Tom Battey - Journal

The 3DS Issue

(30/07/2011)  So the 3DS is doing a bit shit in the sales department.  So shit, in fact, that Nintendo have implemented a massive price cut only a few months after the device went on sale.  It would seem that, for the first time since the ill-fated Virtual Boy, (incidentally, the only other gaming device to tout 3D as a selling point) Nintendo have misjudged the handheld market.

Good on trains.

Many voices are citing the runaway success of iOS and Android devices as a reason for the 3DS having such a hard time at retail.  The argument goes that with multi-functional devices now capable of playing games, there is no compelling reason to purchase a stand-alone handheld game device.  I don’t think this is necessarily true; I just think that Nintendo are missing the actual point of handheld gaming.

Handheld gaming is about minutes-long play sessions, something you can blast away on the tube to work and then shove back into your pocket without a second thought.  In the past, this is what Nintendo’s handhelds have offered.  The Gameboy offered Tetris, the seminal timewaster that offers pick-up-put-down value similar to today’s Angry Birds.  Even the bigger games of that generation, like Pokémon, were designed so that they could be played in batches of minutes as well as hours.

As the hardware power of handhelds has increased, with the advent of the DS, the PSP and now 3DS, the design of handheld games has moved more towards a console-lite experience, resulting in games that aren’t nearly as convenient to break out for a ten-minute bus ride.

Also good on trains.

The issue the 3DS is facing is that it’s trying to offer a home-console experience on a handheld; for evidence, look at its most-touted game, a spruced up port of an N64 title.  The limited success of the PSP, often billed as a pocket-sized PS2, seems to indicate that this isn’t the best idea.  Is there anyone out there who really wants to immerse themselves in Zelda whilst on a train journey?  It’s the kind of game designed to devote some serious time to, and if you’re going to devote so much time to a time, wouldn’t you rather do so on a sofa in front of your TV?

The reason games like Angry Birds are so well suited to the handheld experience is that they are just the right sort of thing to play on a reasonable-length journey.  You don’t have to commit more than maybe a couple of minutes at a time, perfect for a busy commute into work.  Zelda, with its checkpoint system that more or less demands you play for at least twenty minutes, is the less appealing option.

Not so good on trains.

The trouble Nintendo have is that they are just doing what they always have done in the past – pushing out the best versions of their key franchises their hardware will allow.  The difference is that in the past, the limitations of the hardware actually played out in their favour, forcing the type of design that leads to a simple, accessible title.  In reality, a full-blooded Mario or Zelda title just isn’t that well suited to what the majority seem to want from a handheld game.

I don’t believe the real issue is iOS and Android devices rendering a new Nintendo handheld irrelevant; I just think the best developers for these devices understand how to make a handheld game better than Nintendo do.