So, essentially, what our retail partners and all our business partners are essentially saying is, “Look, how do we get even closer to you both in the near term, coming into this holiday, as well as over the next number of years, because in our view Nintendo is going to be continuing to drive the industry?”

IG: One thing that feels a little bit strange to me is that Nintendo has not really embraced HD and now they’re sort of going right to 3D before they’ve even touched upon HD. Now, I realize this is on the handheld side and not on the console side, but it almost feels like you’re jumping over HD and going straight to 3D. Can we expect the Wii to be upgraded in the near future? You mentioned Goldeneye, for example, and that’s cool, but there are so many really cool shooters on the other platforms that are, of course, you know, with more horsepower behind them and HD and all that. I think a lot of Wii gamers would love to have a more powerful console, as well. 

Reggie: You know, the Nintendo 3DS is a perfect example of our design philosophy, and that is we create next systems when we have great game ideas that can't be executed with the current system. That’s when we make the leap. And candidly, in our view, simply taking a game and making it HD is not a significant leap. And candidly, if you look at the marketplace, the consumer has voted with their wallets and pocketbooks that HD games by themselves are not a “wow.” We continue to reinforce that the next home console for Nintendo will not be simply be an HD upgrade. It will fundamentally do so much more, because that is our philosophy in how we bring new products to market. 

IG: With that in mind, how much more life does the Wii have before Nintendo feels that it has to accelerate the console cycle? 

Reggie: So, let me answer it this way. In the U.S., our benchmark is the PS2 performance. Why? Because it’s the best that’s ever been done. And I give the team at Sony and PlayStation a lot of respect for what they accomplished on the PS2, but the fact of the matter is after our third calendar year on the marketplace, the Wii was progressing at a pace 1.7 million units faster, more sales. By the end of last year, the fourth calendar year, that gap had widened to almost five million units; five million unit faster pace. And so how much more life does the Wii have? In our view, it has a lot more life, and it's going to be driven by products like Donkey Kong Country Returns, and Zelda, and other products that we have yet to even share with people that we know will be coming out in the years to come. So, we see a continued very strong pace for the Wii.

IG: Right. The reason I bring it up, of course, is that you ask any publishing executive here at the show and they’ll tell you, “Well, this console cycle is going to be much longer than the past console cycles have been,” and they believe that the technologies like Kinect and PlayStation Move will sort of extend it. But, getting back to what we were talking about before with HD, that’s the one disadvantage the Wii has in some people’s opinion. While you guys are the ones who basically started the whole motion control push, the competition is now doing that as well, and they have more horsepower and HD, and so some feel like maybe Nintendo will be pressured into launching the next console.

Reggie: You know, what I find disappointing in what you’ve highlighted is that it seems like publishers really haven’t learned much in the four years plus that we’re in this current cycle, and it’s that technology, by itself, doesn’t matter. It just doesn’t matter. It has to be about the experience, and if you look at the games that have sold in massive quantities in this generation, they’ve delivered fantastic experiences. Kudos to Activision [and] Call Of Duty. It was a fantastic experience that led to its phenomenal worldwide sales. Wii Fit and Wii Fit Plus are fantastic experiences. New Super Mario Bros. Wii is a fantastic experience. Wii Sports Resort is a fantastic experience. If all publishers are going to do is focus on is the technology, then unfortunately there will be continued tough times in this industry, at least for those companies.

IG: Speaking of Wii Fit, there seems to be a whole fitness craze going on, as well. Not just on the Wii, but you know sort of on the other new motion platforms. EA has Sports Active; Ubisoft has Your Shape; THQ has the Jillian Michaels game, and they’re also creating a training game with the UFC franchise. So, there’s a whole fitness craze and I'm wondering how you feel about these other games, which could conceivably be seen as competitors to something like Wii Fit. 

Reggie: First off, any of these titles that are on our platform, we want them to do exceptionally well. So we’re very pleased, for example, with Sports Active and how well EA has done with that title, and as long as they continue to bring great experiences to the consumer, I think they will do well. But, the risk is as products become “me too” and as products lack a defining element between them, again, I think that the consumer reception is going to be poor for those types of experiences.

James Brightman has been covering the games industry since 2003 and has been an avid gamer ever since the days of Atari and Intellivision. He was previously the EIC of GameDaily Biz.