Wired Interview – 3DS Launch Games, eShop and More
Wired.com: Nintendo’s only spoken about “launch window” games, not launch day. What’s getting released on March 27?
Bill Trinen: At today’s event, we’re only talking about the launch window. In terms of the day-to-day titles, we’ll probably be going into that in the next few months, closer to launch.
Wired.com: And the eShop download store is coming later?
Trinen: Yeah, obviously, I mean we showed the video of the store today — it proved that it has a lot more features on this version than on Wii and Nintendo DSi. In terms of how or when it’s going to be available, that’s an announcement for another day.
Wired.com: Do you think it will be available before E3 Expo, in the launch window?
Trinen: Today we’re really focused on the price announcement, the launch window time frame, and then in terms of specific announcements on each title in the shop, we’ll do that as we get closer to launch. We need to save some limits for later.
Wired.com: Will any downloadable 3DSWare games be available on day one?
Trinen: We’ll probably talk about that when we go into more detail about the shop itself and when that will be available and what it will come with. Today we showed a couple of Virtual Console games — Link’s Awakening DX and Super Mario Land — those are both examples of the possibilities of content we’re showing in Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. But in terms of specifically what digital content is going to be available, that’s all going be part of an announcement that’s closer to launch.
Wired.com: You mentioned that users will be able to transfer their downloaded DSiWare software to 3DS. How will that work?
Trinen: There will be an application that will allow you to transfer your Nintendo DSiWare to a Nintendo 3DS. We’ll go into more detail on that… the shop and all that, we’ll talk about that in one big announcement.
Wired.com: If I buy a piece of 3DSWare on my 3DS, is that restricted to that 3DS that I purchased it on?
Trinen: That would be similar [to] how Nintendo DSi works.
Wired.com So it would be restricted to one 3DS, and I can’t move it? Even if I put the software on an SD card?
Trinen: Correct. Once you’ve bought it, it’s for the system you bought it on.
Wired.com: What’s the plan for viewing 3-D movies on 3DS?
Trinen: Obviously, today we showed trailers of Yogi Bear in 3-D, and also a new movie called Born To Be Wild 3-D which was actually not CG but live action — pretty cool scenery of nature and animals and things like that.
Those are a demonstration of the system’s 3-D video playback capabilities. We’re still obviously discussing what the SpotPass content is going to be, and how all that’s going to work, and looking at what our options are for 3-D video content in general. What we showed today is an example of, this is how we do it, this is how great it looks. The announcements will be revealed as we get closer to launch.