Nintendo avoided holding a large press conference this year, but it hasn't neglected E3. In a new analyst briefing held for investors this morning, Nintendo outlined its five-point strategy for improving performance in the current fiscal year.

Improving Market Share for 3DS

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata made the 3DS front and center, as the company had done in its earnings call in April. "Our most important challenge for this year is to vitalize the Nintendo 3DS business in the Western markets," he said. To this end, Iwata provided several slides which showed market saturation for 3DS increasing in Europe and US in April 2013, over its January to March 2013 market share (23 percent total market share, up from 18 percent and 19 percent, respectively). May sales data for the U.S. was not yet available, but Nintendo reported further market share gains for its 3DS in Europe in the same month. Concerning Europe, Iwata further broke down gains by country, noting that France, Belgium and Germany saw proportionally greater gains than the UK.

"Software sells hardware"

"Software sells hardware," Iwata reminded investors, highlighting the 3DS's most recent market crossover success, Animal Crossing: New Leaf. The game has already moved four million units in Japan. "A wide variety of consumers, including women, enjoy this title and it has given great momentum to the sales of Nintendo 3DS," said Iwata. When Animal Crossing: New Leaf hit U.S. shores on June 9th, just ahead of E3, digital downloads "set a new record" for Nintendo's eShop, according to Iwata. Additionally, Nintendo's president reported that "sales of Nintendo 3DS hardware were nearly four times greater than the previous week" prior to New Leaf's launch.

Digital distribution gains major traction; Web Framework still seeking foothold

On the subject of digital distribution, Nintendo reported its "highest ever" digital sales in the last fiscal year, bringing in over 16 billion yen ($167 million US) in FY 2013. "It is clear that once people have chosen to download a game, they tend to choose another download version the next time they make a purchase," said Iwata. "We expect this trend to continue." In part with this, Nintendo revisited its Web Framework, first announced at the Game Developers Conference held this March in San Francisco. The Nintendo Web Framework "provides a way of developing Wii U software using open web technologies like HTML5 and JavaScript" as well as Unity. "We have been in contact with more than a thousand parties" regarding Web Framework, Iwata said. There have been relatively few announcements concerning projects in development as a result of the initiative, however Iwata capped this section of the presentation with a specific overture to independent developers, saying Nintendo would continue to court indies as its digital business expands.

Overhauling StreetPass

The 3DS StreetPass system has 3DS owners trade collect one another's Mii avatars when passing near one another's devices. These collected Miis can then swap puzzle pieces and be used as PCs in the handheld's built-in "Find Mii" quest. "StreetPass is very common in crowded Japan," said Iwata. "In contrast, our American and European users seem to meet each other via StreetPass less frequently... [so] this year we will release software that opens doors for new ways to play through the StreetPass feature." Iwata outlined a plan to "popularize" StreetPass outside the Japanese market by implementing additional SpotPass-esque access points -- through Wi-Fi hotspots through establishments such as Starbucks and McDonald's. Essentially, the system will allow geographically remote users to passively exchange StreetPass data at hotspots. "In this setting, data is not exchanged directly, but rather through a StreetPass relay station. Hence, as opposed to, say, Person A and Person B directly exchanging game data, data will be transmitted in sequence from Person A to Person B, and then onto Person C and so on." "We can certainly expect the use rate of the StreetPass feature to grow significantly," Iwata concluded.

Wii U treading water

Nintendo could not, of course, make it through the analysts briefing without addressing the Wii U, but the remarks thereon mainly followed on Iwata's general strategy for bolstering the 3DS: software sells hardware. "Wii U has lost momentum due to the release pace of software titles after the launch period," said Iwata. He said Nintendo intends to "intensively release" the company's key titles in the next fiscal year. These titles are set to include Pikmin 3 and a schedule of other first- and third-party Wii U titles, including Disney Interactive's Disney Infinity and Ubisoft's Watch_Dogs.