Nintendo fans in North America may still be scratching their heads over Nintendo’s decision to release the New Nintendo 3DS many months after its launch in Japan. It was released in Japan last year, and we now know that this was a “difficult” choice for the company that came as a result of limited stock.
According to Nintendo’s head honcho Satoru Iwata:
“Regarding New Nintendo 3DS, the quantity that was produced before the end of last year or the amount that was delivered to consumers, was limited.
Overseas, in Europe or the US for example, it takes longer than in Japan for the products to be produced in China and to actually arrive and be lined up in stores. Hence, we had to make a difficult decision on whether it was acceptable or not to cause a worldwide shortage of New Nintendo 3DS.
As a result, (based on the different diffusion levels of the preceding models), we made the decision to launch it in 2015 in Europe and the US.”
And despite this decision, hindsight about the stock and the way the New Nintendo 3DS has been selling has revealed that Nintendo really could have sold even more if they’d decided to push the hardware into North America (and Europe) during the Christmas sales rush:
“In hindsight, the actual results and the reactions to the launch of New Nintendo 3DS tell me that you are absolutely correct in assuming that the results would have been different if it were launched within 2014.”
Was this the right decision in the end? Long-term sales will tell, and no doubt we’ll hear more about it at the next company financial briefing.
