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Sony Questions Nintendo Demographic's 3D Acceptance
by Kris Graft [PC, Console/PC]
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March 24, 2010
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Nintendo has been known to primarily target a younger demographic with its games and consoles, and competitor Sony Computer Entertainment America recently questioned if that audience fits well with the newly-announced Nintendo "3DS."
"I think it remains to be seen where Nintendo goes with 3D on a portable," said John Koller, SCEA director of hardware and marketing in an IGN report.
He continued, "Having been in the portable space for quite awhile, I think it's an interesting move but one I'd like to see where they go from a demographic standpoint. Eight- and nine-year-olds playing 3D is a little bit of a stretch given where some of our research is right now."
SCE is doing its own extensive work in the 3D gaming space, although its 3D aspirations are centered on the PlayStation 3, which is using different 3D technology than the tentatively-named Nintendo 3DS.
Ian Bickerstaff, senior engineer with SCE's UK-based stereoscopic 3D team told Gamasutra earlier this month that "a lot" of internal Sony game studios are working on implementing 3D in various projects.
Sony plans on launching 3D Bravia televisions this summer, and said it will release a firmware update for PS3 that will allow for 3D viewing capabilities.
Koller added, "Our focus on 3D right now is on the console. There's a tremendous amount of opportunity on PlayStation 3 with 3D. The amount of interest in 3D from the retail side and game publishers is off the charts. We know we have a hit with 3D on PS3 and we're going to concentrate our efforts there."
Nintendo has yet to reveal the exact method of portraying 3D on a handheld, although reports out of Japan suggest the 3DS will utilize a parallax barrier technique from Sharp. Nintendo will reveal more 3DS details at E3 in June this year.
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Wow, I think you can't say in fewer words, why Nintendo is the number one in the handheld and stationary console market and Sony is in the last place. 60 months after the launch of the Nintendo DS leading Sony executives still didn't realized, that the typical owner of the DS isn't an 8 or 9 year old kid. Good luck Sony, with statements like this, you only show, that you still don't understand, why you loose marketshare every year.
"We know we have a hit with 3D on PS3 and we're going to concentrate our efforts there"
We will see, I don't know anybody, who considers buying a Bravia TV to play games on the PS3 in 3D, maybe it's different elsewhere in the world, here in germany, the interest is zero.
I think Penny Arcade got the best PSP quote, hands down:
"Wait, this thing plays games?!"
They said almost the same things when the Wii was announced and they are now duplicating the technology.
It must hurt being that ignorant and not realizing it.
Unless the console bombs totaly, this will have a much larger impact than the PS3s 3d support. I'd be shocked if 5% of all PS3 owners ever play a game in 3d on it and I doubt a lot of games will support it. But when a new platform rolls out with built in 3d support with no extra cost or hassle for the user to experience the effect and presumably most games will support it, it will definatly drive the phenomenom further. If it's even remotely sucessful I think autosteroscopic screens will quickly become standard for portable gaming, and probably a lot of other portable devices as well, which will in turn put pressure on TV manufacturers to match the capabilities of the portables.
@Robert Gill
Look at today Penny Arcade comic's even more relevant to the current.
Seven years ago it would make sense for Sony to be talking like this (they did talk like this seven years ago) but Sony has suffered some humbling setbacks since then, without being humbled, apparently. Five years on, the console that was supposed to be the dominant platform by 2008 is still not leading in any region. The PSP never really caught on and the PSP Go was stillborn.
Nintendo was really in the right place at the right time-they have always made appealing products with a few exceptions, but a console that appealed to nostalgia for adults, and also had a low barrier for entry in terms of price and in terms of interfacing with the device and came right as the economic bubble was bursting, could not have come at a better time.
All that being said, the success or failure of the 3DS depends a lot on the price point. It, in my opinion, can't come in at over $200.
You forget that PS3 is leading in Japan. ;) But I agree with what you're saying. Hubris benefits no one. I fail to understand why people engage in it, least of all publicly.
The PS3 is leading in japan? Really? Looks more like forth place to me, and they certainly aren't leading over the company they're trashtalking about
Unfortunately, more so than ever they just come off sounding full of hot air, and it only makes them look clueless, desperate and knee-jerk to those who are more in-the-know - but maybe they'll sway a little of the casual crowd with statements like these, and I guess that's good enough for them.
I don't know where Sony is headed, it's got to be a very frustrating time for them as they've been stripped of their formerly-impregnable dominance. I don't mean to sound like a hater, as I absolutely appreciate what they have done to mature & advance gaming in the past 15 years; but they really need to take some drastic moves to reassert themselves, and being childish while trying to play catch-up isn't really going to work in the long term. They've got some wonderful tech and some incredible talent, they'd do much better to leverage that than insist on this kind of spin (and I don't think you'll see Microsoft mirroring this)
I heard that kids hate 3D and fun and lollipops.
@Anthony - Well, that's about as much credit as his statement could possibly be given.
I thought marketing people were supposed to be good communicators... Someone remind me why we have them again?
Sure I would love to have a 3D 46" HDTV but it isn't going to cost anywhere near $699.
Personally, I think the notion of 3D handheld is a shaky concept but I could see kids loving it just the same. That said, I do think some people have very short memories and forget that Nintendo has faltered plenty of times in the past and this most recent hardware announcement could easily go either way. (Anybody remember the Virtual Boy?) It’s become popular to treat Nintendo as the King Midas of the industry even while forgetting the moral of that story and the reality of Nintendo’s own past, which is fraught with plenty of glaring mistakes.
I also can’t fathom the ferocity and dismissive attitude being levied at Sony, which completely owned the two previous generations and has done as much for gaming as anyone. What they said wasn’t even particularly harsh and frankly, it could turn out to be prophetic.
"Eight- and nine-year-olds playing 3D is a little bit of a stretch given where some of our research is right now."
I don't think he's going to be able to live this comment down for a while (if ever). Even if he is referring to price that seems to be Sony projecting onto Nintendo. Which company has had a past of overpricing products, Sony or Nintendo?
he's got to be talking about tech research and not demographic. i mean, everyone has been trying to figure out how to bring down 3d's price point so that it can be intergrated into $1000 HDTVs and $500 consoles and somehow nintendo is going to put it on a hand held for a couple hundred bucks? not saying its impossible, but it certainly sounds like "a stretch" to me.
you shouldnt assume someone to be saying something illogical/stupid if there is an alternative explanation. it can be fun to joke about sony execs being so comically stupid that they think kids don't like 3d, but it's not realistic.
This isn't the VirtualBoy we are talking about here :)
This is the decade of 3D. 2D displays are going to be as quaint as black-and-white television sets by the time 2020 hits.
He uses the word demographic. Why are we supposed to assume "he's got to be talking about tech research and not demographic" again?
Also, I noticed several people brought up the Virtual Boy, but no other flop was mentioned by name. Yes, Nintendo has failures, but as a Sega Master System owner I can attest that they have a pretty good track record.
It's very realistic given the 6 year old technology that's reportedly being used. It's very cheap (manufacturing-wise) and proven to work on small devices (such as Japanese cell phones).
Well Sony hope you enjoy the taste of those sour grapes as your gaming empire crumbles. How does that old saying go "Nero fiddled while Rome fell"?
Do people learn from the past?
As for the attitude regarding the 3DS, my gut tells me that it's a gimmick, but I also remember how many people said that about the DS. And we can see how horribly Nintendo has failed with that.
Nintendo aren't infallible (I present the GameCube and N64), but I also don't see them mis-stepping in such grand fashion again anytime soon.
Oh wait, no I don't.
"Eight- and nine-year-olds playing 3D is a little bit of a stretch given where some of our research is right now."
I'm genuinely interested in seeing the results of this research.
Anyway, though, that's beside the point. The question is if adding 3D to the DS adds any real value to the product. I don't think it does. What is it going to do exactly? Are my pancakes going to look like they're coming at my face when I flip them in Cooking Mama? Oh boy!
I think it is a mistake, but I also doubt it will matter, because there is no one else able to create a convincing competitor to the DS in any incarnation.
"I play with Legos too, but I'm not for a second going to argue that they're primarily targeted towards adults"
Sure, but I highly doubt, that Brain Train, one of the most succesful franchises is targeted to kids, neither many many many of the crosswords/puzzle/dictionary cartridges that seem to be very succesful, at least, according to the shelf space they get at local game stores.
The DS achieved wide acceptance in all age groups, this was part of it's success, the original Gameboy had Tetris, which appealed to many adults, but not much more, so it quickly became a handheld targeted mainly at kids. If you remember the first years after the GB was launched, you saw many adults playing Tetris or Dr. Mario on the train or bus, but that phenomen vanished after 2 or 3 years. If you look today who plays on a DS in public transport, you see kids and you see teenagers both, male and female and you see a not so small ammount of adult women from 30 years upwards.
I know, that these observations are anecdotic, but I know many people over 35, that are owning a DS and play on it on a regular basis, most of them don't have another console and they don't play anything else than casual games on their PCs. On their DS handhelds they mostly play Puzzlers like Tetris, RPGs, Brain Train games or visual novel style games.
Yes...and if we take these anecdotes at true, how does it make 3D a good idea?
Flapjacks in the face, man. I just don't see the appeal.
I didn't said, 3D is appealing or not appealing, I just wanted to point out, that the DS main audience aren't 8 or 9 year olds.
3D is a gimmick, if it isn't backed up by anything else gameplaywise.
I would be disappointed to see the device only being an graphical update, that offers no new gameplay possibilities. The rumors about gesture recognition or a touchpen that can be tracked by a camera sound interesting to me and I hope some of it will make it into the final product.
But even if the 3DS is just a DS with better graphical abilities and 3D graphics, chances are good, it will sell like hotcakes, cause it is the successor to the best selling DS and 3D would certainly help to build up the interest of mainstream consumers (not just hardcore gamers).