Nintendo Cuts $80 From 3DS Price in Hopes to Boost Sales
To combat a horrible fiscal first quarter, Nintendo has severely slashed the price of the 3DS handheld gaming unit by $80.
Thursday Nintendo announced a drastic reduction in price of the just-released Nintendo 3DS handheld gaming unit that will become effective as of August 12. The news unsurprisingly arrives right after company reports revealed (pdf) that Nintendo suffered its first-ever quarterly loss since it began reporting quarterly earnings back in 2003.
According to company financial reports, Nintendo booked an operating loss of 37.7 billion yen for the first fiscal (April-June) quarter. This loss was largely blamed on poor sales of the 3DS which donned a $249.99 price tag here in the States when it launched back in March – a loss also powered by a limited library of games at launch and thereafter. Previous reports have also indicated that developers are actually canceling 3DS projects, one of which wanted to "wait and see" how the handheld performs this year.
To combat the quarterly loss, Nintendo said it plans to respond by reducing its annual net profit forecast to 20 billion yen and its annual operating profit forecast to 35 billion yen, an alarming drop considering the company originally predicted a 175 billion yen profit for the fiscal year. This will be Nintendo's lowest annual operating profit since 1985.
The financial reports also revealed that only 710,000 3DS units were sold between April and June 2011, bringing the total number of units sold worldwide to 4.32 million (830,000 in the U.S. total) -- Nintendo was originally expecting to sell that many units within the first few weeks alone. But the numbers may actually start climbing now, as Nintendo is reducing the cost of the handheld by $80 come August 12, bringing the hefty $249.99 down to a more digestible $169.99 price point.
"For anyone who was on the fence about buying a Nintendo 3DS, this is a huge motivation to buy one now," said Reggie Fils-Aime, Nintendo of America president. "We are giving shoppers every incentive to pick up a Nintendo 3DS, from an amazing new price to a rapid-fire succession of great games."
Just recently Nintendo unleashed the Netflix app for the 3DS system, granting access to the $7.99 movie/TV on-demand video streaming service. Nintendo also launched the Nintendo Video service which delivers "short 3D videos from the worlds of music, comedy, animation and Hollywood."
For those who already purchased a Nintendo 3DS, the company is handing out 20 free downloadable games from the Nintendo eShop. These free games are available to anyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS system and uses a wireless broadband Internet signal to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once before 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 11. Nintendo will automatically register these users into the new "Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors" program. This is where the 20 free games come in, broken down into two groups of 10:
Starting Sept. 1
Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors will be able to download 10 NES Virtual Console games at no charge and before they are available in the Nintendo eShop to the general public. These games, including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber and The Legend of Zelda, are slated to become paid downloadable games, but Ambassadors get them early for free. Once the paid versions of the games are posted to the Nintendo eShop later in the year, the updated versions will be available to Ambassadors for download at no cost.
By the end of 2011
Nintendo will provide Ambassadors with 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. These include games like Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. These games will be available exclusively to Ambassadors, and Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future.
Will the price hack and free games be enough to jolt Nintendo's profits back to life? "We believe the company's focus on doing both hardware/software, while noble, will ultimately limit their ability to be relevant in a 'smartphone in every pocket' world," said analyst David Gibson said in a report, adding that Nintendo needs to take "radical" steps like purchasing a U.S.-based video game publisher and making one of its popular IPs a Nintendo exclusive.
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"$169.99 price point"
meh...
I have a DS Lite.. That price still isn't low enough for me to get excited.
I think it would actually have to be under $100 to get my interest but that's just me...
Ok. Nobody buy it now and see if it goes lower. A wii console is still cheaper.....
Maybe if it were done over a week ago... even now, its not effective for another two weeks or so... too little, too late.
The problem is still that they don't have any games for the thing. Sure, I'd love to have Ocarina of Time in my pocket so I could play it whenever I want, but that's literally the only game that looks like fun at the moment--and I certainly can't see many people paying for the system (even at it's reduced price) just to play a 13 year-old N64 port that has been re-released on both the Gamecube and Wii already.
Well I guess they don't realize with this economy, folks are going to spend $250 for a game system with a small library.
Maybe the big N shouldn't have "pulled a Sega" and rushed a system out of the door with no games (*cough*Saturn*cough*).
A relatively weak system, with short battery life, small game library and a price that rivals livingroom consoles... yeah, no thx. Had it been 200€ on launch, don't know if I care to buy it anymore, maybe when Pokémon 3D comes out..
Ok. Nobody buy it now and see if it goes lower. A wii console is still cheaper.....
Yeah, and the Wii is also 5 years old.
"NINTENDO CUTS PRICE OF 3DS BY $80"
Well i guess i paid a premium to usher in new tech. . . wait what's this second line?
"NINTENDO OFFERING 20 FREE GAMES TO ALL WHO PAID FULL PRICE"
I love you Nintendo. So very much. You didn't have to do that. Here, take more of my money.
If Nintendo would add a cellular chip, and sim card slot to the device I would be interested. Nintendo has lost the mobile market, their best bet now is a bluetooth controller and android/iphone app.
Also, everybody who's complaining about "NO GAMES" why don't you actually take a look at the small, albeit well rounded library. Pilotwings, Ridge Racer 3ds, SFIV, Ocarina, and Ghost Recon are all top shelf, fun, well made games.
Add on the fact that you can literally get for like 5 bucks most all DSi Ware titles and 3D Classics, as well as virtual console games, that arguement no longer holds up.
i think they must give a free 3ds when you buy a pspvita so that they can have all pepole use both systems and that way they can earn some money by selling dragon quest and pokemon for 70$ each cuz thats why ppl buy it in the first place altho it souds dum but who will buy 3ds in the first place of course compared to the pspvita and you might say the lost some money making the 3ds but i am sure that piece of junk cost them at most 50$ i mean wtf 8bit games?
>>selling dragon quest and pokemon for 70$ each
>>who will buy 3ds in the first place of course compared to the pspvita
>>that piece of junk cost them at most 50$
>>8bit games?
Trollface.jpg the whole time.
Sarcasm Alert!!!
How about if buy 6 games you get the 3ds for freee....
I love nintendo this system was always my favorite. i loved the cube when everyone of my friends did not enjoy it, i don't want nintendo to ever fail because i feel they can make kids have fun on their systems like i did. the sorry truth is USA i a violent country who only wants to play FPS. i hate FPS i want adventure/Strategy games and nintendo you always delivered this to me. I HATE ONLINE GAMING, its ruining the story line in games. the story matters and this is why nintendo will be the only thing holding me back from being a 100% PC gamer fan.
I traded my wii for a 360 and its the worse thing i ever did. the wii has so much more creative titles then shooter shooter and of course shooter titles on the 360
If Nintendo would gave me this 3DS fore FREE and gave me 40 FREE games I still wouldn't care.
I think one factor Nintendo never added into their figures is the fact many people bought a DS system to pirate games on it. The 3DS is not so piracy friendly, so they've lost the pirate demographic. I don't think they mind, but it is lost system sales. This sudden price cut could be more likely due to the multiple 3D phones coming out, already ruining a niche that N might have thought they'd hold onto for awhile.
Still, I'm not that phased by the Nintendo haters. They made a mistake, and are not only cutting the price to adjust accordingly, but are giving gifts to those that have already bought it. It's not often I see that kind of customer service these days.
Any kid would rather buy candy instead of 3ds.
ive still got the original ds and i dont think ill really bother with the ds
the only games i ussed to play on it were harvest moon, pokemon and that rune one
oh yeah and a couple others
im glad i decided to get a new phone instead it was a much better choice
Nintendo has always had the best costumer service and i always get a AMERICAN when i call them, unlike Microsoft
they are such nice people
Those 20 free games are not so good...
That's more like it 249 was way too high. I'd def be checking one out now, but i would have been pissed if i would have bought one for 249 just to see it drop 80 dollars a week later to 169. I prob would have returned it and got my 229 back and then bought another one for 169 and saved me 80 dollars. lol
for anyone that doesn't have an R4 card those games are would actually be a pretty good incentive. i dunno, the only games that i have played on my DS in the past 2 years have been mario kart and pokemon, mario kakrt was terrible on wii, i will see how the game is to whether i buy this in the future
i think they must give a free 3ds when you buy a pspvita so that they can have all pepole use both systems and that way they can earn some money by selling dragon quest and pokemon for 70$ each cuz thats why ppl buy it in the first place altho it souds dum but who will buy 3ds in the first place of course compared to the pspvita and you might say the lost some money making the 3ds but i am sure that piece of junk cost them at most 50$ i mean wtf 8bit games?
holy lack of punctuation batman!
they could make it 80 bucks but if there are no games its not worth buying.
Its shity technology . Why not make the FKn screen bigger? well bc nintendo was thinking profits. they were thinking that all the nerds were going to buy this at any price and make billions again just like they did for the wii. I thinkt he nerds are finaly catching on .
If Nintendo would gave me this 3DS fore FREE and gave me 40 FREE games I still wouldn't care.
Ok there.... you lie like a rug.
Having this news item both bolded and with the red arrow is redundant. It is like the designers couldn't decide which was better, and then used both. Using both is worse than either by themselves. Less is the new more.
I have a DS lite and haven't touched it in well over a year. Even this price is too high IMO. I think yatzee best sums up the 3D effect, your constantly switching it on and off cause you can't get comfortable with it. Off and your wasting your money, on and its a horrible experience. (I don't get the headaches just strangely confused) IMO it needs a bigger screen at least.
my plan: sell dsi, buy 3ds 2 days before sale, register it, go back to store after sale starts and collect the difference and 20 games =]
you cannot hit a home run every time.
Nintendo still has some tricks up their sleeve