Iwata: 3DS is Nintendo 'priority,' even at the sake of short-term profitability

In a recent Q&A following a semi-annual investor's meeting, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata laid out the company's plans for its slow-starting handheld, the 3DS. "We came to the conclusion that we needed to make that bold investment," Iwata explained, "instead of focusing just on this term's profitability, so that we would be able to make the Nintendo 3DS an important foundation for Nintendo for years to come." He added that the company expects the system's profitability to improve dramatically during the fiscal year ending March 2013.

Iwata mentioned that, falling in line with this strategy, unspecified 3DS games were delayed from the holiday release window to prevent being overlooked due to overcrowding. The only major first-party 3DS titles scheduled for the rest of the year are Super Mario 3D Land (November 13) and Mario Kart 7 (December 4).

He also discussed the company's plans to expand the eShop with an "add-on" marketplace for individual games, and the ability to access the store using PCs and Smartphones. You can read more about this initiative in our post from last week, though it lacks Iwata's almost comically tardy discovery of social networking platforms. He's kind of like your grandpa who just discovered Facebook, likes everything you post, and leaves embarrassing comments on all your pictures in all-caps.