Iwata: 3DS Publishers 'Greatly Relieved' After Price Drop

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said the company's 3DS game publishing partners were "greatly relieved" by the system's recently-announced price drop, which will help increase the potential audience for their titles. In translated statements to investors following the company's recent earnings release, Iwata said the price drop was "well accepted" by publishers and retailers, some of whom had been worried about the system's relatively slow launch. "Some of the software publishers were feeling that because of the price of the hardware, 'Even if consumers become interested in our software title, they do not purchase it easily,'" Iwata recounted. "Others were saying, 'I had strongly believed that this game system would be widely accepted in society, but I am starting to become anxious.'" After the price drop, however, Iwata said publishers are now responding with statements like "'I am greatly relieved,' or 'This will change the situation for sure.'" While Iwata said he did not know -- and didn't directly control -- whether third-party 3DS software prices would be coming down as well, he said he "think[s] that there is a possibility that it will be even more necessary to discuss this subject with them so that the price of software will become more affordable for the users to purchase it." However, the Nintendo president noted that increased memory size of 3DS games might be contributing to higher manufacturing costs, even though those costs are lower than those for DS games on a per-megabyte basis.