3DS sales in NA still struggling

I know the sales numbers for June NPD may be old, but I wanted to see what you guys thought about the whole situation as it still isn't much better.

Yes, the 3DS technically is selling pretty well, and probably more than the DS or Wii by this point or close to it. I believe it's got 5-6 million units already under its belt, but I'm not sure

Now, lets review. In North America the 3DS, post-launch week is as follows

April-194k, May-97k, June-146k

Clearly OOT 3D, and possibly Mercenaries 3D help boost the 3DS about 40%-50% in NA during June, and granted we're likely to see a bit of the boost remain in July as well

But should Nintendo find this alarming? What do you think is holding back the 3DS the most? The price? The lack of consumer knowledge of it not being another DS? The lack of killer software?

Now, we've seen new systems with long quality software droughts do well before. The Wii had a big run after launch of little in the way of must have software but it still sold well. And while the 3DS doesn't have a huge library full of games, it has DSiWare, most DS games, and Super Street Fighter IV, Dead or Alive, Legend of Zelda, Resident Evil. It has some throwing around names to boast.

I don't think by any means its damage control time for Nintendo, but I do think they should be carefully deciding what their holiday push is going to do to improve this.

Additionally, rumors about MGS3 3D being pushed to 2012, and Kid Icarus looking like it will never come out (how many times do I have to see Coming SOON at the end of the trailer before they tell me when it's really coming out?)

Will Star Fox help at all? I doubt it, I mean if Zelda only boosts sales by 50k, Star fox will do even less. Should Nintendo just let the 3DS sit like this and wait for Super Mario and Mario Kart to fix things this fall? Can those titles make North American's notice the 3DS?

I'd also think Nintendo may be in the stages of planning a drastically different looking 3DS redesign for 2012 or 2013 if sales don't pick up after the holidays. I mean, what better way to make people finally understand "this isn't a DS!" then to make it not look like a DS?

What do you think Nintendo has to do to increase consumer interest in the 3DS, right now and this fall and going forward in 2012?

I've said it numerous times- a Nintendo handheld has never failed, and it wont start with 3ds. And I find it had to believe that anyone can mistake 3ds for another iteration of the ds/I hardware. Two years from now when 3ds is on track to break ds's all-time sales record, one of these topics are going to be resurrected for a laugh.El_Zo1212o

I'm not saying it will. Why would you laugh at people wondering what the future holds? Seems a little mean spirited.

How can you not see the similarities? If you don't know what a circle pad is, then really the 3DS looks like a DS.

I'm not saying it will fail or anything, I'm saying its not in a great spot right now so what do we (you and I) think Nintendo should do to ensure that those sales records are broken in two years. It isn't going to magically happen just because it happened before. Nintendo has to make it happen. I just wonder what they will do to try to make that happen.

Sales are starting to pick up in Japan. I think it will pick up in the future in NA, the DSi did and all it had was a camera.

It's not time to worry yet. While the US sales are relatively slow, there are plenty of reasons for that, and the biggest one is that it doesn't have software people want. The DS had Nintendogs and Brain Age that rocketed its sales once they released, and the Wii had Wii Sports that attracted everybody, and a brand new Zelda game. Those games have proven to be system sellers. The 3DS currently has nothing similar to Nintendogs or Brain Age (or other "Touch Generation" games), and the core software line up is awful as well.

As I recall, once Star Fox released in Japan, 3DS sales doubled. That would indicate that people are just waiting for games to show up. Most people don't know about any of the features you mentioned (the eShop for example), so it's no surprise to me at all that the 3DS is performing the way it is.

Sales won't pick up until the Fall/Holiday season.

Let's put things into perspective - The 3DS hasn't seen a hardware seller yet. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D did as best as it could and will still continue to do so, but it's still a remake of an old game. Once Mario hits the platform, sales will increase. The 3DS also hasn't seen a full marketing blitz yet and it hasn't seen it's first Holiday season yet. Summer is also a season that tends to be fairly low for video game sales anyway.

Once we hit March 27th, 2012 - we'll get a far better idea of how well the 3DS is doing, in terms of hardware sales and quality software.

The system is just getting started, and as games are becoming more of a risk, devs are being more careful about what they are releasing these days. The DS was running games that devs did not have to dump huge amounts of capital into them. The 3ds is a much more complex system and will take more time to program for.

Overall I think that the 3ds will do jsut fine and the vita is going to have a hard time as it will cost a ton, just like the ps3, to pump out games for it. I am not dumping on the vita, I am just a little skeptical that a hand held ps3 is going to be an easy system to develope games on that don't cost a bunch, and as ps3 games are 60 becuase fo the huge cost it takes to make them, what does that mean for handhelds that traditionally have cheaper games?

The 3DS currently has nothing similar to Nintendogs or Brain Age (or other "Touch Generation" games), and the core software line up is awful as well.

nintendofreak_2

Sure it does.

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"]I've said it numerous times- a Nintendo handheld has never failed, and it wont start with 3ds. And I find it had to believe that anyone can mistake 3ds for another iteration of the ds/I hardware. Two years from now when 3ds is on track to break ds's all-time sales record, one of these topics are going to be resurrected for a laugh.darth-pyschosis

I'm not saying it will. Why would you laugh at people wondering what the future holds? Seems a little mean spirited.

How can you not see the similarities? If you don't know what a circle pad is, then really the 3DS looks like a DS.

I'm not saying it will fail or anything, I'm saying its not in a great spot right now so what do we (you and I) think Nintendo should do to ensure that those sales records are broken in two years. It isn't going to magically happen just because it happened before. Nintendo has to make it happen. I just wonder what they will do to try to make that happen.

The 3DS does look too much like the DS. I had my cousin, an avid Pokemon gamer, ask me: "Is the 3DS just a DS with 3D?" I coudn't bring myself to say "No". Obviously, I didn't say "Yes" either. He was looking to purchase a new DS and looking to me for information. I told him the truth, "there aren't many--if any, 3DS games that truly look different from DS games. It's not worth it to buy the 3DS for $250 when you can get a DS Lite for $99 minus the bells and whistles of features you'll never use. Pokemon's your game so just get the DS Lite."

That's how I feel about the 3DS sales. No point in buying one this year until after it A: gets price drop. B: has better games. C: New revision with better battery life. Most ethusiasts along with parents (buying for their children) will buy, but I don't believe it will sell like hotcakes until there's something worth playing--pokemon, new IP, a real new Zelda game, something to showcase the real power of the 3DS.

it just hasnt caught on or become popular...

same thing will happen to the playstation tita..

[QUOTE="darth-pyschosis"]

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"]I've said it numerous times- a Nintendo handheld has never failed, and it wont start with 3ds. And I find it had to believe that anyone can mistake 3ds for another iteration of the ds/I hardware. Two years from now when 3ds is on track to break ds's all-time sales record, one of these topics are going to be resurrected for a laugh.El_Zo1212o

I'm not saying it will. Why would you laugh at people wondering what the future holds? Seems a little mean spirited.

How can you not see the similarities? If you don't know what a circle pad is, then really the 3DS looks like a DS.

I'm not saying it will fail or anything, I'm saying its not in a great spot right now so what do we (you and I) think Nintendo should do to ensure that those sales records are broken in two years. It isn't going to magically happen just because it happened before. Nintendo has to make it happen. I just wonder what they will do to try to make that happen.

Panic mongering? Dude, I'm just talking about how Nintendo will get the 3ds to that point of being a sure fire success.

And plenty of people care about handhelds and don't follow the gaming news. That's just narrow minded. Stand next to a DS section anywhere in america in any store and see how much the kids, teens, and adults care about playing fun games on their DS and then ask them if they knew the 3DS was out, what it was, and what makes it different.

Plus, the Genesis and Saturn looked different and had different formats. The 3DS and DS similarities are so much more vast that it isn't comparable,

And I did say in the OP that no new system ever really isn't in a bad spot after launch, I just said that some have been more successful despite issues like software droughts.

I get it, its probable and possible that in March'12 and March'13 that we'll see how Nintendo pulled it out. I get it. I'm saying, what do you think they're going to do to get us to that point in March'12?

"If you release games, they will come..."

The 3DS does look too much like the DS. I had my cousin, an avid Pokemon gamer, ask me: "Is the 3DS just a DS with 3D?" I coudn't bring myself to say "No". Obviously, I didn't say "Yes" either. He was looking to purchase a new DS and looking to me for information. I told him the truth, "there aren't many--if any, 3DS games that truly look different from DS games. It's not worth it to buy the 3DS for $250 when you can get a DS Lite for $99 minus the bells and whistles of features you'll never use. Pokemon's your game so just get the DS Lite."

That's how I feel about the 3DS sales. No point in buying one this year until after it A: gets price drop. B: has better games. C: New revision with better battery life. Most ethusiasts along with parents (buying for their children) will buy, but I don't believe it will sell like hotcakes until there's something worth playing--pokemon, new IP, a real new Zelda game, something to showcase the real power of the 3DS.

cdragon_88

Good luck with that. A and B are more than likely going to come soon, but there is nothing besides the battery that is bad enough to require a hardware revision.

The 3DS' got a great future ahead of it. I wouldn't worry too much.

Not sure why Nintendo is surprised by the sale numbers? Sounds like someone overestimated

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"][QUOTE="darth-pyschosis"]I'm not saying it will. Why would you laugh at people wondering what the future holds? Seems a little mean spirited.How can you not see the similarities? If you don't know what a circle pad is, then really the 3DS looks like a DS.I'm not saying it will fail or anything, I'm saying its not in a great spot right now so what do we (you and I) think Nintendo should do to ensure that those sales records are broken in two years. It isn't going to magically happen just because it happened before. Nintendo has to make it happen. I just wonder what they will do to try to make that happen.darth-pyschosis

The killer games havent really been released yet, besides OoT 3D, if you consider it a killer app. Once the good games come out, the 3DS will pick up in sales.

The 3DS is performing below retailers and Nintendo's own expectations but it is outselling the DS at this time in its lifespan. Also the 3DS hasn't even had its first holiday season so let's not count it out yet. There's definitely room for improvement though like advertisements, software library, and that huge turn off of a price point.

I've said it numerous times- a Nintendo handheld has never failed, and it wont start with 3ds. And I find it had to believe that anyone can mistake 3ds for another iteration of the ds/I hardware. Two years from now when 3ds is on track to break ds's all-time sales record, one of these topics are going to be resurrected for a laugh.El_Zo1212o

Hopefully Nintendo will learn that just Wii Sports-like games for the first two months won't cut it. WE NEED MOAR GAEMZ!

I heard its getting a price drop to $170 on Aug 11 and early adopters get like 10 free NES game0s(which will come out later for everyone tp buy) and 10 GBA games which are not scheduled for release ever!(yet)

I heard its getting a price drop to $170 on Aug 11 and early adopters get like 10 free NES game0s(which will come out later for everyone tp buy) and 10 GBA games which are not scheduled for release ever!(yet)

CoolSkAGuy

Holy ____. :shock:

[QUOTE="CoolSkAGuy"]

I heard its getting a price drop to $170 on Aug 11 and early adopters get like 10 free NES game0s(which will come out later for everyone tp buy) and 10 GBA games which are not scheduled for release ever!(yet)

Pixel-Perfect

Holy ____. :shock:

Oh wow. According to this translation from Bloomberg Japan, Nintendo is actually taking a loss on the 3DS at the lowered price.

I know Nintendo's stock is taking a huge hit from them posting their first loss in ages, but this move seems uncharacteristically drastic for them. Nintendo never sells as a loss.

I'd be interested to see the week by week sales just to see the jump in sales in August after the 12th.

Oh wow. According to this translation from Bloomberg Japan, Nintendo is actually taking a loss on the 3DS at the lowered price.

I know Nintendo's stock is taking a huge hit from them posting their first loss in ages, but this move seems uncharacteristically drastic for them. Nintendo never sells as a loss.

DJ_Lae

Oh wow. According to this translation from Bloomberg Japan, Nintendo is actually taking a loss on the 3DS at the lowered price.

I know Nintendo's stock is taking a huge hit from them posting their first loss in ages, but this move seems uncharacteristically drastic for them. Nintendo never sells as a loss.

DJ_Lae

Are you sure? According to this it only costs 101$ to produce 1 single 3DS unit. :|

Are you sure? According to this it only costs 101$ to produce 1 single 3DS unit. :|

lancea34

[QUOTE="CoolSkAGuy"]

I heard its getting a price drop to $170 on Aug 11 and early adopters get like 10 free NES game0s(which will come out later for everyone tp buy) and 10 GBA games which are not scheduled for release ever!(yet)

yosat

Nintendo fanboys who kept saying everything was fine have been owned by Nintendo itself. Amazing!

I doubt Nintendo would sell the 3DS at a loss, but who knows.

[QUOTE="CoolSkAGuy"]

I heard its getting a price drop to $170 on Aug 11 and early adopters get like 10 free NES game0s(which will come out later for everyone tp buy) and 10 GBA games which are not scheduled for release ever!(yet)

yosat

Nintendo fanboys who kept saying everything was fine have been owned by Nintendo itself. Amazing!

nah we get GBA and NES games.... the only people being owned is Vita :P

Lets face it the 3DS in its current incarnation is a FAIL.

The 3D pretty much fails technically. 3D without glasses sounds great, but the execution is horrible. Trying to hold a handheld display perfectly still and at just the right distance for any length of time is not exactly a comfortable experience. None of the games have benefitted from the 3D, and worse, some games want you to move the 3DS around while playing... not a good combination. This is not good for a system with the name 3DS. The main feature is gimped.

Battery life is also a major FAIL. Try taking the 3DS anywhere without the charger and you wont be playing for very long.

The paying customers seem to be well aware of these problems and are pretty much avoiding the system.

$250 was outrageous, and $180 is even too high for a system with no games.

When the games do finally come, the above two problems wont go away.

Sales won't pick up until the Fall/Holiday season.

Let's put things into perspective - The 3DS hasn't seen a hardware seller yet. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D did as best as it could and will still continue to do so, but it's still a remake of an old game. Once Mario hits the platform, sales will increase. The 3DS also hasn't seen a full marketing blitz yet and it hasn't seen it's first Holiday season yet. Summer is also a season that tends to be fairly low for video game sales anyway.

Once we hit March 27th, 2012 - we'll get a far better idea of how well the 3DS is doing, in terms of hardware sales and quality software.

Haziqonfire

Actually, nintendo seems to be prudent enough to a price drop real soon because the pspvita was priced almost the same. Not only that, the pspvita would not be a profitable for about 3 years. It seems that Sony would like to compete the price of nintendo's handheld. However, nintendo retaliated with a price drop at short period of time. Sony is very known for being the top of the gaming market which makes devices such as the dreamcast to be drop dead. Let's just hope that nintendo would put a fair fight with Sony.

Lets face it the 3DS in its current incarnation is a FAIL.

The 3D pretty much fails technically. 3D without glasses sounds great, but the execution is horrible. Trying to hold a handheld display perfectly still and at just the right distance for any length of time is not exactly a comfortable experience. None of the games have benefitted from the 3D, and worse, some games want you to move the 3DS around while playing... not a good combination. This is not good for a system with the name 3DS. The main feature is gimped.

Battery life is also a major FAIL. Try taking the 3DS anywhere without the charger and you wont be playing for very long.

The paying customers seem to be well aware of these problems and are pretty much avoiding the system.

$250 was outrageous, and $180 is even too high for a system with no games.

When the games do finally come, the above two problems wont go away.

Videodogg

it works for me for the 3d cuz it displayed 3d which is of course duh. The price is outragous? Why did I have it? because I can afford it unlike some other company there that was priced originally 600 bucks, now that is outragous.

hm hm hm fee fe fi fo fum 3ds just had a price drop offical as of auguest 12 thaT WAS THE MAIN CONCERN WAS PRICE , AND IT IS NOT JUST A 20 DOLLAR DROP READDY IT WILL be sold at 20 dollers more then the origianal ds launched just 20 dollars more -169.99 or u go used which would probably be as expensive as the origianl ds your choice as of auguest 12th of this year it will not be selling like that ever again , i told everyone this once mario kart comes out , a price drop-- -which is better then what ds had lol , all that comes in to place and it sure as heck did , you know what is back where they started more power more c ostly , not the same i doubt they will drop theirs lol , so lets just say from here on out smooth sailing f or the 3ds it is already picking up in japan so it should blast now ,lol

[QUOTE="Haziqonfire"]

Sales won't pick up until the Fall/Holiday season.

Let's put things into perspective - The 3DS hasn't seen a hardware seller yet. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D did as best as it could and will still continue to do so, but it's still a remake of an old game. Once Mario hits the platform, sales will increase. The 3DS also hasn't seen a full marketing blitz yet and it hasn't seen it's first Holiday season yet. Summer is also a season that tends to be fairly low for video game sales anyway.

Once we hit March 27th, 2012 - we'll get a far better idea of how well the 3DS is doing, in terms of hardware sales and quality software.

Actually, nintendo seems to be prudent enough to a price drop real soon because the pspvita was priced almost the same. Not only that, the pspvita would not be a profitable for about 3 years. It seems that Sony would like to compete the price of nintendo's handheld. However, nintendo retaliated with a price drop at short period of time. Sony is very known for being the top of the gaming market which makes devices such as the dreamcast to be drop dead. Let's just hope that nintendo would put a fair fight with Sony.

While ten NES games and ten GBA games will be cool to have, they wouldn't be worth 70.00 bucks.El_Zo1212o

Are you sure? If those were GBC games that would be: 20 x 6$ = 120$ ! I think Nintendo is being quite generous by giving us all these free games.

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"] While ten NES games and ten GBA games will be cool to have, they wouldn't be worth 70.00 bucks.lancea34

Are you sure? If those were GBC games that would be: 20 x 6$ = 120$ ! I think Nintendo is being quite generous by giving us all these free games.

[QUOTE="lancea34"]

[QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"] While ten NES games and ten GBA games will be cool to have, they wouldn't be worth 70.00 bucks.AlmightyDerek

Are you sure? If those were GBC games that would be: 20 x 6$ = 120$ ! I think Nintendo is being quite generous by giving us all these free games.

I'm not talking value based on cost- i'm talking about value for use- example: I DL'd Excitebike 3D because it was free- according to my game log I've played it for a grand total of 7 minutes. This is acceptable because it was free. Nintendo is going to compensate me because they hadn't thought out their plan close enough before release, so they're going to give me a bunch of games that I will likely stop playing immediately as the nostaligia wears off and will never touch again. Some of the GBA games look promising, I'll grant you, like Metroid: Fusion(and I fervently hope Metroid: Zero Mission will be there, too). And if they stay exclusive to "Ambassadors", then I'll say that's fair, but a handful of NES games, while free, still doesn't cut muster with me. And way to ignore the main focus of my above post.El_Zo1212o

no need to argue with derek...we are on the same side...lets not let this 3ds thing turn us into cannabals..

lol

:P

[QUOTE="darth-pyschosis"][QUOTE="El_Zo1212o"] coupla things: 1. Haven't you ever heard the saying "we'll be laughing about this someday"? 2. Anyone who cares anything about handheld(esp. Nintendo handhelds) had been following the news about Nintendo's successor to the DS for months before it hit. The only people who might make such a mistake would be persons over the age of 40(maybe) who wouldn't know enough to make such a purchase without the child present unless the child made a very clear point of highlighting 3DS. Saying such a mistake is easy to make is the same as saying it would have been easy to confuse the Genesis(Megadrive for you EU folks) with the Saturn. 3. No new game system is ever in "a good spot" within it's first year- let alone it's first 6 months. A Nintendo handheld will not fail, so all this panic-mongering is pointless. Revisit the question of 3DS' viability in March '12 and again in March '13. Then we can all laugh at how ridiculous these topics were.El_Zo1212o

Wow, way to be off bro.

Evidentally Nintendo found it worriesome and they did something about it. Heck, you find it worrisome now. I'm not trying to sound rude, it's just the irony that is hard to not pay attention to.

while you were accusing me about panic mongering, Nintendo actually pressed the PANIC button some might say, and while I kept telling you "let's talk about what Nintendo is going to do to fix this problem" they decided to go out and fix it with the $80 price drop.

Also, most people didn't know what a Sega CD was to compare it to a Saturn, and even then the saturn was a trainwreck at retail so comparing its similarities to the Sega CD actually doesn't help that arguement. I'm not saying people confused it with a CD, but people certainly didn't confuse it with a next gen console they need to buy!

I think this will breathe new life into the platform. The sales will take off soon enough and I'm sure its still sold at a profit, a smaller one that is.

Also, I'm shocked Iwata only makes 2 million a year!

While I am glad i'm going to be getting a half-ton of free crap from Nintendo, I do find this a tad worrisome. We all remember me, right? The guy who's been chanting the company line all the way through this topic? Yeah well that Nintendo link is making me nervous- it looks like Nintendo is afraid of Vita; Big N lists their awesome new hardware 250.00 at E3, Sony prices their 'console in a handheld' at the same price(not counting 3g model here). Now as PSV-day approaches, Nintento risks the ire of their most loyal players by dropping the price of their 4 MONTH OLD system by a whopping seventy bucks. While ten NES games and ten GBA games will be cool to have, they wouldn't be worth 70.00 bucks.El_Zo1212o

To you those games don't seem worth it

But to some of us we don't play games for nostalgia, we play games for fun and play good games.

Giving me Super Mario Bros 3, Legend of Zelda, Metroid Fusion and Super Mario World, Yoshi's Island is very good to me. That's worth the $80 IMO for me. It isn't for you, but i'm going to get countless hours out of those games of pure fun

I suggest you wait and see, there may well end up being 1 out of those 20 games that you love worth $80. You never know.

Off topic: I still think PSV sounds like a ******** trasmitted disease.

Person 1: "Hey I got a PSV the other day."

Person 2: "Really? I'm sorry to hear that bro."