History Says the 3DS is Doomed
Nintendo's past sheds light on the fate of the 3DS.
July 29, 2011
User icon for OttselLevel 11
by Jack DeVries

With the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS getting a price drop, Nintendo hopes to turn around the lackluster sales of the handheld and get back on track. There's just one problem: That has never worked for Nintendo.

The fact is that Nintendo has never turned around the failure of a console or handheld by doing a price drop. What's more, every system they've had that had a price drop within six months turned out to be a commercial disappointment.

Now, it's easy to point to the Virtual Boy every time Nintendo sales falter, but it really is the classic example, and there are some unfortunate parallels between that system and the 3DS. Not to say that the 3DS is the colossal failure that the Virtual Boy ended up being, but there are some other similarities with the 3DS, and Nintendo's other consoles.

Just look at the other evidence. Back in the mid-90s, Nintendo was on top of the video game heap. They had effectively won the console wars with the Super Nintendo. However the launch of the Nintendo 64 was marred by lackluster sales. Whether it was due to more expensive games, or the competition's head start, the N64 did not perform as well as predicted, and Nintendo lost the lead. They tried multiple price drops, but it didn't save the system (which had some of the best games of the time).

- Brian Altano

The next generation didn't fare any better with the GameCube. Coming into the race in third place, Nintendo was never able to catch up, and lost more ground to the Xbox and the PlayStation 2.

Both of these systems got significant price drops within six months of their release. And both of these systems continued to underperform for their entire lifespan, despite great games, and additional price cuts.

By comparison, Nintendo's popular systems, the ones that succeeded, don't get price drops for years. It took the NES six years to get a discount. And the Wii went almost three before it got a cut. The Nintendo DS only got a price drop after Nintendo released the DS Lite over a year and a half later.

Is it a sure thing that the 3DS is going to continue to underperform? No, not necessarily. All of these situations are different, and the effort Nintendo is putting into incentivizing the system is unprecedented. But it's something to be wary of. History has shown that when consumers decide they don't want a system right out of the gate, it's really hard to ever change their mind.

其他机种有没有这么快就降价的。。。。。

日本的銷量趨勢，3DS也是類似N64和GC

GC上好歹有一些不错的游戏,
3DS ??...我就操了.

gc好歹有gba补血，现在可是全线不利

posted by wap, platform: Nokia (E71)

老任是不是隔几个主机就得低迷一个。。。
不过这回主要是太照顾第三方，而第三方又不给力吧

引用:

原帖由 jlapton 于 2011-7-30 09:02 发表
posted by wap, platform: Nokia (E71)

老任是不是隔几个主机就得低迷一个。。。
不过这回主要是太照顾第三方，而第三方又不给力吧

第三方已经很给力了，主要是机器有缺陷，任天堂开发力也不如以前

这个也可作为参考, 但不是一定, PS3发售后前两年的销量也是和现在的3DS一样, 要死不活的
后来作品多了, 改良型出来价格下去后就越活越滋润

3DS降价我觉得作用是有的, 但效果不会很大, 主要还是软件问题

看发售表发售日未定的部分，第三方是很给力。看已发售游戏，那都是些什么东西？

雷顿，街霸，生化，doa，其实不比gba和ds差，主要是被3ds拖累了

posted by wap, platform: Nokia (E71)

被反人类的硬件拖累了。

posted by wap, platform: Nokia

生于忧患死于安乐。

历史总是惊人的相似

貌似3ds是任地狱历史定价最高的？

我说你们哪个就不能好心的翻译一编再贴出来？