Nintendo’s StreetPass Battle, one of the four new 3DS mini games available for digital purchase.

AUG. 5, 2013 • Back in June, Nintendo Co. Ltd. updated the 3DS in Japan and Europe to add a new shop to the StreetPass Mii Plaza. StreetPass is a feature that lets 3DS owners play with other 3DS owners in the same area. Several StreetPass titles come bundled with the system, but with the new shop came four new StreetPass games that can be purchased. The same update arrived in North America three weeks later. The titles can be bought for ¥500/€5/$5 each, or ¥1500/€15/$15 for all four. In an Aug. 1st interview with Toyo Keizai Online, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said that in one month the new StreetPass titles had generated ¥400 million ($4 million). The increase in Nintendo’s digital sales is something Iwata says was unthinkable in the past. According to Iwata, more than a quarter of Animal Crossing: New Leaf’s sales have been digital since the 3DS title launched in Japan last November.

Impact: Not only has Nintendo been traditionally late to the console online party, some observers have suggested that the Kyoto-based company has dragged its feet in getting to the festivities. We tend to think that Nintendo’s orientation is so wrapped up in its toy manufacturer origins that the company has naturally gravitated to retail distribution, and has found it hard to leave that familiar orbit. Yet as we noted last April as enhancements to Nintendo’s eShop prompted increased digital sales, the gamemaker gets that online sales are here to stay and is doing a much better job of building interfaces with less friction. What the success of these new StreetPass mini games shows us is that Nintendo also is aware of how to leverage more bite-sized content for its handheld 3DS as digital sales. Not that the company is unfamiliar with these kinds of games, as the success of Wii Sports proved years ago. Yet a regular release schedule of StreetPass games could prove to be a perennial money maker on the 3DS. It’s obvious that consumers are intrigued with the product, and digital-only distribution is no barrier. In the Toyo Keizai Online interview Iwata remarks that the circle of customers who are interested in StreetPass is getting bigger and bigger. That’s further good news for the 3DS, a device that has found its legs with consumers in the last 18 months after a slow launch. Consumers obviously understand what the 3DS is about and approve. Now if Nintendo can only find a way to accomplish the same with the Wii U.