During his opening keynote at the Game Developers Conference on March 2, Reggie Fils-Aime - Nintendo of America's corporate president – confirmed Nintendo’s partnership with Netflix, for the extension of the Netflix video streaming service to the new Nintendo 3DS, which will be launched in Europe and North America on March 25.
Fils-Aime revealed that 3D trailers will be ready by June 2011 and 3D programming was in the offing. Elaborating further, he said that North American subscribers will be able to “start viewing on the 3DS” and then “pick up where you left off using your Netflix-enabled Wii to feed the big TV.”
Fils-Aime, who chiefly offered an “American perspective” on the 3DS, while Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata did most of the talking, underlined the 3DS’s potential significance for the film industry, largely as a distribution vehicle to “a large and motivated user base” for the promotion of the forthcoming 3D releases.
Noting that the 3DS users will share their experiences pertaining to 3D trailers of upcoming movies with others, Fils-Aime promised that 3D trailers for ‘The Green Lantern’ will be released before the movie hits the cinema halls.
Furthermore, with Iwata adding that “social recommendations are far more persuasive than advertising,” it is the word-of-mouth publicity that will essentially determine the success of 3DS as a trailer park for film distributors as well as an entertainment device for consumers.