3DS Could Attract Early Adopters Beyond the Hardcore

Generally speaking, the people who are most likely to purchase a new brand-new videogame system are those who are categorized as hardcore gamers. But the massive success of the DS could lead to a "broader" audience more quickly jumping on the bandwagon of the 3DS.

"Instinctively, it's easy to assume that the hardcore gamer will be the early adopter to new hardware, and inevitably this will be the case to some extent," Ubisoft UK marketing director Murray Pannell told MCV. "But when you consider that millions of consumers have already bought into the DS console family, it's not difficult to believe that the broader audiences will come quickly to the new 3DS."

At launch, Ubisoft has the strongest presence of any third-party on 3DS with four games: Rayman 3D, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars, Asphalt 3D, and Combat of Giants: Dinosaurs 3D. (That's more than games than even Nintendo itself, so long as you count the different versions of Nintendogs + Cats as a single title, as you should.) Pannell explained the decision to offer such strong support by saying, "Ubisoft has historically had a very good relationship with Nintendo and it's fair to say that as a third party publisher we've seen great success on both the Wii and DS platforms in recent years. We believe that a strong commitment to new platform launches puts Ubisoft in an advantageous position, not just in terms of immediate sales potential, but also in terms of creating longer-term standout of our games in consumers' minds."

Whereas some companies might hesitate to release games at launch because the install base is at its smallest and it's easy to get lost in the shuffle of launch games, Pannell doesn't see Ubisoft's decision as an especially risky one. "I firmly believe that the benefits of having a broad range of good quality titles far outweigh any risks," he said. "We fully expect Nintendo to do a great job in creating demand for their new hardware platform, across a wide range of audiences, so catering for this demand makes good business sense to us."

For those still undecided about purchasing a 3DS, check out 1UP's 3DS scorecard that looks at the good and bad of Nintendo's new handheld.

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