Iwata addresses 3DS piracy meassures, price, and Wii connectivity with investors

Nintendo's Satoru Iwata has said delaying 3DS into next year would not only give Nintendo plenty of time to make sure supply meets the demand, but it will also give the product some time to reach a "level of polish" and deliver a "satisfactory" product.

Iwata said the delay into 2011 would put the handhled in better market position as well, despite the negative reaction from stock market.

"We decided that it would be preferred to simultaneously deliver a highly polished product and to ready satisfactory quantities in order to not cause confusion in the market." he told investors. "It is true that this caused negative effects on this year's earnings forecasts."

As far as the price was concerned, Iwata  said that usually "the lower the price the better",  3DS costing more than Wii has more to do with the price of materials as well as the "the health of the platform business".  He also stated that post E3, Nintendo felt the "value would be felt from the hardware once the functionality was understood" , and  assumed the price of the product would also "be understood" by the industry and consumers.

Nintendo is also looking ro implement an automatic firmware update system in 3DS in order to combat piracy "as part of the functionality of SpotPass". The system would not only help the firm squelch pirating measures, but add more functionality to the handheld at a later date. These firmware updates will also be present within software packages themselves.

"We believed this to be doable because the usable ROM size for the 3DS would become much larger," said Iwata, adding that firmware updates will take priority over piracy prevention.

Also in the Q&A with investors, Iwata discussed the possibility of console connectivity with the handheld, which at this point will have limited connectivity with Wii.

"We believe that, naturally, instant communication between the 3DS and a console in your home will become one topic in the future, but today I cannot talk about specifics regarding the kinds of things you can do in terms of connectivity between a 3DS and console," he said. "We'll surely be thinking about connectivity with consoles as well."

You can get caught up on all things 3DS from earlier in the week here and here.

Thanks, Andriasang.