What about us early adopters?
Nintendo launched March 27, 2011 and everyone was excited about it and it even got great media coverage. Heck at E3 the lines were packed senseless and what not so why did the 3DS only sold 850,000 copies during the April, May and June quarter? There are a lot of statements going around that it's the lack of titles, no Nintendo titles and high price tag and even a combination of all the. I side with the it's all 3 but to be honest there are some decent titles available: Street Fighter 4, PES 2011, Legend of Zelda, Asphalt, and Lego Pirates of the Caribbean.
First I think that there was a problem with the way the 3DS was designed. The original Gameboy had many versions but it was always changing so people had something new. It went from the Phat gameboy to gameboy pocket to gameboy color to gameboy advance and then gameboy advance SP. It was constantly changing and eventually Nintendo retired the gameboy and focused on the new Nintendo DS which has 2 screens. Everyone was excited at first but then here comes Nintendo again to introduce the DS Lite, DSi, and DSiXL.
The 3DS borrows the same design from the DS and it really introduces nothing new to the handheld market in terms of innovation besides the 3D. Nintendo already got away with the Wii when it was released back in 2006. All they did was use old technology, add a new accessory and charge $250 for something that should have been worth $150 in the beginning. Yes people who never played bought it but then they were asking themselves "what else is out there for things thing?". The truth is there was nothing else out there for it and Nintendo thought it could get away doing the exact same thing with the 3DS but people aren't buying it no pun intended.
As for the price it really shows you how much Nintendo is ripping people off by announcing an $80 price drop just 6 months after the console launched. This didn't piss me off because I only paid $225 for it technically speaking with a free game and I got the chance to play the console before anyone else did. But really Nintendo isn't leaving early adopters out in the dust. As a matter of fact we will be getting 10 free NES games and 10 Free gameboy advance games if you sign into the eShop before 12 midnight on Aug 11. Whether they'll be in 3D is anybody's guess but Excite Bike was in 3D and Nintendo gave that out for Free.
The games are also very expensive on the system. DS games normally retailed for $29.99 with price drops coming in almost instantly. Now you can get great DS games for $10 - $15 if you know where to look, perhaps even cheaper. All games on 3DS run up to $39.99 and that is the average. Users will have to wait for the Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale in order to get some type of discount but waiting for that is just like going to Vegas. You don't know when you will hit the Jackpot.
Another factor that probably brings hate to the 3DS is the fact that Nintendo has stated that if they find something that doesn't fit with their agenda on your console, they will render it useless. This is stated on their terms when you first purchase the console and if you don't like it well too bad Nintendo doesn't give a shit as long as you give them your money. This really pissed me off since I want to bring my current project to other platforms but won't be able to bring it to a Nintendo platform because they wont let me use the device that I purchased with my hard earned money as an SDK. Sony on the other hand has stated that they will have cheap SDK's for the Vita because they want independent developers to bring their titles to their consoles.
All in all Nintendo has really screwed up but even if they fail with the 3DS and the Wii-U, they still have plenty of bank to continue the console race. Although recovering from said screw up will be almost impossible as users and developers will most likely have lost faith in any Nintendo consoles.
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