Namco Bandai: Don’t discount 3DS

Namco Bandai's Carlson Choi has said Nintendo should maintain 3DS's price point for now despite its disappointing sales performance.

"The moment you cut the price of the item the perceived value goes down," the marketing executive sensibly told Gamasutra, much to the disgust of 100 percent of all 3DS-less journalists seated in front of the keyboard while typing this.

"We'd love to have them retain the price because it keeps the premium status of that product and it allows us to bring premium games to that market."

Choi said it's too early to give up on 3DS just yet.

"It's been a slow start, but that's similar to how DS went in the beginning," he observed.

"We're really close with all the first party companies, but especially Nintendo because our origin of business is in Japan. We know they'll invest heavily in it. It's a big platform they believe in and we believe in it too, so we're going to support it with our key franchises."

3DS sales began strongly but tailed off almost immediately after launch in all territories; a Japanese survey recently found consumers found the price a major turn-off.