Well of course sales slowed, the launch lineup has some cool titles but no total system sellers. The people that bought it day 1 are those who absolutely wanted the hardware itself. Now they need to bring out some awesome software.



If they system doesn't pick up when new Mario or Zelda titles come out...THEN that's something to worry about.

I'd still like to see some concrete numbers on this - it's in line with what I predicted before Christmas, but given the earthquake in Japan (and continued aftershocks), I can't help but feel that Japan is a very poor litmus test for 3DS sales: if I was in a country which had just been hammered that hard, I'd probably want to avoid spending lots of money on expensive toys, but might instead be tempted to buy a cheaper handheld with lower-priced games.



In any case, it'll be interesting to see what happens when we finally do get confirmed figures for Europe and the US; the 3DS may have achieved record sale figures in the UK, but they still fell far below the predicted total (113,000 vs Nintendo's own expectations of 140,000 - http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-04-01-nintendo-announces-uk-3ds-sales-fig
ures). And according to VGChartz, total European sales fell by over 40% in the second week; sales in the UK alone fell by over 50%!

Wow so much speculation, but no hard numbers. Kind of makes me question the headline and the author's intent. If you are going to speculate put that in the headline so at least you are being honest.



How about waiting for real numbers over a period of time more than a week or 2? Gamasutra articles are becoming less and less informative lately. Lots of speculation on sales figures with sensational headlines seems to be the norm of late.

The gizmo excites me a lot.



But even if I weren't broke, I wouldn't pay 250$ 3DS right now with those games.



A PSP is a better buy if you don't already have one after all these years, and a lot of people don't. (Zing!)



Anyway, the price strikes me as pulling a Sony, even if Sony is charging more for their competing system. Perhaps Nintendo will not be too proud for their own good and will fix this.

"Based on our recent checks, we believe that sales of the 3DS have slowed considerably since the initial launch window."



Ummm, yes? Seems pretty normal to me, more people are buying a device in the first days of availability then in the weeks after the launch. What's the point in this statement? I don't think, there was a console launch in the last 30 years, were it was different.

3DS is a Dodo. Cartridges in app store world? $40 games in a $0.99 world? same form factor as the ageing DS? $250 ASP for a game only device when you can get a ipod Touch for less? DS software sales down over -20% last year and the 3D gimmick is going to radically change this trend?

It's a bit early to proclaim the 3DS a failure. When December rolls around, then we can start throwing rocks. Personally, I'm impressed that it's sold as well as it has, given the high price point, the many cheaper alternatives (including the old DS Lite), and the fact that, for most peasants, the economy still sucks. And the economy is going to continue to suck for a very long time.



On the other hand, the 3DS really fubar's with my eyes. That's going to be a problem.

It's worth noting that Nintendo projected sales of 4 million units worldwide for the 3DS through the end of their fiscal year (March 31); actual worldwide sales were less than 2 million units (836,000 in Japan, 303,000 in Europe, and between 500,000 and 750,000 in the US). When you hit less than 50% of your announced sales expectations, that's not a good thing. Nintendo has their work cut out for them to bring sales in line with their expectations.



I think the $250 price point is certainly a factor, as is the higher price of the games and the generally lackluster launch title lineup. A surprising lack of a strong marketing push may also have been a factor. All of these things are fixable, but it remains to be seen how Nintendo plans to address them.



Sony should be taking notes for their NGP launch, which will probably be an even more expensive device.

It was reported that Nintendo spends about $100 per unit in hard costs. If that's true this might be one of most profitable game hardware releases in history. How's that...let's say $100 profit after additional retail costs/deductions, gonna look X approx. 10M in 12 months? That's just for one new hardware product. Not a bad 2011 for Nintendo probably. Btw- I'm not a Nintendo fan boy or analyst groupie, but #s are #s.

On Sales:

2million units sold already X 100$ in profit is 200 million $ already. 2 weeks in.

That is only hardware, console developers also get percentages from each game sold (at least one per console).



Outselling the gb, gbc, ds etc is already an achievement. Just because they don't do the: "we have no more units" dance routine, doesn't mean it isn't good stuff.





On iPhone VS 3DS:

And of course most iPhone games (i have built a few) can't compare to most DS/3DS titles, thus the difference in price tag.



Plus the iPhone game price tag was largerly dictated by a rush of developers coming in and under-pricing in order to get into the market, which is probably what Nintendo wanted to avoid. In this economic system we live in you have to protect the prices in order to have quality, if you don't you have thousands of devs complaining it wasn't the goldmine they were promised.... which is what happened with the iphone, now it takes double the effort to rise above the sea of crap.



Of course 90$ is a bit steep and does not take into consideration the different economic status of a country. It's always a fight to get the balance.



Anyway I got COD MW2 legit, but from a retailer, same with BlacOps, cost 35euro, which is about 50$, when at the same time Steam had it 50euro (50% higher) and at the same time 50$ for the US market. Which is retarded of course....Same with DLC, alway priced the same amount, not the equivalent in euro.

35euro is a lot better than 50 and even better than 70 which is on consoles here....

So maybe they should get ther s h i t together.... Protecting on one hand, not stiffing customers on the other....



On promotion:



BTW I see TVSpots of the 3DS everyday here in Greece, which is usually an undervalued market due to Piracy, I guess DS did good (I got one for my sister...). It took years for XboxLive support to come here.