Nintendo's handheld is the hottest system is gaming . Can it rub off on its disappointing big brother?
This morning's Nintendo Direct presentation, a near-monthly webcast in which Nintendo president Satoru Iwata announces new titles and initiatives from the Kyoto company, was a crowd-pleaser. Among the revelations that sent fans into a frenzy: a sequel to the seminal Super Nintendo Zelda game A Link to the Past, a new Mario Party game, and a new game in the beloved Yoshi's Island series, a Mario spin-off.
It was also the clearest picture yet of the company that Nintendo has become in 2013: One that boasts a robust and flourishing mobile game platform and drags around a flagship console business that continues to languish.
As Kotaku's Jason Schreier wrote in February, the 3DS has turned into a little powerhouse. A 2011 price drop from $250 to $170, combined with a strong library of games (including a 3-D remake of the greatest game of all time, entries in some of the company's best loved series, and a growing eStore), has boosted sales. That's an impressive feat in the teeth of a marketplace that is booming with mobile gaming options. Today's announcements should only feed that momentum.
Meanwhile, the company's unpopular Wii U console continues to be plagued by a lack of salable games. The major announcement for that system today was a software update. Oh, and a port of a cult classic game from 1995 (Earthbound), which, while gratifying to its passionate fans, will hardly be a hardware-mover. Moreover, there is still no game on the horizon for the $300 system that could be remotely considered as such. Earlier this month, the company's legendary designer Shigeru Miyamoto pled for patience, comparing the launch of the two-screen console to the 2004 launch of the DS:
"There was a period when we first released the Nintendo DS that people would say there's no way people can look at two screens at once," he said. "I almost feel like, as people get more familiar with Wii U and these touchscreen interfaces, that there is going to come a point where they feel like 'I can't do everything I want to do if I don't have a second screen'."
That may be true, but without games to entice consumers to buy the system, that point may never come. And right now, the Nintendo games that people want to buy are almost exclusively on their portable.
