If you've recently bought yourself a 3DS, chances are, you may have been more than a little bit ticked off upon hearing the news that the 3DS will be receiving a substantial price drop in the near few weeks. With a whopping 33% being sliced off the price Nintendo sell the 3DS to retailers at, it's expected the 3DS's shelf price will drop similarly, meaning those who've bought a 3DS since its March launch will end up being more than a little bit out of pocket.Looking to put the situation right, Nintendo were quick to announce a reward scheme for early adopters, whereby anyone who accesses the 3DS's eShop before the 13th August will gain access to 20 free downloadable games from the eShop, which are set to start trickling out of the gates from the 1st of September.With the top brass at Nintendo taking huge cuts to their salaries, seemingly to show how sorry they are for having misjudged the 3DS's launch, the company have been quick to try and make up to the public. And now, Nintendo's President and CEO, Satoru Iwata, has even gone as far as to publish a personal letter of apology on Nintendo's Japanese website. We've reprinted the letter below, with the translation courtesy of Giant Bomb.
"To Those Customers Who Bought A Nintendo 3DS Before The Price Change.
Greetings, everyone. This is Satoru Iwata from Nintendo.
Thank you very much for purchasing a Nintendo 3DS.
We have just announced a price drop for the Nintendo 3DS system effective on August 11 [August 12 in North America].
In the past, there have been price drops for video game systems some time after their release in order to broaden the user base further. However, never before has Nintendo chosen to issue such a dramatic price drop less than 6 months after a system release.
We are all too keenly aware that those of you who supported us by purchasing the 3DS in the beginning may feel betrayed and criticize this decision.
This unprecedented timing for a price cut is because the situation has changed greatly since we originally launched the 3DS. We decided it was necessary to take this drastic step in order to ensure that large numbers of users will continue to enjoy the 3DS in the future.
If the software creators and those on the retail side are not confident that the Nintendo 3DS is a worthy successor to the DS and will achieve a similarly broad (user) base, it will be impossible for the 3DS to gain popularity, acquire a wide range of software, and eventually create the product cycle necessary for everyone to be satisfied with the system.
Those customers who purchased the 3DS at the very beginning are extremely important to us. We know that there is nothing we can do to completely make up for the feeling that you are being punished for buying the system early. Still, we would like to offer the following as a sign of our appreciation to you.
[3DS Ambassador program details]
We feel a strong responsibility to develop the 3DS as a platform -- to ensure that, in the end, everyone is satisfied; we will make every effort to do so.
Additionally, we know everyone is waiting for Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7. They are scheduled for release in November and December, respectively, so we ask for your patience until then.
Thank you again, and we look forward to your continued support."
Nintendo of Europe have recently followed suit, issuing a statement of their own, but it's not quite as personal as the letter from Iwata. Still, it's incredibly rare for a company to be quite this open about its internal workings, yet alone apologising, and admitting it's made a mistake. With how forthcoming the apologies have been, and the generous ambassador program, we imagine many are going to find it hard to feel any bad will towards Nintendo at all. Perhaps this is a lesson in public relations that other companies could learn from!It also makes you wonder about what lies in store for the Wii U. After a lukewarm, and somewhat confusing unveiling at E3, which left a lot of the public confused as to whether it was simply a new controller, or a whole new console (it's the latter), and with no games being shown, and conflicting messages around how many controllers you can use with a single console, you can imagine Nintendo may be going back to the drawing board, to ensure a killer, and most importantly, clear showing at next year's E3.
