Satoru Iwata
Image: Nintendo of America

In Nintendo's recent Financial Results Briefing for the end of the Fiscal Year, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata mentioned that the company plans to bring more third-party support to the 3DS, particularly when it comes to Japanese developers localising games for the West.

First of all, let's take a look at Nintendo's first-party titles on the way later this year: Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Pokémon X & Y, Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, a new Mario Party title, Mario Golf: World Tour, and a brand new Zelda title due in the Holiday season. That's a pretty strong line up, by almost anyone's standards.

So far, we know about a number of third-party developed titles coming from Japan, such as Bravely Default: Flying Fairy, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacies, Shin Megami Tensei IV, Etrian Odyssey IV: Legends of the Titan for Europe and Project X Zone.

However, although these key titles have already been announced, according to Iwata we can expect to hear about more "unannounced titles" for the 3DS from third parties in due course.

On the other hand, in addition to the first-party titles, it is also important to offer strong third-party software titles.
Recently, third-party software developers overseas have had fewer of their best development studios develop software for handheld devices. However, for this year, the release of several key titles has already been announced, and I have also heard there are more unannounced titles to come.

Also, as I mentioned on another occasion, we plan to more actively support the Japanese software developers in distributing their key titles overseas.

To be more specific, as of today, such third-party titles as shown on this slide have already been announced that they will be sold in the overseas markets, and I’ve also heard that our third parties are planning to launch other software titles that they have not announced yet. With these titles in the lineup, I think that, although much later than in Japan, the overseas markets are finally ready for Nintendo 3DS to get on an ideal sales track.

What third-party games would you like to see brought over to the West? Let us know in the comments below.

[source nintendo.co.jp]