This article is purely speculative and will be ridiculously short and very Kotaku-like, but after seeing how many 3DSs were sold at work today, I really started to do some thinking.
The DS was a cool device but hardcore gamers have always scoffed at the simplicity of most its games, just like most hardcore gamers look down on the Wii as a lesser console. In many respects, these hardcore purists are very correct, Nintendo’s consoles, at least in the last 5 years or so, have only appealed to a very specific kind of gamer, the casual gamer. I own a Wii and I think it’s a great system, I even wrote a short opinion piece explaining why I purchased one a few months ago.
My question is, will the 3DS manage to pull hardcore gamers back into Nintendo land or will it continue to cater to the casual crowd. During my 5 hour shift today at Zellers, (for our American readers, Zellers is really just another Wal-mart or Target) only two 3DS’s were sold. I realize this really isn’t an indicator of how the console will actually sell, my store isn’t exactly a hot bed for day one video game console releases, but I was still shocked. Usually we have a small line up in front of the store for major video game and console releases.
I expected that we would be sold out by noon or at least only have a few 3DS’s left. It makes me wonder if hardcore gamers are simply passing over Nintendo’s pricey $250 handheld. $250 is even a lot of money for casual gamers to shell out on a portable gaming console. I wonder if parents really are willing to buy their children another gameboy that costs that much money – I found it difficult convincing my parents to buy me a $129 Gameboy Advance when I was 12.
I want to ask this question of our readers. Are you picking up a 3DS and why? Do you think it’s worth the hefty price tag? Let us know in the comments section.
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We are looking to add more writers to our team. If you are interested please send an email to patrick@gamejudgment.com – be sure to include 2 samples of your best writing and a resume.
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Comparing the $129 to $250 is a bit misleading.
If you count inflation… in 2001 dollars, the 3DS costs $199. It’s still more expensive, but you also need to consider how readily available/widespread the technologies of the GBA were at launch compared to those of the 3DS. As well as included software. And online services (and therefore servers) that 3DS owners will have to pay nothing for.
I wish the price were $200 rather than $250, but I can understand why they needed to price it the way that they did. And although it may not be sold out, the 3DS had bigger first day sales in the US than any other system that Nintendo has ever released – so it’s certainly faring well in at least certain areas.
Well as of now the 3ds is down to $170 but at the time it was $250 it was to much. a couple of reasons I think they made this recent price drop is because 1. they say they have to get there system out to the world 2. the us economy is REALLY bad 3.its the holidays. These are my opinions about the new price feel free to email me or just reply.
3ds too small to play！
i can’t hold it.
Im done purchasing the first version of consoles. They always have problems and the second version always somehow fixes them..
Also the launch titles for the 3ds are godawful…theres typically one orginal game I want to buy for a new system but thers truly nothing appealing except for the free software that comes with it
Ask me again when Kid Icarus,Mario Kart,Kingdom Hearts,Star Fox, Zelda and the inevitable Super Smash Bros 3d comes out…
ThePlaystationShow.com is a pathetic site that can only generate hits by attacking other sites and communities. Ignore Hamerfist and his BS.
Clearly the 3DS isn’t selling as much as it should. In almost 48 hours in the US, it has failed to sell out. Something that few consoles fail to do at launch.
I went to my local midnight launch and even though I had one on pre-order, decided not to get one. Why?
First is that I’m not interested in any of the launch games so buying it at this time doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Two, I thought perhaps I’d get it just to play my DS games, but most of the reviews say it’s not any better than a DS for DS games, and maybe even a little worse.
Three, the price is kind of high, here in the USA is costs roughly $300 for a 3DS and one game. That’s about $100 too much says my internal ‘value meter.’
The 3D looks really great and I definitely want one, but I’ll wait for the redesign in hopes of better battery life, lower price and lots of inexpensive used games to choose from.
The Sony NGP is more appealing to me with it’s dual sticks. The price is what will determine if I’ll get one right away at launch. Will definitely be getting both of them in the long run, just like I did with the DS and PSP. It’s good to be a gamer!
Patrick, if you are interested you can email me at mattl@theplaystationshow.com as we would love to have you on the show this week to discuss your article, my idiocy and the ‘war’ between us. What do you say? The Rogue Gamer records Saturdays at 7pm CST, 8pm EST. I don’t know what that would be in Canadian time. Probably 6pm Eh!?
Anyways we do the show over skype and your readers can even listen to you live as we go at it. (theplaystationshow.com/live) Defend your honor!
I live in Toronto so we’re still in EST. That should be fine, I imagine I’ll be around Saturday night. I’m not exactly an expert on the 3DS at all nor do I think it’s destined to fail or anything like that.
Patrick, it’s all good. It will be fun to talk about this and shoot the shit. Want to see real irony? Take a look at the ‘article’ i did about bulletstorm and kz3. I went to Best Buy the next day and took a bunch of photos of the games after Cliffy B and EA said they are ‘selling’ out. I realized my article was total nonsense. http://theplaystationshow.com/news/epic-edition-of-bulletstorm-sold-out-b-s/
Anyways just skype me saturday if you are around. Like I said we start about 8pm EST and you can stay for as long as you want or leave when you want. Email me MattL@theplaystationshow.com and I will give you my skype name. BTW what is your twitter?
Hey, If I’m around I wouldn’t mind going on the show for a short period of time. My twitter is Patrick_ORourke. I’ll send you an email later in the week.
It is a sad future. But trust me you will never be truly successful doing this, outside of getting a job with a ‘big dog’. Think of all the amateur gaming blogs that have made it big and ultimately are making money. I can only think of a handful. (I mean like one. Hip Hop gamer and who else?)
The difference between you and a major gaming blog? People will always value their opinions more than yours. No matter how correct and valuable your opinions are. This will never change especially considering what a farce the amateur gaming outlets have become.
The advice given to me by Anthony Gallegos from Rebel FM on our Episode 18 (The Rogue Gamer http://theplaystationshow.com/podcast/018-rogue-gamer-special-guest-star/) was ‘You MUST do something different than everyone else.’
I believe that is very good advice and it is something that even the larger sites are struggling with. I suggest you actually listen to our interview with him. It might be enlightening to an amateur blogger such as yourself. (If you can get over the dick sucking we do.)
I’ll check it out. That’s something every small gaming site struggles with, there are just far to many out there. I can think of a few that have made it, ripten.com is probably one of the best I can think of off hand.
Hip Hop gamer is so utterly terrible by the way.
We’re an opinion based site that’s our niche, whether that will make us succesful or not I don’t really know – time will tell.
Good luck with that strategy. Unless you have access to developers directly or are visiting all the gaming conventions you will never succeed as an amateur games journalist.
It’s either that or just turn into a copy and paste machine like sites such as gamingbolt.com, who does not actually offer an legitimate content outside of their horrid reviews.
Basically we are not REALLY attacking you, outside of having fun. Wars between tiny websites are the future!
That’s a sad sad future then. Look at any major gaming blog they do the exact same thing. I’m not going to justify the reasons for fostering a community on a given website, it’s pretty self explainatory.
We often do have writers attending major industry events by the way.
Your article has been flammed. What are you gonna do about it punk?
http://theplaystationshow.com/news/the-3ds-is-dead/
Well for starters I could simply delete the embedded link so your lovely website won’t get a back link.
But! Since your layout, content, writing style and general level of professionalism is so astoundingly high I will leave it in….
You make bullying you no fun. So I now give you a sad face! =(
Don’t worry I’ve made it fun, http://theplaystationshow.com/news/the-3ds-is-dead/comment-page-1/#comment-8101
My reply:
Clearly the comment of a proto-fascist who wants to destroy our freedoms and the 3DS!
(Actually it is not an attempt at syphoning traffic from your site. As I am really linking you back a ton in the story. If anything your story was an attempt for me to write a story so you could than syphon traffic to your site. Genius!)
BTW I did read your story, and my actual bone is not with you. What does bother me is the anecdotal evidence and ‘stories’ that are offered up on N4G. Your article or ‘discussion’ as you called it was nothing but an attempt at garnering hits from N4G. My story was just poking fun at your so called ‘discussion’ starter.
My advice for a journalism student? Stop writing flame bait articles and calling them ‘discussion starters’. DO start writing original work and not sticking with the bottom of the barrel, hit generating attempt at gaming journalism.
Also if you cannot tell my piece is not serious, than that is the fault of your reading comprehension. Not the writing. While I agree it is not the best work penned (I spent 5 minutes writing it) I never pretended like it was serious work, unlike what you are doing. Perhaps we should not think so highly of our own writing ability.
I challenge you to a write off!
If you don’t like how N4G operates don’t use it. It wasn’t intentional flame bate, I was suprised the story was even that succesful.
It’s the nature of the interwebs, controversy creates discussion. Sure it was an attempt at getting hits but what are you doing right now with this story?
The EXACT same thing.
If your issue was not me then maybe you should have directed your attack to N4G and not me or GameJudgment.
I don’t think highly of my own writing ability, I’m far from perfect and make a lot of mistakes. I can however pull together a coherent sentence together from time to time.
I also usually refrain from randomly attacking other websites for no apparent reason…
Um, I called this the moment Nintendo announced the 3DS. You think you’re breaking news here? Welcome to yesterday where I already said this. Get original ideas you idea thief.
I’m not breaking the story… nor am I even saying that this reflects the 3DS’s sales as a whole. I’m sure when NDP releases 3DS sales statistics we will all find that the console sold reasonably well.
Too expensive, low battery, no must-have games. Don’t see any reason to buy it.
The only reason I decided against getting it at launch was that there was absolutely nothing that I wanted to play… Until ocarina or Icarus or kingdom hearts or paper Mario come out that system is a gimmick for gimmicks sake
Ocarina of Time is definately a title I would be looking forward to on the system. I can see it actually making me shell out the money and buy one when the game finally comes out. People said the Ds’s touch screen was a gimmick, now touch screens are everywhere.
All i can say is tsk tsk tsk !
hahahaha !
Target and Walmart in my area still have them and I live in a big gaming area
I live in Ontario Canada.
Zellers isn’t known for having the best prices when it comes to do anything with video games. I picked mine up at BestBuy where it didn’t seem packed but at the last 15min of the store starting to open, everyone started coming in to wait (for the 3DS) I was 2nd in line, and grabbed a Black 3DS (everyone was getting the Blue, I was surprised), I looked to my left and I noticed everyone was just grabbing the Street Fighter there was only a few left so I grabbed one as well (even tho I have it for PS3, but meh why not). Also the first 25 customers get a kewl Nintendo shirt with many mario characters on it.
In the areas that they place a Zellers, are areas where people aren’t… wealthy… I’m not surprised at all so see them not sell like hotcakes at a place like Zellers, even Futureshop might sell half. Walmart BestBuy and Gamestop will sell much more if not sell out.
Like I said, I realize Zellers isn’t where people generally go to buy video games – I get that. I was still shocked that there was no line, no one rushing in the door the minuite it opened and the simple fact that only 2 copies were sold in 5 hours. I’ve seen lines in front of the store before and I’ve seen it sell out of specific games.
or maybe your store is an underrated piece of crap people don’t shop at.
The 3DS is selling well, either leave the shop and work somewhere else or get out of the dusty rock, check online and see how the device is selling well.
I don’t think the store is ‘underrated,’ wouldn’t that meant that it’s actually good and not a piece of crap? Anyways it definately is a massive shit hold but it’s in a location where there aren’t really any other large big box retail outlets directly near by. I don’t think there are any sales statistics online yet, it just came out yesterday, I expect there will be sometime today though (Monday).
Doubt that Target is the place where people would go first to get a 3DS.. only if you couldn’t find it elsewhere. And $250 is alot.. same problem with the PSP Go launch.. $50 more you get a PS3 or 360, $50 less you get a Wii and you could get a game with that $50.
That’s my point, I feel like $250 is a crap load of money for a portable gaming console. I remember being 12 or so when the Gameboy Advance Launched and I had trouble convincing my parents to shell out $139 for the thing – $250 never would have happened.
I got mine on Amazon in the UK as it was going for the lowest price over here. Loving it so far. I managed to get it for £187 and got a couple of games and some screen protectors too. The 3D works fine and the consoles other features are all great. Yes, it does other things than 3D. The Augmented Reality stuff is very impressive. Expect a better hardware review from me sometime soon. I’ve been a bit busy with my little sister’s birthday this weekend.
I watched a bunch of augmented reality demos the other day they were really impressive. AR is supposed to be the new thing in gaming especially portable gaming. Cellphone companies are pouring millions of dollars into researching it.
Much like Austin explained, I’m waiting for the price to drop on this 3D madness, then I’ll be biting at it. It’s waaaaaay too expensive, plain and simple. It’s a great feature, no doubt, but it’s not enough to jack the price up that high.
Plus, all of the games I saw for the 3DS aren’t coming out for a few months, like the Resident Evil titles and Metal Gear Solid. So I’ll wait for the bargain bin.
I’ve got a console, and that’s all I need at this point in video gaming game.
I will actually wait for the second generation of the 3DS because I am very sure by next year they will have improved on it like they always do, especial the battery life and I am also not buying it right now because of the price but I am definitely very impressed by it and it really appeals to me after i tried the demo at best buy.
That’s what I want to do, I expect there will probably be a redesign in the next year or so. I try to avoid purchasing the first run of consoles these days as well. My original DS lite had a variety of hardware related issues.
$250 USD for something that looks just like a DS, lasts only a two hours on one charge, gets you dizzy and offers games you’ve already played over and over on several other systems over the past 15 years?
It already sounds like something that begs a discount.
Lol. Ok, hardcore gamers have “scoffed” at the simplicity of DS games? Really? Every single DS game is overly simplistic? Okaaay. There’s plenty of hardcore gamers that own a DS (me being one of them), and there’s plenty of in-depth hardcore games on the DS. I’m not even going to bother naming any because there’s far too many. Arguably, theres more quality and ORIGINAL core games existing on the DS than the PSP. Just because the system has Nintendogs doesn’t mean every other game on the system is the same.
People like you who overly exaggerate things annoy the living shit out of me. In case you were asleep during e3 last year, 3DS will continue to have quality titles, and even STRONGER 3rd party support. Kojima is choosing to remake arguably the greatest MGS on it? That’s a huge win.
It’s funny how quickly people forget things. The Wii experienced a similar launch, where it saw attenuated success. On launch day I could go to any store and find Wiis on the shelf. 3 months later you couldn’t find them anywhere in the country, and that remained for more than a year. The original DS experienced a similar launch as well, with even FEWER units shipped to retailers. Nintendo even kept the GBA alive as a backup plan in case the DS failed. And we’ve all seen how both those systems ended up doing over time.
Jesus, it’s been 24 hrs since the thing went on sale. Let’s keep the sensationalism to yourselves for at least a week when we might perhaps get some numbers. Instead pulling out your ever so accurate crystal ball because you saw something at ONE store in the entire country in a span of FIVE hours
what are hardcore gamers?
I am not picking up a 3DS for two reasons. One, the price for something that doesn’t really do anything new (and most people already have), and two, because the 3D isn’t really that great on the device. Going along with these, my answer to whether it’s worth the price and why don’t i support it if I support 3D on PS3 and PC is the same: it’s already there. Yes, it’s true that for both you need a 3D ready monitor or TV, but those are upgrades that do a lot more and a practical for more than just some hand held gaming. Will I get them now? Probably not, but in a year or two their prices will be lower and by that time I’ll probably be looking to purchase a nice tv for home use, so it will be worth it.
Am I going to pick the 3DS at this time? Unfortunately, no. And one of the biggest reasons is the aforementioned price tag. As you have questioned us readers, is this hand-held system worth the $250.00? This is the same exact question I asked about the PSP and the PS3. But it was not so much the value (what you get), but the actual price. I declined the PSP and picked it up way later (2009), and I would’ve waited for the PS3 had they not removed backwards compatibility. For this 3DS, it feels kind of strange that you could get either the Wii or the Xbox Slim 4gb for ($50) cheaper, or the PS3 for just $50 more.
oh ya one of the big offeres is trade 5 or a DSI XL get $150 off at EBGAMES
lol, as a canadian you should know there are ALOT of deals for trade in’s to get $$ off the nintendo DS. Zellers is a horrible place to buy anything let along video games LOL you got bought out by target for a reason.
3ds will sell like hotcakes everywhere else but zellers because its ZELLERS lol.
It really wasn’t a buy out, they just purchased the HBC’s retail outlets not the actual company. Like I said to other readers, there has been lines in front of the store before. It’s in a location where there really aren’t any other big box retailers or video game stores. This is why I was surprised ,I’ve seen DSi’s and DS’s fly off the shelves before.
Most people don’t trade in things to get new gaming stuff so that factor really doesn’t play into anything. If it was me that definitely would be an incentive to purchase a DSI from somewhere else. But for the average gamer? Not so much.