3DS Price drops to MSRP $169.99

[mrbigreddog]

That was kind of my point.

Oops... Quoted the wrong person! Fixed!

[InternalPrimate]

Correction: AND ten free NES games. Assuming that NES games sell for $5 a piece and GBA games, when available, will sell for at least $6 (probably closer to eight) I'm feeling good about the return I'm getting on my $80 investment.

Oh, and a hearty LOL at all the people in this thread who think it's outrageous for a company to (gasp!) MAKE MONEY on their products!!!

I didn't mention the 10 free NES games because those are just icing on the cake. 10 GBA games, at least four of which I'd love to have loaded on my 3DS, sound really really awesome.

[TVC 15]

The 3DS problem is down to two things 'maturation' and 'differentiation'. My points are from UK perspective so may not be relevant to where you live, your mileage may vary.

1. The hardware design has reached maturity, Nintendo oddly enough shot themselves in the foot with each successive rerelease of the DS because by the time of the 3DS's release we'd all grown accustomed to small fractional hardware and feature tweaks, now the 3DS has been released I kind of feel people are exhausted by the DS updates, and in the eyes of many casual buyers (a big proportion of the DS sales are for kids lets face it) 3D is the only new discernible feature. If you look at much of the recent advertisement material (certainly in the UK) they make a big deal about its new features to kind of 'educate' consumers. Of course the other hardware selling point the system has is the overall massive improvement of the CPU/GPU but this in particular hasn't been made aware to the public, and isn't easy to get across.

2. The functional design has reached maturity, like I mentioned earlier because we've become accustomed to the DS design, i.e a dual flip screen with stylus input and also Nintendo subsequent small upgrades, a new update like the 3DS sharing the same physical design parameters again emphasis it as a small update.

3. 3D. The biggest selling point of the console is also its Achilles heal, I'm sure the system is very well implemented and works well, but naysayers and detractors along with the general British public will be very skeptical about it, we also have our British tabloid press, who at the first sighting of any complaints from the public about the system, no matter how unfounded could blither out rubbish about the 3D damaging children's eyesight or creating headaches. Parents are notoriously cotton wool in the UK due to red top papers pandering to sensationalism and a 7+ tag for the 3DS for children to use it may have some impact, though I'm aware parental control is available. The child friendly appeal of the 3DS is thus diminished.

4. The casual market. Nintendo thought they had got the winning formula when they released the Wii onto the general public, a unique easy to use control scheme anybody could use and instant mass market appeal. Then Wii fatigue set in, outside the obligatory Wii Fit, Cooking Mama and shovel ware people first bought, the attachment rate of games to consoles is poor outside of core nintendo fans and regular gamers. Nintendo by pandering to the casual market without a backup strategy to entice the core long term gaming supporters damaged there reputation in a lot of peoples eyes. When you let yourself be at the mercy of commercial trends you open yourself to faddism, because the casual market was never going to be long term. Nintendo's success too with the DS over here in the UK was no doubt bolstered by pushing for mass market appeal, with popular TV celebrities in adverts and the general appeal to children, now iDevices have reached some popularity along with Android its eaten a little market share up (not quite as exaggerated as some would make you believe) and along with this the market for the DS has been saturated with so many models, the casual consumer not understanding the differentiation of the new 3DS will see little reason in upgrading.

This however is not a total wash, Nintendo could pull this back, but before the price drop it may in some consumers eyes have just seemed like an overpriced DSi with 3D tacked on, Nintendo's biggest mistake was raising the price to high and perhaps not differentiating the machine enough to warrant consumer interest.

I hope I haven't blithered on too much. But its just a few thoughts (open to criticism) I had on the 3DS. Of course when the 3DS is the only Nintendo branded consumer handheld available after the depreciation of the DSi its uptake might improve.

[mick_aka]

Be quite interesting to see what happens to DS/DS Lite/DSi/DSi-XL 2nd hand prices if, as has been rumored, there is a further price drop on the 3DS to £99.99 by Xmas.

[JCU]

4. The casual market. Nintendo thought they had got the winning formula when they released the Wii onto the general public, a unique easy to use control scheme anybody could use and instant mass market appeal. Then Wii fatigue set in, outside the obligatory Wii Fit, Cooking Mama and shovel ware people first bought, the attachment rate of games to consoles is poor outside of core nintendo fans and regular gamers. Nintendo by pandering to the casual market without a backup strategy to entice the core long term gaming supporters damaged there reputation in a lot of peoples eyes. When you let yourself be at the mercy of commercial trends you open yourself to faddism, because the casual market was never going to be long term.

The Wii suffers from another issue you didn't mention. The shelf-life of many of their big names is rather short. One day they are here and one day they are gone. Punch Out, MP3, Paper Mario, Mario Power Tennis, etc.., aren't being sold new at chain stores these days. How are people suppose to invest in this system when many of these games are long gone? These aren't the bottom of the barrel games.

[QuickSciFi]

Well, shit, Kid Icarus Uprising (the only 'original' title of note we've known about since before the launch of the system) doesn't even come out until november of this year (make that the first quarter of 2012 in EU). The system is a flop and a price drop will not save it. Remember, it may have had the most successful handheld launch to date, but so did our beloved Dreamcast back in the day. It was mostly the fans who helped through those sales. What it needs now is a slew of killer apps, all wrapped-up with original content and zero amount of shovelware, revamped re-releases, or novelty items (and sorry folks, but Nintendogs + Crap sure falls into that category). It's not that the system has a small library, mind you (in fact, it has more than many other systems shortly after launch); it's that it's mostly shovelware, re-releases and novelty crap (and whatever good game is out there for the system is being drowned by then. By now most systems would have had at least a handful of, and I mean five, highly-desired titles). As a consumer, I'd say stop trying to sell me 3D and show me 3D.

Personally, I believe the reason the system has flopped utterly is that Nintendo has failed to get with the program. This is not the 80s, 90s, or even the early 2000s anymore. The times of novelty are long gone by now. What Nintendo has been trying to do, and sadly is still planning to do, is to directly combat smart phones and tablets everywhere with the use of autosteroscopic 3D as the "new wave" in video gaming; as if such technology could not easily be added into the actual new wave of smart phones and tablets in just a few months (and already a bunch of the sort are being introduced).

I'm thinking, sadly but truly, that gaming will eventually go the way of downloadable/streamable content and smart phone/tablets, strictly speaking. But before that day comes (I'm thinking in less than five years' time), the last of the consumers to make a stronghold shall be the hardcore gamers; and that is just what the slowly-self-decaying industry of dedicated consoles/handhelds is failing to fathom. In the end, the only reason to have dedicated consoles is to cater to those of us who want to actually own physical media in hard copy formats and actually play real games.

[Clessy]

Man Im kinda getting interested in getting one. So I went and checked out games. Talk about a whole bunch of fucking nothing. I couldnt find a single game that interest me. Sure I guess I could play Oot again but damn. Maybe if the 3ds was 169.99 and it came bundled with zelda. Then just maybe i'd want it.

[Thunderblaze16]

Man Im kinda getting interested in getting one. So I went and checked out games. Talk about a whole bunch of fucking nothing. I couldnt find a single game that interest me. Sure I guess I could play Oot again but damn. Maybe if the 3ds was 169.99 and it came bundled with zelda. Then just maybe i'd want it.

They should make some sort of mushroom add-on that can play blue ray games before there next new console.

LOL, I kid, I love you Sega 32x

[omp]

Had a quick look and in Australia we rock! Current price for a 3DS is $350 http://www.jbhifi.com.au/games/nintendo/nds/ JB hifi is an Australian store that generally have good prices. Allegedly the price will be dropping down to $250.

OT
At the moment over her in Australia, the retailers are having a MASSIVE (and I mean MASSIVE) whinge over people buying from abroad. You see prices like this and one wonders why....... When this drops down to $169 in the US that would be about $160-ish in Aussie money + shipping and you would still be ahead. At the video game shop I do repair work for, I was chatting to one of the sales staff. He has an American 3DS because there are more games available for the US version vs the Aussie version (his words, true or not I don't know). The store owner also gets his games from the UK and the US for the current consoles. The reason is he can get them cheaper than from Aussie suppliers so his profit is more. The internet has opened up our options and as much as it sucks that the money doesn't stay here, one has to look after one's self.

[kenshin-dono]

I feel bad for those early adopters =( Some interesting comments in this thread. For me, personally, im just gonna wait a bit. There will probaly be several revisions on the hardware, and honestly 3D doeesn't appeal to me at all. There aren't really many games that look appealing either, other than maybe tales of the abyss, or the Shin megami remake. I'm sick of playing ocrania of time remakes =P maybe i'll get one when theyre about 130 dollars or so. Im hoping one of the revisions improves batterly life, i hear its quite short

What im more interested in is DS and DS lite price drops. Seems most ds lites are down to 99 dollars now. I think i may want to purchase a backup but am waiting for a 69 or 79 dollar sale around xmas or so. The only issue is that im a bit worried there may be none left by then.

[E.J.]

After looking through the list of (upcoming) games, I'd say that that there's nothing I can't live without. The only game on the list I actually have interest in playing is Street fighter 4.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nintendo_3DS_games

I'll wait, and see, what's announced over the next few months before I decide to go pick one up.

[NeoVamp]

Is the 3DSi XL out yet?

Cause that's the only way I'll ever buy one of these, fucking tiny screens.

[mrbigreddog]

Is the 3DSi XL out yet?

Cause that's the only way I'll ever buy one of these, fucking tiny screens.

Yeah but it's widescreen now, and higher resolution. I tried one of the DSiXL, and really hated how big the screen was, it seemed blurry and the pixels seemed very separated, and that thing was just huge! If you can't fit it in your pocket, it's not portable! Like iPads and these tablets.... They are cool, but not really portable, i'd rather have a nice small notebook computer with a real keyboard than a tablet...

[NeoVamp]

I tried one of the DSiXL, and really hated how big the screen was

.... Thats the point O_O

it seemed blurry and the pixels seemed very separated

Can't say i ever noticed that, I'm having a blast with my XL, so much better then the fucking tiny screens of their previous DS versions.
Its amazing to look at, the screen is amazing quality.

and that thing was just huge!

No its not, the Atari Lynx was huge, DSi-XL is just bigger, thus the XL.

[JCU]

Four months is hardly enough time to deem this system a success or a failure. Any judgement is premature. Lets see how sales are reflected with the price drop and what the holiday season brings. Will it be able to sustain its sales during the winter months after Christmas?