Before the end of the year Mii Plaza will be updated with new features, although we don’t know specific just yet. There are also a “number of titles” in development that will “make use of all the Miis that are assembled in your Mii Plaza” according to Satoru Iwata. What do you expect to see?
Satoru Iwata has confirmed that paid downloadable content is coming to the 3DS before the end of the year. He made it clear that they are “interested in the possibility of extending the life of games through added stages and other features that players want.” But they’re not interested in “pursuing certain types of low quality paid download content opportunities,” so expect any downloadable content from Nintendo to have substance to it. It sounds like there won’t be restrictions for third party developers though.
Nintendo is not doing well financially. They’re not going to keel over and die anytime soon, but their share price has taken a dive and the 3DS is not the raging success many expected it to be. In light of this, Satoru Iwata, the President of Nintendo of Japan has said that:
For cuts in fixed salaries, I’m taking a fifty percent cut, other representative directors are taking a 30 percent cut, and other execs are taking a 20 percent cut.
And that’s a wonderful gesture by the higher-ups at Nintendo. Let’s hope the recent price drop starts bringing the results they’ve been gunning for.
In an effort to increase the awareness of games that may otherwise remain out of the spotlight, Nintendo is considering a feature that would automatically send game demos to your Nintendo 3DS. The idea is that you’d opt-in to this service and without further interaction you would receive the content.
Here’s how Satoru Iwata explains it:
When Nintendo would like to ask users to try a specific new game, we should deliver it to their Nintendo 3DS, and possibly Wii U, with their prior consent and recommend that they just try it and, if they like it, they can pay for it. In this way, we need to introduce users to unknown products.
…and then explaining why this would exist:
Consumers are likely to be convinced to pay about 5,000 yen for a well-established franchise product, but not all the people are willing to pay a certain amount of money for an innovative but unknown product. Now is the time to prepare for these situations.
That sounds good to me. Granted, I’d be happy with demos in general. The automatic feature just makes it that little bit extra convenient though.
In a recent Nintendo investor meeting Satoru Iwata was asked about using a Nintendo 3DS as a controller for the Wii U. He addressed the technical limitations first, saying that:
While the Nintendo 3DS is communicating with the Wii or the Wii U, the Wii or the Wii U will not be able to access the Internet, and this technical restriction will remain unless we add some special hardware.
He’s also wary of the perception that Nintendo would be forcing people to buy a Nintendo 3DS and the Wii U to get access to certain experiences. Connectivity between the 3DS and the Wii U is still on its way. But don’t expect to see the 3DS as a different way to control your games.
In a recent investor meeting Satoru Iwata has said:
Even Mr. Miyamoto has been asking, “Does anyone have a plan for ‘StreetPass Quest 2′?” for several months, and several departments are currently considering such a possibility.
Assumably it’d be another freebie, but even a low-priced eShop title would do me. The trick is to just somehow get the people in my neighbourhood to own a Nintendo 3DS so I can actually play through the game…