Nintendo 3DS dropping to $169.99

[Bolivar]

Nintendo slashes 3DS price to $170, announces 3DS Ambassadors program | Warp Zoned

So yeah, is this the fastest price cut ever? After only a few months of being available, the 3DS will shortly be $169.99.

I know I've talked a lot of crap about the 3DS, but considering this is how much I paid for my DS Lite at a time when it too had a new Mario game coming out for it... I really have no excuse now!!!

"Just when I thought I was out..."

[Shattered Dreamer]

To be honest I'm still not tempted! Apart from Ocarina Of Time (which I can play on a N64 emulator) there's nothing about the 3DS I would want. Maybe if I played one I'd feel different? My younger cousin who was over the weekend had one but I never thought to ask him could I have a go, oh well

[Jessweeee♪]

I think that was the price of the original DS at launch! Still, I'm not at a time in my life where I can shell out that much money for vidya games :<

[Polnareff]

The DS actually launched at 149.99. That said I would rather wait until the 3DS drops to 129.99 before getting one, which will most likely happen within the next few months, since there's not many games on it and there isn't gonna be until around November. I'm already seeing used ones go for about 180 bucks and it's not helping sales.

With Capcom canceling Mega Man Legends 3 there is no reason for me to get the 3DS, outside of the two RE games and DoA Dimensions.

And thanks a lot, Nintendo, for only allowing people who adopted the 3DS early (for god knows what reason) to have their pick of free games that won't even be on the service after August 12.

[Del Murder]

I'll wait until some better games are out before I buy, like Super Mario or Star Fox. Maybe the price will be even lower by then.

[Jessweeee♪]

So far the only game I'm interested in for 3DS is the Professor Layton/Ace Attorney crossover.

[Slothy]

Nintendo must be pretty desperate to increase sales. A price cut of about $80 on a handheld within a few months of launch is insane.

Not insane enough to make me want one. Honestly, I was really only interested in Mega Man Legends 3 for the system, so there would have to be a sizable miracle from Capcom, and a deeper price cut to get me to buy it for one game.

[ljkkjlcm9]

Guess I'm one of the few who own one. My two games that I have right now are both great games... Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars and Zelda (never played the master quest so finally doing so). I thank them for the 20 free games, really helps take away that 80 price sting, especially since it probably works out to be about the same, if not a bit more than 80 dollars for those games!

Add to that the fact of all these awesome games coming like Kid Icarus and Mario of course, and that I never had Starfox 64, I'm looking forward to this fall. Honestly the lack of tons of great titles has probably been better for me, because when there are lots of great titles, I buy them all and some just sit there for months waiting to be played anyways. This has helped pace me better and truly enjoy the two titles I had.

As for "desperate to increase sales," it's not selling as well as they hoped, but it isn't selling horribly either. The DS did pretty bad when it first launched as well. I think this is more a reaction to the Vita's pricing, which almost everyone thought would be much more expensive. I think Nintendo probably overpriced it in the first place expecting the Vita to be higher.

THE JACKEL

[Del Murder]

I agree that this is probably more related to Vita's lower than expected price than it is to low sales or lack of games.

[Bolivar]

Wow just looked it up and the DS Lite was actually $129.99 at launch... what an amazing system and time for games...

ANYWAY, I think the price drop makes it pretty enticing considering zelda just came out and the holiday lineup is pretty nice. On the one hand, Ocarina is much more than a 3D-enabled port, it's definitely been brought more in line with the modern age, and you could really just play it in 2D as an enhanced remake and have a blast. Super Mario 3DS is looking amazing, it reminds me a lot of the excitement surrounding New Super Mario Bros. I think it makes the 3DS just an enticing option, for me at least.

I'm also wondering if they'll use Mario as a platform to demonstrate the kinds of games possible on the system, much like NSMB was. I had been using palm devices on and off for years before the DS came out, but every game on NSMB was better than any palm game I had played up to that point. Do you think they could do the same for 3D, to differentiate it as offering something different for gameplay as well as visuals?

I know the system has had a slow start and led to games getting delayed or cancelled. If you were looking forward to Mega Man Legends 3 I definitely suggest checking out the post in our forums about the movement to bring it back. Yes, a lot of movements hardly have a chance at all but these people seem to have a pretty good grasp on things and it only takes a minute of your time to help out, register as a servbot, etc.

As far as the Vita, this does strike a pretty hard blow against Sony, especially because I think there's a feeling, delays and cancellations aside, that this is going to have some seriously killer games coming to it. Eventually. The Vita does an incredible amount of cool stuff and has some of the coolest online community features I've ever heard of, but this puts Nintendo back in the game for me. I'm probably going to get one of the two this holiday season, but I'm not as certain as to which one it would be as I was a day ago.

[champagne supernova]

According to IGN, the Vita might be launching in fall, which means that Nintendo needs to increase market share now. A price-cut makes sense. Whether it will make much of a difference will have to be seen because the DS' biggest problem hasn't been its price-tag, but its lack of killer games.

[CimminyCricket]

I'm still debating on whether or not I'm going to get the 3DS, even with the price cut. I still play my DS Lite a lot and I still have some GBA games that I play and I don't like using my GBA (I have one of the tiny ones that looks like an NES controller) because it's so small.

[Pike]

I'd buy it for OoT alone (I have no access to the original at this time) but I'm completely broke.

Maybe someday in the future, I won't be, at which point I'll definitely be getting it.

[Del Murder]

OOT was a great game, but it's not really something I have the desire to play over and over, like with the original Zelda or A Link to the Past. Does the remake update it at all or add anything new?

[Bastian]

OOT was a great game, but it's not really something I have the desire to play over and over, like with the original Zelda or A Link to the Past. Does the remake update it at all or add anything new?

Yes, and yes. First of all it's in 3-fricken-D, dude. Second of all it has been completely remade from scratch with much better models and textures and animations and on and on (curiously, though, while the music was remade from scratch, it was remade to sound exactly like the old N64 version).

Also, it adds a Master Quest unlockable after completing the game, wherein enemies hit twice as hard dungeons are remixed the landscape is flipped puzzles are a little different.

And then there's the boss rush mode.

Anyway.

Nintendo completely mismanaged the launch. They have done NOTHING to sell people on the awesome features of the 3DS: the glasses free 3D itself. I can see why that may be difficult to explain since it's something that can only be experienced in person, but they should have done more to make it experienceable.

The augmented reality stuff is mind of mindblowing. They should have had more adverts that make use of that.

They finally added Netflix. Well, that should have been available at launch. And you know what else should have been? The ability to stream glasses free 3D movies. There's no other portable device that can do that. The 3DS CAN, but they still haven't made that function available.

And the ability to take 3D pics and vids. It CAN but they haven't made a big deal about that and they should because that's pretty freaking awesome.

And its horsepower? Where the hell is the marketing talking about how much better it is than the 3DS? Nowhere. Nintendo doesn't like to talk about horsepower (the Wii U is much more powerful than the xbox 360, according to game devs, but Nintendo refuse to brag about it. Or even talk about it) but people need to know that it's not JUST a DS with glasses free 3D, but a completely brand new device.

And the launch games. Abysmal. Nintendo should have had a major first party game (OoT or Super Mario 3DS) at launch instead of months after and major third party games at launch as well.

With the price cut and the slowly forthcoming titles (can't wait to play Super Mario 3DS and Kid Icarus!) and a new take on marketing, I think the 3DS will turn out just fine. It's just stupid that Nintendo f'ed the launch up so bad.