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Nintendo's David Yarnton

The UK general manager discusses 3DS pricing, launch units, marketing and piracy

GamesIndustry.biz Would you recommend that consumers get pre-orders in to guarantee a console on launch day?
David Yarnton

One of the things we're working with retail on, and is really important as far as we're concerned, is pre-orders with our customers so that we can make sure the stock is in the right places and we don't just go and give stock willy-nilly to the market. We need to make sure we can satisfy that consumer demand. So pre-orders are really important and that's how we're looking to allocate second chances of stock based on the retailer pre-orders. We're pretty confident we'll be able to guarantee whatever they pre-order.

GamesIndustry.biz People that don't pre-order and turn up on day one, are they going to be going home disappointed?
David Yarnton

As we get closer to launch we'll have a better indication. We know some of our customers have already got quite significant pre-orders and deposits paid and we hadn't even given them a price or anything like that. In our presentation today they got a good indication of price and they're going up online now with prices that consumers will understand. In one place we saw pre-orders at £300 and they were still taking orders so for those guys it's come down. As we get closer we'll get a better indication of that.

GamesIndustry.biz Are you confident you can keep the supply constant so we don't see stock shortages as there were with the Wii?
David Yarnton

If we go back historically and look at things like Wii and even the DS, the demand for the product has just been so huge, any manufacturing company would probably have trouble keeping up with it. If you look at the numbers that Wii's done, especially in 2008 and 2009, it was just phenomenal. No one could have forecast those numbers. I think we did a really good job in meeting the demand out there. Now, there's no guarantee but we've also got the DS, the DSi and the DSXL so there's a lot of product to sell.

GamesIndustry.biz Are you going to be cutting into the sales of your different handheld by introducing a fourth console?
David Yarnton

If you look at the different systems there are entry points for different consumers. There are the late adopters that never jump into the new products straight away. There will also be a lot more people who aren't necessarily gamers who are into their technology and will see that what 3DS offers is an experience they can't get anywhere else.

A lot of late adopters are only just coming into the market with the DSi and the DS XL. I think last year the DS was the top-selling hardware unit for over 30 weeks of the year. We still see it as an entry point and an opportunity to develop.

GamesIndustry.biz What are the marketing plans for the 3DS? Obviously you can only really appreciate the 3D screen by getting it in your hands...
David Yarnton

We've had huge sampling experiences on Wii and DS in the past and we properly started that whole touring the product, we've been doing that for years. With 3DS it's going to be the biggest sampling campaign that we've ever done. We're looking at between 400,000-500,000 consumer samples up to Easter this year.

And because we're doing a combination of not only interactive in stores but also consumer events, and then samples in shopping centres... we see the opportunity as so important. How do we explain the 3D? We can paint a picture but until you actually experience it you're not going to see the full value of it. Sampling is huge, it's a major investment for us.

GamesIndustry.biz Is the initial marketing campaign aimed at the hardcore early adopters or the more casual user you've grown through the Wii and DS?
David Yarnton

Early on our promotion is towards the early adopters and we're actually starting our campaigns five or six weeks before launch, which is quite early for us. Normally we don't start a lot of our advertising until much later. As we get closer to launch we'll broaden it out as well. There are games there that will appeal to everyone and for the core there's quite a lot of product that we wouldn't normally have at launch.

GamesIndustry.biz What kind of piracy measures are you adopting to tackle piracy, because the DS has suffered terribly from the R4 cartridge and the piracy scene?
David Yarnton

I don't know the technical side of things and we wouldn't normally publish what those are. We're still pretty confident we'll have a lot more security in place with the launch of the 3DS - not that the others were necessarily bad - but 3DS is going to be a lot more secure.

David Yarnton is the GM for Nintendo UK. Interview by Matt Martin.

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Matt Martin avatar
Matt Martin joined GamesIndustry in 2006 and was made editor of the site in 2008. With over ten years experience in journalism, he has written for multiple trade, consumer, contract and business-to-business publications in the games, retail and technology sectors.
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