At a recent meeting with Satoru Iwata, following the major Nintendo 3DS price and release date event, he updated us with a great variety of information.

For starters, on 3DS to Wii connectivity, he said that they’re thinking of ways to connect 3DS to their home consoles, implying that at the tail end of Wii’s life, we’ll probably get some sort of cross platform fun, and that the real excitement will start with Wii’s successor and how it interacts with 3DS. Mr. Iwata didn’t give any specifics and said that he could not…other than mentioning that Nintendo always tries to push things forward when introducing new technology.

Secondly, the Nintendo 3DS software itself will be priced at strategic points based off the games themselves. There will be titles that are at are inexpensive, those in between that are comparable to your average DS game, and those at a premium point. I imagine that $40 will become the new “high standard” price for 3DS games.

Mr. Iwata stated that Nintendo really wanted to make games upload from the SD cards, like they currently do on Wii (and not how Wii’s original system was set up) due to the overall feedback received over the last four years. He also stated that Nintendo made the system vastly more powerful than its predecessor, because they didn’t want 3rd party developers to use “a lack of power” as an excuse not to make games. Personally, this is a good sign to me, as I think it will bode well for Nintendo’s Wii successor and that it’ll truly be a powerful home console. The powerful proecessor was also needed to further envision things like Augmented Reality, 3D imaging itself, Tag Mode, and the ability to multi-task when gaming (pause and go to another place in the system, then return). Once again, Nintendo will likely use this approach in their Wii successor.

Regarding the release date, Nintendo originally considered a Fall, 2011 release date based off the hype at E3, but decided for two reasons, to push the release back to February. The first came because Nintendo feld that 3rd party developers needed more time to deliver top notch games at launch and give the system a great early library. The second came in the risk of not having enough units available. Just look at Wii’s launch…Nintendo could have sold millions more if they had them on hand.

Finally, Satoru Iwata said that Nintendo is putting their best efforts into making the 3DS as piracy-proof as possible and thanks to its large, usable ROM, they’ll be able to put in automatic updates through the internet whenever necessary. These updates will add system funcionality for its users to enjoy as well.

Satoru Iwata’s comments on the 3DS make me feel even better about Nintendo’s future. They’re really going all out to make every channel they have, working as well as possible.

Saved…

South Park: It’s Circumstantial, Season 14: Episode 1, #203 Fan made project. Release date 09-29-10, coincide with Nintendo 3DS event.