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Nintendo Slashes Profit Forecast and 3DS Price
Daetrin writes "Nintendo has announced a large loss for the first quarter of the year and lowered its annual profit forecast. In the three months prior to June 30th Nintendo lost 25.5 billion yen ($328 million) and the forecast is being reduced about 80%, from 110 billion yen ($1.4 billion) to 20 billion yen ($257 million). Nintendo is blaming poor sales of the 3DS and is responding by announcing a price cut from $250 to $170 on August 12. In order to mollify early adopters of the system Nintendo also announced that anyone who has logged into the Nintendo eShop before the price cut will receive 10 free NES games and 10 free GBA games. The GBA games won't be available until later in the year, but Nintendo claims they will be exclusive to the '3DS Ambassadors' and will not be available for purchase on the store in the future."
A related op-ed at Wired suggests the new price is still too high, given the rise of cheap portable games on various app stores.
You've just named the precise reasons that the original Game Boy beat its competitors:
- Better battery life (as in a USABLE battery life)
- Better games
3DS has nothing in the way of a "killer app", the screen issues are still problematic, and I know of nobody willing to pay that much for a portable device for gaming. Then again, I also remember the fiasco that was the original GBA, which didn't even have a backlight and couldn't be played without arranging a ton of lamps like some professional fucking photography studio. It was downright hilarious when I saw someone take apart their GBA SP and they discovered that Nintendo had literally ripped off the Afterburner design for their own GBA lighting system.
One of the prime target demographics for the Nintendo handheld consoles is children. Nintendo themselves have warned that children under 6 should not play 3D games, and adults should play for no more than 30 minutes at a time. Parents know that policing how long their kids play a portable video game system is not only undesirable, but nigh on impossible. The kind of parents who would spend hundreds of dollars on a toy for their kids are the same kind of parents who are going to be concerned when they hear reports that the toy may strain and damage the eyesight of their kids. It's a marketing nightmare for Nintendo.
Nintendo just announced that they lost over $300million in three months. I would say that the "need to worry" part is not really in question, whether or not you agree.
You are welcome on my lawn.
One of the things that is really killing Nintendo is the insanely strong yen(near record highs vs. both the dollar and euro). Unlike Microsoft, and to a lesser extent Sony, Nintendo's costs are almost entirely in yen, their revenue almost entirely in euros and dollars. Obviously Nintendo is incredibly nonplussed about the yen, and will join a growing chorus of companies asking prime minister Kan to intervene. All those yen hoarders better take note, the intervention is going to happen sooner rather than later.
Monstar L
3D movie demand was actually pretty soft as this summer went on. 3D TVs aren't selling well compared to their 2D counterparts, and even when they do people don't usually use them in 3D mode.
And of course, the 3DS is a failure.
This 3D thing is mostly manufacturers playing follow the leader with nobody bothering to ask "does this stuff actually work well?"
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
That's an excellent point. Sega is eternally grateful that Sonic kept them relevant as a console manufacturer so that they never had to stoop to porting their franchises to other platforms.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
As one of those early adopters, i have to say that i knew what i was getting into when i chose to wait in line to get my hands on a 3DS the first day. Anyone who does so without considering the possibility of an initially slow release schedule and possible price cuts is a fool. (Not to mention first run hardware bugs and in rare cases the possibility that the device will bomb in the market completely and be discontinued.)
And i, like many other people, was expecting that Nintendo was going to have to cut prices before the holiday season in order to compete effectively with the unexpectedly cheap Playstation Vita.
However i do have to admit that i wasn't expecting the price cuts to be this deep and this early. Maybe $250 was a little high, and $170 certainly doesn't seem like an unreasonable point for competing against the $250/$300 Vita, but it seems like perhaps two separate price cuts would have been in order. One down to $200 or $210 now, and then another price cut announced right before the release of the Vita.
But before too many other early adopters start complaining about how they're getting ripped off, remember that Sony had some pretty tough times in the early months (years?) of the PS3 launch, and at the time people were lambasting them for not cutting the price of the PS3. So which do you want? A company that responds when market conditions seem to warrant it, or one that sticks to the initial price point come hell or high water? (And all the trolls going on about how this means Nintendo is clearly doomed, note that Sony did eventually recover from those early problems. Nintendo certainly isn't out of the game yet.)
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Sorry, when i made the submission thursday morning that page was freely available, i didn't realize it was going to get moved behind a paywall less than 24 hours later.
However here's an alternate source from Bloomberg with most of the same details. And one from cnet.
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"the 3ds just plays games that cost $30 and up"
That's like saying a fillet knife just fillets fish while your ax can cut wood and fish and thus is superior.
It was downright hilarious when I saw someone take apart their GBA SP and they discovered that Nintendo had literally ripped off the Afterburner design for their own GBA lighting system.
Let's be fair here, though, how many ways are there to properly design a front-light for a reflective color LCD display?
More Twoson than Cupertino
Some games retail in holland for about 50 euro's.
Really? The standard 3DS price for games in the US is $40. It's nice to know that the tradition of "overpriced for Europe" is continuing. (Let's see, according to Google, 50 Euros is ... $75. Ouch. Also, bets on when Slashdot finally realizes there's a Euro symbol and allows people to use it, instead of it coming out â? I'm guessing never, because apparently allowing the Euro symbol means they must allow BIDI marks. No, really! That's the excuse.)
As for the zelda remake... that is the MUST have title? Come one, that should have been a freebee or a special bundle.
First off, yes, it's by far the best title for the system. By 16 points on Metacritic at present, in fact. (At time of posting, Zelda 3D is 95, and the next highest is Dead or Alive Dimensions at 79.)
Secondly, I disagree it should be free, but bundling it with the 3DS - especially considering the price drop - would have been a good idea. The 3DS comes with no games (no, be honest, AR Games and Face Raiders don't count), and it could really use a good bundled title.
In the end, I think the 3DS will, eventually, replace the DS. It really is a better handheld in every way - if you ignore the battery life issue. So only after Nintendo solves the battery life issue.
Assuming they can solve the battery life issue.
Not before.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.