Nintendo 3DS business/general talk *spin-off feat. 3DS as a P.I. in New Orleans

[Deleted member 13524]

Huge price drop on 3DS.
The cut will be around 1/3rd throughout Europe and the rest of the world, starting August 12:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-28-eu-3ds-price-cut-around-a-third

Early adopters will have the right to download 20 of the crap.. erm.. retro games from the online store.

This has followed an abysmal sales quarter of 710k consoles wordwide.

Price is a bit decent, now all we need is.. you know.. games.

 

[Entropy]

Huge price drop on 3DS.
The cut will be around 1/3rd throughout Europe and the rest of the world, starting August 12:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-28-eu-3ds-price-cut-around-a-third

Early adopters will have the right to download 20 of the crap.. erm.. retro games from the online store.

This has followed an abysmal sales quarter of 710k consoles wordwide.

Price is a bit decent, now all we need is.. you know.. games.

That this is a necessary move so early on is very telling. I think it will work out reasonably in terms of sales, taking a greater distance to the phones price wise helps define Nintendos niche in the mobile gaming landscape.

However, the sales of the 3DS doesn't bode well for dedicated gaming handhelds generally. Personally, I don't think Nintendo did a lot wrong with the 3DS. Substantially increased hardware capabilities, unique selling point, compatibility with its predecessor, the most successful gaming device ever. No obvious mistakes there. Sure we could have wished for more, bigger, faster, cheaper - but that is all incremental. It will be very interesting to see what repositioning in terms of price means for sales, the price cut is quite substantial.

 

[Xenus]

Um Nintendo did a lot wrong with the 3DS launch window till now so I wouldn't take that as a matter of the market as a whole. But the biggest problem is they got arrogant and basically said hey people are hyping the 3DS as the next best thing since sliced bread lets charge an arm and a leg for it since we think people will pay that for it.

 

[Entropy]

Um Nintendo did a lot wrong with the 3DS launch window till now so I wouldn't take that as a matter of the market as a whole. But the biggest problem is they got arrogant and basically said hey people are hyping the 3DS as the next best thing since sliced bread lets charge an arm and a leg for it since we think people will pay that for it.

So now that they have adjusted prices, do you think people will flock to buy it?

 

[V3]

So now that they have adjusted prices, do you think people will flock to buy it?

Well sometimes when you missed your window of opportunity, nothing you do will help you.

Obviously the 3D in 3DS is a flop thus far, so my guess is Nintendo better get back to drawing board and release their next hand held system fast. Forget salvage operation. Just dump it like they did Virtual Boy.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Personally, I don't think Nintendo did a lot wrong with the 3DS. Substantially increased hardware capabilities, unique selling point, compatibility with its predecessor, the most successful gaming device ever. No obvious mistakes there.

I disagree. The 286MHz ARM11 and a GPU without an instruction set compliant with current 3D engines may very well bring the console down.

As for the rest, the initial price, launch line-up, current line-up and the ridiculous amount of time some games are taking to appear in the market are all obvious mistakes, IMO:

- Mario Kart 3DS should've been in the launch line-up, no matter what. I don't know what kind of mental breakdown happened at NIntendo not to do it. The franchise has been proven to be an early system seller since Gamecube and GBA.
- Kid Icarus is being like Killzone 2 on the PS3, with the difference that it doesn't seem to really awe anyone so far.
- Super Mario 3DS is also taking ages, and people were really hoping for a Mario Galaxy..

Sure we could have wished for more, bigger, faster, cheaper - but that is all incremental. It will be very interesting to see what repositioning in terms of price means for sales, the price cut is quite substantial.

I think you're downplaying the "incremental" way too much.
What would the X360 an PS3 be if it wasn't for the "incrementals"?

 

[NavNucST3]

Here is a link to the Nintendos Earnings report

 

[Xenus]

So now that they have adjusted prices, do you think people will flock to buy it?

Probably at least in the short term. Not sure about long term yet.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

So now that they have adjusted prices, do you think people will flock to buy it?

No, not really. At least, not with the underwhelming line-up we've seen for 2011.

Well sometimes when you missed your window of opportunity, nothing you do will help you.

Obviously the 3D in 3DS is a flop thus far, so my guess is Nintendo better get back to drawing board and release their next hand held system fast. Forget salvage operation. Just dump it like they did Virtual Boy.

Agreed!
Let them bring the Gameboy back with a single, larger screen capable of 3D and dual analog controllers, with a hardware that can rival the PSVita and with Wii U connectivity in mind -> "So you can get only one Wii U controller per console, but you can connect your Gameboy U as controllers and have the same usage".

 

[Brad Grenz]

I disagree. The 286MHz ARM11 and a GPU without an instruction set compliant with current 3D engines may very well bring the console down.

The tiny screen, lack of a second analog "circle pad", crappy resistive touch input and reliance on a 3D fad don't help either.

 

[V3]

Agreed!
Let them bring the Gameboy back with a single, larger screen capable of 3D and dual analog controllers, with a hardware that can rival the PSVita and with Wii U connectivity in mind -> "So you can get only one Wii U controller per console, but you can connect your Gameboy U as controllers and have the same usage".

Well forget 3D. 3D is flopping everywhere. Beside 3D, 3DS has several other problems. The digital pad located at a very odd position as bad as Gamecube controller d-pad, as well as a miss-match screen aspect ratio between the two screens. The top screen isn't given any real estate compare to what's possible. It's really an ugly looking device even compare to DSi.

I reckon for a dedicated hand held gaming device, Nintendo can do something different, like surround gaming aspect ratio for both screens (think Nintendo Micro VS System mixed with DS), like 4:1 or 5:1 aspect or something and make sure its large enough to support the experience and controller that need to be in it like dual analog nub and a working d-pad. Forget form factor, I don't think they're going to beat the smart phones in that regard. I would also canned the Wii U, I really think that system is just too confusing.

 

[Entropy]

The tiny screen, lack of a second analog "circle pad", crappy resistive touch input and reliance on a 3D fad don't help either.

Well, I've been using various stereoscopic 3D displays since 1987, so I just tend to see the rest of the world as being really slow in catching up.
Seriously, the autostereoscopic display is the only reason I'm interested at all, frankly I regard the entire market segment as pretty much obsolete.

I think you're downplaying the "incremental" way too much.
What would the X360 an PS3 be if it wasn't for the "incrementals"

Let me explain clearer - what I meant was that it's easy to criticize the 3DS for shortcomings where it is easy to perform the thought experiment: "Well if it had dual 400MHz processors instead, just how much more would it sell?" Or 4.5 inch screen. Or twice the pixels. Or...
As opposed to the binaries such as "Backwards compatible or not" or "Autostereoscopic 3D or not" or "dual or single screen".

So if the 3DS had twice the graphics power which has been criticized on B3D forums, how much would that have really helped sales? Would it have sold 30% better? 100%? 500%? 5%?

With the 3DS in production and store-houses, price is pretty much the only one of these that can be adjusted by Nintendo, and I'd contend that it is by far the most important one. Even so, I find it hard to imagine that even a price adjustment as substantial as the one they have made will increase sales to where it would have to be to be even close to that of its predecessor. As I said, it will be very interesting to see the result on next quarter sales, given that the Christmas quarter numbers aren't really comparable.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Well forget 3D. 3D is flopping everywhere.

Erm.. I think we live in different worlds..

Let me explain clearer - what I meant was that it's easy to criticize the 3DS for shortcomings where it is easy to perform the thought experiment: "Well if it had dual 400MHz processors instead, just how much more would it sell?" Or 4.5 inch screen. Or twice the pixels. Or...
As opposed to the binaries such as "Backwards compatible or not" or "Autostereoscopic 3D or not" or "dual or single screen".

For me, poor or decent performance, tiny or decent-sized screen, low or high-resolution can be regarded as binaries.

So if the 3DS had twice the graphics power which has been criticized on B3D forums, how much would that have really helped sales? Would it have sold 30% better? 100%? 500%? 5%?

In my opinion:
3DS having dirt-slow hardware -> AAA game developers aren't interested -> poor game line-up -> no one cares about the system -> poor sales.

The DS and Wii suffered from the same, but they happened to be crazy one-shot opportunities to gather a new audience.

 

[obonicus]

This might mean a more modest launch price for WiiU, since at least now there's no risk of launching their system at near price parity with their handheld.

 

[Arwin]

Huge price drop on 3DS.
The cut will be around 1/3rd throughout Europe and the rest of the world, starting August 12:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-28-eu-3ds-price-cut-around-a-third

Early adopters will have the right to download 20 of the crap.. erm.. retro games from the online store.

This has followed an abysmal sales quarter of 710k consoles wordwide.

Price is a bit decent, now all we need is.. you know.. games.

A well-deserved price-cut if you ask me. For what it offered, the price was way too high. I was very interested in the 3D, but the screen is way too small and you can do way too little with it. If I can watch 3D movies on it on the go without glasses, using a screen close to the size of the original PSP, then I am interested. Some good games could help too.

However, for games I consider the device very flawed. While the strength of the DS was being able to compensate for weak 3D by just having good 2D games and a nice touch interface, a 3D screen with 2D graphics just doesn't work quite as well, and then the lack of power for 3D graphics shows (may get better over time though - at least it has decent shaders).

I don't like the combination of touch screen and 3D screen and one analog 'thing', and I think those pads may hurt the Wii-U as well and could well cause it to be less successful than the Wii was.

Best bet for the 3DS is finding games that really benefit from 3D, or stop caring about 3D altogether and make more of the tilt and camera features. I haven't seen people this uninterested in a Nintendo product in a long time (Gameboy Micro levels if you ask me).

Things may change eventually though, who knows. But glad they went to a more realistic price anyway.

 

[Gitaroo]

ya I do own one, and quite piss at the crap the early adopters get in return. The hardware design IMO is horrible, thought they can have a decent software functionality to help it out but everything is a mess especially the eshop. Definitely the worst "new" hardware I bought in recent memory, even with the price cut it still not worth it IMO. If they let you record 3d video and have 3d video playback, it would be a whole lot better.

 

[messyman]

Even with the massive price cut I'm still not interested in 3DS.
The games I originally wanted are either getting delayed or canceled T_T

 

[ban25]

Nintendo closed down 14.35%, wow!

 

[sfried]

Even with the massive price cut I'm still not interested in 3DS.
The games I originally wanted are either getting delayed or canceled T_T

You can still save MML3!
And I wouldn't call all of those retro games "crap". Especially if one of them is Yoshi's Island...

Edit: And why is the icon a Playstation logo? I thought this was about 3DS.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

For those in this world who feel Nintendo always do their own thing to be different and shun the norms of Western business practices, 3DS is said to be selling at a loss now. Same as everyone else, Nitendo pick a price they think the consumers are willing to pay, and if they guess wrong, either have to drop the price and look into recuperating money somehow else, or drop the product and try something new. The are not, and never have been, immune to the forces of the market. They've just been very lucky with a few recent devices like DS and Wii, in the same way Sony were lucky with PS and PS2. That doesn't mean any of these companies known how to stay on top!

It will be very interesting to see how this affects sales for September. Were people just holding out for a price drop, or is the 3DS undesirably in this time of pads? If 3DS still doesn't sell well, I'd say that looks a bit negative on Vita's chances too.

Still, this is a historical landmark I think. Isn't this the first Nintendo handheld to not sell gangbusters?