9. A Device for Showing 3D

Right now, we’re seeing a boom in 3D, both in movies and television. Is that good for Nintendo 3DS? Or not?

Hmm, we were puzzled a bit. As the Nintendo 3DS project was moving forward, all of a sudden everyone was getting all excited about 3D.

Yes. Just when we were thinking about announcing it, people started talking about the beginning of a 3D era. I thought, “What’s going on?”

Even though we were already working on it, interviewers would ask me, “Television is rapidly moving toward 3D. What does Nintendo think about 3D?” But I couldn’t tell them to wait because we’d have something soon! (laughs)

(laughs)

That timing is really incredible.

It really was.

Movement among makers of 3D - making lots of 3D movies, for example - is good in that there’s a chance it will expand the range of Nintendo 3DS software.

Oh, uh-huh.

Simply put, people making 3D content today are having trouble because of a lack of output. There may be an outlet at movie theaters, but not in televisions at home. While 3D televisions are on sale, I don’t think 3D televisions requiring the use of special glasses will catch on that quickly. As a matter of fact, when we show Nintendo 3DS to people in Hollywood, they’re intensely interested. I think lots of people would be happy if they could watch things like 3D movie trailers on their Nintendo 3DS.

I see. Nintendo 3DS can be thought of as a device for viewing 3D videos.

Exactly. It is possible to distribute trailers to Nintendo 3DS. And it’s possible to distribute them to a Nintendo 3DS in a Wi-Fi environment while the user sleeps.

Really...

You can slip it in at night, and then when the owner wakes up in the morning and turns on the system, a new video is waiting.

I think that concept was already there with Wii, but I feel like with a handheld, you can enjoy that more easily.

I suppose so.

By the way, we call that kind of delivery “Before You Know It Communication” (The literal English translation of “Itsunomani Tsushin”, the Japanese term Nintendo uses in Japan for SpotPass). (laughs) So Nintendo 3DS has StreetPass, which is the name of the tag mode, and “SpotPass.”

I see. I’m interested in that type of delivery. I think you should publicise that more.

Oh, you do?

I suppose we should.

Yeah. I think it’s really significant.

I do think it’s something that we should pay attention to, but Nintendo is a video game company (laughs), so we tend to focus more on video games.

I think that’s what’s great about Nintendo, but from the point of view of consumers, this is a big attraction. They don’t have a device at home for displaying 3D visuals.

That’s right. One value of this system is its ability to play 3D videos. There are all kinds of devices out there for playing videos, but there still aren’t that many for easily watching 3D videos.

Right. A lot has surprised me today, but what awakened my desire as a consumer is the Nintendo 3DS system’s capacity as a player of 3D images. If I could watch Hollywood movie trailers all the time, this device would be quite close to my heart.

It’s still unpredictable, but I imagine we will both be able to profit. Game developers used to have a complex about Hollywood. There was an atmosphere of inequality, but recently Hollywood is taking Nintendo seriously.

Oh, is that so?

A long time ago, there used to be a lot of unusual projects out there - off the beaten path, you might say - that wanted to use Nintendo’s characters in that way, but these days lots of people say quite seriously that they want to make movies of Nintendo’s characters. I suppose one attraction is the wide range of ages covered by our fans. If those kinds of people seriously work with Nintendo 3DS, some interesting things could happen.

What’s more, those images are delivered at night.

And you can play them in the palm of your hand.

Now that’s nice! I’m not sure how to describe it, but Nintendo 3DS sure is an extremely convenient machine for itself to represent its advanced nature. It may be difficult to describe in words the mysterious pleasure of 3D, but there’s nothing difficult about saying that so many new features are being packed into this system, and the more you hear about it, the more exciting it is.

I suppose so.