Nintendo has confessed that it’s purposely holding back some of its upcoming 3DS games, planning to release them next year in a bid to maximize sales.
“For us to provide software titles one after another, one idea is, ‘Isn’t it possible for Nintendo to stock some of its software titles instead of launching them as soon as the development is completed?'” he said. “Video games need to stay fresh, so it is not practical for us to put them on hold for too long, but we think that some of them may be held for a certain amount of time so that there will be a short interval between when they are completed and when they are launched.
“We are taking on this sort of challenge for the Nintendo 3DS. For example, when we look at the software lineup for the year-end sales season, it is so dense that, if we added any more software, the total sales would not increase. Accordingly, we have intentionally delayed the launch of some software titles to early next year.”
This is likely a wise move, with Mario Kart 7 and Super Mario 3D Land both out before Christmas. What wasn’t wise was having very little on shelves after the system’s launch, something Iwata has acknowledged. He said Nintendo needed a “more thorough backup plan” to keep the 3DS interesting.
It’s a shame that the 3DS doesn’t have some sort of online store where cool games could’ve been released all year, right?
