New and fresh digital service for 3DS

The digital distribution offering for the 3DS will be different to that seen with the likes of DS or Wii, Nintendo president Saturo Iwata has stated.

I can’t go into detail on what the plans are today, but of course, with a device like Nintendo 3DS, we do intend to offer some type of digital distribution,” the exec told investors.

What I can say is that if that type of digital distribution is not something that is very new and fresh compared to what we have done with Nintendo DSi, then I think we’re going to have a hard time reaching out beyond the audience that actively seeks out that type of digital content.”

The crux of the changes will be finding new ways of getting users interested in the machine’s digital offering without the need for huge marketing spends – the potentially low returns of digital titles don’t allow for that.

I think that it’s very difficult to devote significant marketing dollars to individual titles,” he added. So I don’t think there is a whole lot of reality behind the idea of us doing a lot of TV commercials for specific DSiWare or WiiWare titles.

So up until now, much of the digital distribution focus has been on more of a ‘pull type’ where the consumer goes out, gets the content and pulls it to themselves. With Nintendo 3DS, we’re looking at a model that would be more focused around the ‘push type’, where we’re able to push information or content out to the device.

And with a model like that, what it means is that because the consumer doesn’t have to actively seek out the information themselves, it gives us a venue for creative new ideas of our company or of our developers to reach consumers much more easily.”

The 3DS is already shaping up to be a far different online beat to its predecessor. Whenever the user’s machine is near an accessible wi-fi hotspot the machine will automatically download content such as updates to games or the latest information on people in their friends list.