Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

http://www.destructoid.com/nintendo-...?s=50#comments

So things haven't been going smoothly for 3DS. I haven't really seen what all the complaints were about, but Nintendo seems to have taken it to heart. While I did expect 3DS to see a price drop before Vita's launch, I wasn't expecting it by $80.

Yep, seems this happens sometime in August.

But if you paid the $250 launch price, they are offering free games and lots of them for your purchase. How does twenty games sound?

Ten of them will be NES classics available to adopters new and old, but exclusive to early adopters will be ten Game Boy Advance games. And not just any GBA games, some of the good stuff.

Mentioned GBA games include:

Mario Kart Super Circut
Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgames
Metroid Fusion
Mario Vs. Donkey Kong

These and five others will be made available exclusively to early adopters in the months to come. After the early adopters have had their go, they will later be released for sale on 3DS eShop.

I'm not going to complain. Not one bit. That's some damn good damage control going on, even better than what PSN offered over its outage - which people really had a right to complain about.

There's five more to be announced, but if the initial five are any indication, its good stuff.

I just like that GBA games are now finally confirmed to be happening and happening soon. So, SE, get on thet FFVI GBA VC port plz.

[Kailea]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

yeah good lord, I have to admit I read the titles and said WTF! But 20 free games? ok ^.^

Still though, then hell with the price drop? Did Nintendo forget to take their medicine again?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

Well the Q1 reports were not that good for 3DS. Its not the gloom-and-doom D-Toid and most certainly Kotaku are spinning it to be, but it is a loss for Nintendo (even if its a drop in the bucket for then in the grand scheme of things).

Truth be told, DS had the same concerns at this point and it turned around in a big way, so I think 3DS will, too.

Yes, Icemage, before you come in with the derp, we have smartphones now and times are different, but omitting the complete lack of sophistication in smartphone games isn't going to help you. There are gamers that want that sophistication and kids will want handhelds no matter what.

[Armando]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

Now this is a marketing strategy I can get behind. Everyone wins.

I just hope Nintendo doesn't release an improved 3DS shortly after I buy one. Then again, it's not like the 3DS has a weak backlight or anything like that, right?

[Icemage]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

Well the Q1 reports were not that good for 3DS. Its not the gloom-and-doom D-Toid and most certainly Kotaku are spinning it to be, but it is a loss for Nintendo (even if its a drop in the bucket for then in the grand scheme of things).

Truth be told, DS had the same concerns at this point and it turned around in a big way, so I think 3DS will, too.

Yes, Icemage, before you come in with the derp, we have smartphones now and times are different, but omitting the complete lack of sophistication in smartphone games isn't going to help you. There are gamers that want that sophistication and kids will want handhelds no matter what.

Obligatory derp.

Obviously 710K units sold worldwide in the past 4 months made Nintendo nervous, and they knew developers wouldn't be happy to hear that either. Certainly their shareholders aren't happy.

Pretty good damage control overall, but I'd still take a wait-and-see approach to see if it gains enough traction with consumers. I'm sure it will to at least some extent, and bring back some of the people vacillating between the 3DS and PS Vita. Not that free games is ever bad or anything, but we'll see if price was the problem in the first place for a large demographic (I don't think it was, personally) and whether the free games will help the 3DS shake off the "nothing to play on it" reputation it's gotten (also questionable until we see what effect if any this has on developer enthusiasm for the 3DS).

We'll see if Nintendo backs this move with a big marketing push - something they've never done for the 3DS for some inexplicable reason.

Now this is a marketing strategy I can get behind. Everyone wins.

I just hope Nintendo doesn't release an improved 3DS shortly after I buy one. Then again, it's not like the 3DS has a weak backlight or anything like that, right?

The only serious feature I think needs work on the 3DS is the inability to use its premier function (3D) for more than 3 hours because of the battery life. If there's one thing Nintendo needs to find a way to fix in future revisions, that's probably the big one.


Icemage

[Armando]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

This is probably a stupid question but I assume since Virtual Console purchases are tied to the console and not some sort of account, I'd have to buy games a second time to play them on a 3DS, right?

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

This is probably a stupid question but I assume since Virtual Console purchases are tied to the console and not some sort of account, I'd have to buy games a second time to play them on a 3DS, right?

The VC games are tied to the console as they were for Wii and DSi.

The 10 NES games might be a one-off deal anyway. While 3DS is more than capable of running NES, SNES and N64 stuff, I'm fairly sure Nintendo wants to keep VC games for 3DS as past handheld games rather than other hardware. T-16 seems to be the exception because the Turbo Xpress was a portable version of that system. Yeah, Sega had the Nomad, but I don't think they're doing Genesis games.

Its the GBA games worth watching here anyway, though I have to wonder if Nintendo pushing them out so soon won't hurt the Sega and T16 stuff. Also gotta wonder if there are plans to have VC support for Neo Geo Pocket.

[Armando]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

The VC games are tied to the console as they were for Wii and DSi.

The 10 NES games might be a one-off deal anyway. While 3DS is more than capable of running NES, SNES and N64 stuff, I'm fairly sure Nintendo wants to keep VC games for 3DS as past handheld games rather than other hardware.

Figures. And a damned real shame too, because the 3DS is the first Nintendo handheld to sport 240 vertical pixels on its screen. The DS can't display NES/SNES/Genesis/etc games without cropping off 48 lines or doing some ugly warping.

Guess I'll have to keep using flash carts and emulators.

[Malacite]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

Methinks someone got spooked by a certain handheld's lower-than-expected pricing point (along with low sales etc.)





Still no word on the shitty battery life though? I can wait longer anyhow, you know, seeing as the one game I really wanted most got canceled & all.

[Armando]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

Still no word on the shitty battery life though?

You say it as if the PS Vita will have a better battery life despite its superior hardware.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

]Still no word on the shitty battery life though? I can wait longer anyhow, you know, seeing as the one game I really wanted most got canceled & all.

The battery life is actually fine when you properly adjust your brightness settings and use power-save. 3DS has those features, just like HDTVs do.

Running everything at full brightness in 3D is going to get you the shorter time, that's where the estimates come from - going full blast.The 5 setting is honestly too bright, especially without power save on, so I run my at a 4 with Power Save on and can get about 7 hours out of a 3DS game, 10 if I'm running a DS game.

Also, the world is bigger than Mega Man.

[Cheezeman3000]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

I run my at a 4 with Power Save on and can get about 7 hours out of a 3DS game, 10 if I'm running a DS game.

I'm inclined to not believe this statement since all other accounts I've seen put it at 5.5 hours max.

But, this price drop has definitely moved my hand. I will be buying the system tonight at Best Buy then asking for their 'price match' on August 12th to get the $80 back.

[Icemage]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

You say it as if the PS Vita will have a better battery life despite its superior hardware.

It's quite possible actually. The PS Vita will be using an OLED screen, which uses less power than even traditional LCD, let alone the double-LCD-screen 3D tech that the 3DS uses. Of course, the processor is going to use up more power, so it's still an open question, but it probably won't be in the 3 hour range unless Sony is feeling suicidal. 5 hours is probably a good guess, give or take.


Icemage

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

PSP was wildly varied on its battery life.

I could get a pretty good stretch out of Dissidia Duodecim, but Kingdom Hearts BBS was a massive power hog if you wanted a smooth framerate and the framerate is sort of critical there. That even with the installtion to easy things in place.

Realistically, the harder you push 3D graphics on handhelds, the bigger the drain - and 3DS is asking for stuff to be rendered twice in real time to accomodate both eyes. Collapsing it to 2D will get you some more battery time, but that all depends on how important 3D is to the particular game you're playing

Some games I could go without, like Street Fighter and DoA, but the 3D does lend to some better visuals and sometimes the sense of depth does help particular games. I can't imagine playing OOT3D without the effect, particularly since the game doesn't lose out on framerate for being in 3D as some 3DS titles like DOA Dimensions clearly do.

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On the Vita side of things developers have confirmed the rumor that Vita has cut the RAM back from 512 to 256. It was assumed this cut was made - along with the choice of making 3G an option - at helping reduce the cost of Vita and keep it competitive with 3DS at $250.

Well, there goes that idea.

I still think Nintendo didn't do this so much out of fear of the Vita, more to the end Nintendo knew they could get away with it and come up roses in the long term because they sell hardware at a profit. Sony tends to start out selling hardware at a loss and couldn't possibly afford to make that kind of drop within the early years of the system.

[Icemage]

Re: Nintendo 3DS to see $80 price drop, rewards early adopters

I still think Nintendo and Sony both have an uphill battle with both the 3DS and PS Vita marketing no matter what happens to the pricing.

I mean, when you've got commercials for new smartphones that feature Angry Birds, I'd say that's a pretty solid sign that a significant number of people are OK with quick 5-minute gaming apps like Angry Birds when they're on the go.

That doesn't mean that people who want a handheld with actually good controls aren't a viable market, but it does mean that a lot of those soccer moms who bought a Gameboy for Tetris are more or less out of the buying demographic for a dedicated handheld gaming device.

It will be interesting to observe whether either Nintendo or Sony can carve enough of a niche out of dedicated gamers to set up a viable install base for their handhelds. Right now, I'm somewhat skeptical that either one will reach mainstream success without a major catalyst (Pokemon 3DS for instance).


Icemage