Hollywood "intensely interested" in 3DS
Miyamoto hints at new movie tie-ins.
Hollywood cigar-chewers are finally taking Nintendo seriously, and it's all thanks to the 3DS, CEO Satoru Iwata has claimed.
Speaking in the latest Iwata Asks Q&A on Nintendo's site, Iwata explained how film studios were very excited about the 3DS's potential as a portal for 3D movies and trailers.
"People making 3D content today are having trouble because of a lack of output," he explained. "There may be an outlet at movie theaters, but not in televisions at home. While 3D televisions are on sale, I don't think 3D televisions requiring the use of special glasses will catch on that quickly.
"As a matter of fact, when we show Nintendo 3DS to people in Hollywood, they're intensely interested. I think lots of people would be happy if they could watch things like 3D movie trailers on their Nintendo 3DS."
At E3 last year, Nintendo showed trailers for a number of 3D movies playing on the device, including How To Train Your Dragon and Tangled, revealing that deals had been struck with Disney, Dreamworks and Warner Bros. to deliver their 3D films to the handheld.
Elsewhere in the interview, Iwata's sidekick Shigeru Miyamoto went on to speculate that this fruitful new working relationship with the film business could lead to more film tie-ins with Nintendo IPs.
So far, the platform holder's only dalliance with Hollywood was the execrable 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie but that could all change if the movie business supports the platform.
"Game developers used to have a complex about Hollywood," Miyamoto said. "There was an atmosphere of inequality, but recently Hollywood is taking Nintendo seriously.
"A long time ago, there used to be a lot of unusual projects out there - off the beaten path, you might say - that wanted to use Nintendo's characters in that way, but these days lots of people say quite seriously that they want to make movies of Nintendo's characters. I suppose one attraction is the wide range of ages covered by our fans.
"If those kinds of people seriously work with Nintendo 3DS, some interesting things could happen," he teased.