Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has acknowledged the company faces a significant challenge convincing consumers that 3DS use carries no serious health risks, a message he says is vital to get across if the portable is to achieve mass market penetration.
Asked by a shareholder what the company is doing to dispel perceptions that 3DS is a potential threat to users’ vision, Iwata said Nintendo recognises the need to educate consumers that such “rumours” are unfounded.
“It is not our eyes but our brains which make us feel the stereoscopic images,” he said. “Accordingly, the topic of discussion about 3D viewing is not a possible effect on our eyes but on our brains. Such comments as, ‘It's bad for your eyes’ or ‘your eyes get tired’ have wings, so much so that some people appear to have the impression that viewing a 3D image is not good for their eyes, but what has been discussed here is whether there are any negative effects on the development of the brain.
“… The well-accepted academic theory is that in many cases the functionality of stereoscopic viewing will mature in the brain when a child is about five years old or younger,” he explained. “We have carefully taken the individual differences in a child's maturation into consideration and, because nobody appears to have the information to declare that it is definitely safe to show 3D images to young children aged six and under, we decided to proactively encourage consumers to take care when children aged six and under are using the device.”
Following slower than expected 3DS sales, Iwata said the company is working hard to allay consumers’ health concerns.
“So far, only 1.2 or 1.3 million Nintendo 3DS systems have spread throughout Japanese society, which means that this product is yet to be sufficiently recognised in this country. We have been trying to communicate to the public to increase the awareness of such functions as the 3D depth slider and, also, parental controls, by which parents can disable the 3D effect for younger children unless they enter a PIN code.
“By widely communicating these two points,” he added, “I think we will be able to dispel the harmful rumours, such as ‘you cannot buy this or play with this because 3D is not good for your eyes’… We are also aware that the Nintendo 3DS will not become widespread unless we dispel such rumours. We are trying hard to communicate these messages to help people have an accurate understanding.”
Iwata went on to address shareholder concerns that a bad first impression and slow uptake of products can have significant long-term consequences.
“… I think you are absolutely correct by saying, ‘It is difficult to recover if it fails to sell in the first place’ and ‘When an understanding of something is commonly shared, it is hard to change it,’ which you mentioned earlier. We are recognising that these are very important points.”
Stronger 3DS launch software would also have benefitted the system, Iwata went on to say.
“… If we had have launched the Nintendo 3DS after we had prepared more software by which the users felt ‘I want the Nintendo 3DS right away!,’ the transition of the sales of the Nintendo 3DS would have been better. You pointed out that our preparation was lacking in that regard, and we ourselves understand that is a point we have to reflect on.”
Source: Nintendo
Comments
4The bigger problem is that a lot of people think the only improvement the 3DS offers is stereoscopic 3D. Apart from that feature, they think it's the same as the DS they have already. This is what Nintendo need to focus on in order to raise sales, not health worries. Oh, and then there's the small matter of producing must-have games for the 3DS. There simply aren't enough yet.
It is definitely a problem that people don't really see 3DS as a powerful handheld - marketing it as being all about the 3D can't really ever work because not enough people care about 3D. I don't care about 3D. Does anyone care about 3D?
It's very little to do with health concerns, it's mostly because the handheld game market has changed. People are less likely to pay £30 for a (very well done) port of an n64 game now that they're used to paying 59p for games on other mobile platforms.
I think it's more a case so far that it doesn't have any killer apps that are going to spread word of mouth.. where's the Brain Training or Professor Layton? Software sells hardware.