Nintendo 3DS: The Failed Launch

[thebodge]

Personally, I believe that Nintendo launched the 3DS when they did in order to build momentum running up to this year's holiday buying rush. The 3DS is a "see-it-to-believe-it" type of tech, where the only way to promote it fully is for people to get some hands-on time with it. This type of marketing takes patience, building slowly, yet has the potential to get the hype, and the demand, up to insane levels, like with the Wii.

And the Wii was a similar piece of tech, where we really needed to experience it first hand to get an idea just how innovative it was. But the 3DS has a distinct difference from the Wii in this area: the Wii can have up to four people playing it at the time, with others watching, while the 3DS can only have ONE person experiencing the "WOW!" factor at time. This one difference greatly limits the "see-it-to-believe-it" factor with the 3DS, especially since handhelds are often played solo and not in groups. And I wonder if this is why Starfox 3DS will not have online multiplayer, in order to promote people sitting around with their friends and playing against each other in living rooms, dorm rooms, cafes, lounges, cafeterias, anywhere where others will see the fun they are having and be inquisitive about what they are doing and what the excitement is all about? Sounds like marketing to me.

Anyway, with the NGP launching 6-12 months from now, and having very easily understood assets (high res screen, tons of power, touch screen, apps, etc.), it makes perfect sense to me that Nintendo decided to launch the 3DS earlier than they would have preferred in order to get the "word-of-mouth" and "see-it-to-believe-it" marketing machine running, because the 3DS DOES NOT have easily understood assets and cannot be properly promoted via a tv/print ad or spec sheet. The 3DS is an outstanding machine, with outstanding features, and I bet Nintendo wanted to make sure that they had plenty of time to build the hype this year so that when the NGP and Christmas came around the games, and the "word-of-mouth" marketing, would do all the work to insure that the buzz was at a high level.