Iwata: "We've Finally Reached the Digital Sales Starting Line"

The European eShop is fail.

No E3 trailers.
Still get stuff late.
New stuff just gets chucked on the front page.
Minimum amount you can buy is £10.

It's an improvement over the others though.

EDIT: Why was the other guys post deleted just because he pointed out the source link doesn't work? :S

It's getting better but it's still behind.

I have never understood what exactly the problem was with the WiiWare store (didn't experience the DSi Store).

Baby steps.

This is probably the dumbest question. But does the 3DS e-shop update on Mondays still?

Malkeor- Thursday sir.

Thank you Froguin

And in relation to the topic, I do hope the e-shop is successful, it has great potential and the current line-up is a great start, no doubt. I'm totally in for a 3D classic mario/zelda.

Time to read the Iwata Asks.

I think they really need to start doing sales like the other services do if they hope to see big sales. Well that and good software of course.

I still don't see it happening.

I really like the eshop. It's fast, easy to navigate and has some cool stuff. It just sucks that Nintendo is still regionalizing (if that is a word ^^) so much. No Kirby in Europe, no E3 trailers....otherwise I think it's very well done.

I like the eShop, it's easy to navigate and the variety of content on it is cool. True, it is a bit empty still content-wise, but that's obvious since it's only been out a week now.
I dont really understand though why we didnt get the E3 game trailers yet in Europe.

I can see it expand with the use of video streams, such as Netflix, new content every day (and this should not be just the DSiWare games) which I hope they'll make the eShop bigger as soon as possible.

My thoughts of it now are quite negative, since EU/UK region has no E3 videos and that's kind of unfair. I hope they think a couple of times what to give out for every region without having the issue of a country not having anything like that at all.

The mind boggles as to how, after the store being up about a week, the European store is already behind. Nintendo Europe are a complete waste of time.

Compared to the DSI shop it's a big step up but Nintendo can and should do so much more in Europe and Australia with regards to content on there. Not suprising though as even the Nintendo Channel lacks content compared to our friends across the pond!

Long time reader first time poster! Love the eshop setup so far. Really hoping that quality content or videos are added every week. Was very pleased Green Lantern was added (even if though i think it looks horrible). Only thing about the setup is that there are too many icons on the main menu. Its a lot to cycle through

so are they having notifications Monday and content Thursdays?

@ 10
because it was in US only.

They can't have caught up too much...they STILL don't even have a shopping cart system! I'd vastly prefer one such, particularly where I could pay for my entire order in one go, to the penny, like I can on PSN. Yeah, this is (thus far) the best Nintendo download store, interface-wise, but that's not really saying much.

Good that they finally came to the start line, but not it's time to run and keep up with others!

@17
but we did get the US E3 trailers on the European Nintendo channel so that is no excuse not to get them on the eShop. It even says US E3 trailer on the Nintendo channel

I'm glad and all that these changes are happening, but way to screw over Europe I feel really sorry for you guys.

I'm actually eagerly awaiting the chance to see the E3 trailers in 3D on my 3DS. I don't have the best computer in the world and the trailers tend to lag on it (even on the lowest quality setting sadly), so it would be even better for me! Come on Nintendo, give us those darn trailers in the eShop too!

E3 isn't really an US event only. Sure, it's held in the US, but the games we're talking of will soon come out in every region later on.

Eshop still lags behind the Japanese one- for some reason they get twice as much content as we do which is lame.

The only other big problem is that an ewallet is FORCED and the new pricing system leaves users with unusable PENNIES. I don't want virtual pennies kicking around on my 3DS! let me BUY GAMES DIRECTLY PLEASE.

I'm with stuffy, if they're going to use cash (and charge tax, apparently), give us a shopping cart and let us pay the exact price. 39 cents left over is more useless than 100 points. They're not charging 99 cents for anything, so just suck it up and pay the credit card fees like apple, Sony, etc. do.

If they are charging tax, I feel bad for those relying on prepaid cards. If you buy those in store you're taxed twice!

The 3DS eShop is an improvement but they could have launched the service alogside the launch of the 3DS as well as having some 3DS specific Software for download Day 1!

The starting line has already moved!

love the eshop bought 4 or 5 games so far enjoying links awakening and zenonia would like some more videos its good to watch 3d trailers etc so more of that would be nice

AT the starting line. FAR from actually starting, and the competition are already on like lap 7.

I agree with everything Monsti said. Everything.

I'd agree with most of the comments - it's certainly a distinct improvement from the wii/dsi versions, and loving mario land/zelda but it's very bare here in europe - why the (unfair) distinction? Good start.... needs to do better.

@Token_Girl It really depends on where you live. I don't get charged tax when I buy prepaid cards. Though maybe it's something to do with how Shopper's Drug Mart works, perhaps they don't charge tax for cards.

@Hardy83 Well too bad it's a marathon run then

@3: The Wiiware store wasn't very "window shopper" friendly. The DSiware store just sucked lol

Well, congratulations to Nintendo on finally starting the race but Microsoft and Sony are way ahead of them. Nintendo's competitors aren't going to sit still and wait for them to catch up.

If Nintendo is at the starting line, it's there on a push bike. The competition is in F1 cars.

No, Nintendo. eShop is not competitive, and most of the good games are still going to go to the competitive formats. You guys really should have just copied PSN wholesale if you wanted to stick with a free service. XBL would have been even better, but it's understandable that you'd be leery of charging for access.

I agree with most here. It's a little late to be just reaching the starting line. The shop isn't that bad, but it could be better, I hope they keep working on smoothing it out.
There are kind of too many icons on the main menu, it should be broken into a couple main categories first. It's also pretty hard to get an unlocked wi-fi connection to work, so much freezing and re-starting just to find a local spot, and you have to go into settings and make a profile everytime. why is a good browser so much to ask? You should be able to jump right into the web settings from the browser to find the hotspot and then go.
It's almost like a "wii U" setup like they think we'll always just sit at home with one permanent saved setting, but people move, that's what portable is for, Nintendo. I just don't get who's heading that department over there, it's like they have some old guy who just got his first cell phone designing their web strategy. I feel like I'm using Netscape Navigator with an analog mouse on there.

Don't get me wrong, the content is cool, when it's there. But it's also overpriced; they act so proud of themselves each time they put something out, like it's some revolutionary new thing, but look at all the competitors around you for once. They're churning out loads of apps, widgets, updates, etc, much of it is free or cheap since it's pretty simple stuff. With nintendo you have to pay for things like drawing, calculators, card games, junk that they should be throwing at us to keep us interested and ready to shell out when there is good stuff there.

I'm loving excitebike, but if they want to really be part of that "race" at all we should be getting cool little games like that for free at least once a month, so when the big ones come, we're already there and ready to buy.
I fell in love with NintendoLife because of WiiWareWorld when I was so excited about the Wii's online content and where it could go. I too waited pathetically each week to see what overpriced minigame they would offer us next and then get excited since there are so many good ones on there now. But it's still FAIL, FAIL. No marketing for it, never even a drop of 200 free point incentive for holidays, no game sales, and only recently some demos. Low res stills under each game and no trailers integrated into the store. They want to update it now?! what have they been doing all this time? I know people (moms) who won't buy anything there because they don't know how to weed through it all, and the descriptions are misleading and poorly illustrated. They WANT to buy kid's games there and it's just too messy to deal with, not to mention putting in your CC info every time you want a game. Why aren't the videos right next to the games?
Anyway, I stopped buying games there even though I want lots of them, they're just too expensive for what most of them are (retro style simplicity that should be cheap or just too short, even when they're great.)
All Nintendos Online needs to be cheaper, faster and designed by someone under 85 years old.

I think the 3DS is AMAZING and much, much better than the DSi Shop. It's much more faster and much more convenient and fluid. I also like the ratings and how in order to leave a rating, one must play the game for an hour. I like that because it keeps random people from spamming the shop and you can trust the ratings more. I also like how there is a wishlist.

Yeah nice. Now give me the E3 demos in 3D!

Man, am I glad I haven't been spoiled by the XBox Live Marketplace nor the PSN, as it makes this all the more amazing.

No, I'm not calling people who use that kind of thing spoiled, I'm sure the Live Marketplace and PSN are a lot better than this, but I'm just speaking from the point of someone who never had that experience. I guess this thing is really just for people like me who sticks to just Nintendo consoles. How lucky.

yes why no 3d e3 traillers i wont to see super mario

Speaking of the euro eShop, Nintendo has hardly started anything here...

so far the e shop in europe is very disappointing.will get better over time i hope.where are the 3d trailers...or anything at all here in ireland!

"or do you feel Nintendo is still left behind in the digital stakes?"

Sadly, yes! So far there are only a few downloadable VC games, while the wii VC started with 30 games (not at once, but during the first days). Even in Japan the e-shop launched with more VC games. The VC games are rather expensive (compared to nes games on the wii VC). As for 3DSware: Nobody knows if there is a size-limit or not. As far as I know the only good thing so far is the free Pokemon application. Hopefully the upcoming weeks will yield some awesome 3DSware. Excitebike 3D isn't something to scoff at either, since it's free. Sadly I can't enjoy it, since I don't have a 3DS yet.

Nintendo still has a long way to go in the digital area!