Nintendo 3DS Message Board older than one year ago

After clogging up shops for months, used 3DS units are suddenly become hot (well, hotter) with the 3DS now ¥4,000 cheaper and sales doubling. It's thought the spike is because of the free games Nintendo's offering. [Media Create] More »

#downloadables I can understand leaving Mario Picross for the original Game Boy in black and white, but in this day and age a WiiWare game needs to be completely filled with vibrant splashes of color. Shame on you, Monochrome Racing. More »

If you've never tested your brain for picross compatibility, you can do so today with the latest Virtual Console game on eShop. Try Mario's Picross and you'll either have an awesome time making little pixel pictures out of number puzzles, or throw your 3DS down the stairs. Good thing the price for replacements is going down!

WiiWare offers a novel take on the racing genre: Monochrome Racing (also out on PS Minis), a game that takes place in a fully monochrome environment, in which you must keep your car "charged" and moving with color by picking up items.

#3ds If you own (and use) a Nintendo 3DS, you've probably noticed that the system's top screen can get marked up and scratched rather easily, just by closing and carrying it around for the sake of Street Passing. More »

If the angrier half of the comments on our post about the Nintendo 3DS' massive, uncharacteristically early price drop was any indication, those who bought the handheld at its original $250 price point are miffed. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata understands these frustrations, which he addressed in an apologetic statement yesterday, as translated by Giant Bomb.

"If the software creators and those on the retail side are not confident that the Nintendo 3DS is a worthy successor to the DS and will achieve a similarly broad (user) base," Iwata explained, "it will be impossible for the 3DS to gain popularity, acquire a wide range of software, and eventually create the product cycle necessary for everyone to be satisfied with the system."

Iwata added, "Those customers who purchased the 3DS at the very beginning are extremely important to us." He further said, "We know that there is nothing we can do to completely make up for the feeling that you are being punished for buying the system early." Perhaps Iwata is right on this account, though twenty free games is certainly a step in the right direction. Almost as good as thirty free games!

#nintendo3ds After dismal sales of the Nintendo 3DS (and declining sales of the Wii and Nintendo DS), Nintendo issued a massive, uncharacterisitc price cut for its newest handheld. It plans on compensating early adopters, but what of the 3DS owner personally wounded by Nintendo's cutting? More »

#3ds The 3DS's recent price cut was surprising. The handheld is still new, and a drastic slash like that whiffs of desperation. But don't worry, the 3DS isn't dead, by any stretch. Maybe one of Japan's most successful manga artists can work his magic. More »

Those freebie NES games you get from the 3DS "Ambassador Program" on September 1 will be bare-bones at first, but a future update will bring some extras. Nintendo told IGN that after the paid versions of those ten games show up on the eShop "later in the year," the free versions will be updated at no cost.

The upgrades will include "additional features such as multiplayer simultaneous play," which is kind of a big claim, since not even the Game Boy Virtual Console games sold now have multiplayer functionality. Nintendo didn't detail any other changes, except to say that 3D isn't one of them. The games won't be remade as 3D Classics.

The list of NES games announced includes Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, and The Legend of Zelda. These and five more unknown games will be included in the Ambassador Program. Ten Game Boy Advance games will follow later in 2011.

#howto Own a Nintendo 3DS or plan on getting one in the next couple of weeks? Congratulations you're now a Nintendo 3DS Ambassador and that means you get 20 free games. Right? Maybe. More »

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello has plenty to worry about at present, but a future full of 3D displays isn't one of them. VentureBeat reports that at EA's recent shareholder meeting, the executive responded to an inquiry about stereoscopic 3D games by saying, "We have not seen a big uptake for 3D gaming. We have not seen a big uptake in 3D TVs in the home. We are not here trying to drive a market. We are here to react to what consumers want."

And consumers don't appear to be demanding the tech -- evidenced by Nintendo's financial report yesterday, accompanied by an announcement of a significant price reduction of its 3D handheld.

Riccitiello said EA will continue focusing on mobile, social and online. Those are markets where they are seeing "really high returns," compared to the "very poor returns focusing on 3D."

#3ds I have internet. If you're reading this, you probably have internet. But not everyone in Japan has internet. More »

Nintendo is dropping the price of the 3DS next month. In addition, the company has announced plans to institute a price cut on president Satoru Iwata. At a conference in Tokyo, Iwata told investors that he was taking responsibility for the 3DS's slow sales, along with a 50 percent reduction in pay as a result.

Iwata's last annual compensation was ¥137 million, or $1.8 million (including salary and performance-based "variable compensation"). He didn't announce specifics of the cut, but we can expect both the base salary and the bonus to be lower, since lower performance is the whole reason for this exercise. Other "representative directors," including Senior Managing Directors Shigeru Miyamoto and Shinji Hatano, will take 30 percent pay cuts, and other execs will lose 20 percent off their salaries.

Analyst David Gibson tweeted from the conference that Nintendo cited a missed opportunity to cut the GameCube's price as motivation to jump on the 3DS price cut.

#3ds Today in Tokyo, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata addressed shareholders regarding the Nintendo 3DS. For Nintendo, things have been better. More »

#nintendo A disastrous last quarter in terms of sales has sent Nintendo's share prices through the floor. If you own Nintendo shares, sorry! But hey, even if you do, it could be worse; spare a thought for former president Hiroshi Yamauchi. He just lost $500,000,000 in one day. More »

#3ds Many people in the gaming community were taken aback by Nintendo's announcement last night that the 3DS would be dropping price from $250 to $170 only five months after it's initial launch in America and after fewer than 900,000 units have sold in the U.S. More »

The games will include Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Ice Climber, The Legend of Zelda, Balloon Fight and five more.

Additionally, Nintendo said it would give Nintendo 3DS early adopters 10 free downloads of Game Boy Advance games: Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$, Mario vs. Donkey Kong and five more.

Nintendo says it has no plans to release these games to the general public at any time, so only those who buy Nintendo 3DS before August 12 can download them.

#3ds The historic price drop of the 3DS announced overnight by Nintendo is a transparent acknowledgement by the most successful company to ever make video games that it is struggling. More »

If it wasn't clear already: the 3DS has not been a home run for Nintendo. In its revised earnings forecast for the fiscal year ending March 2012, the company dropped its estimated profit to ¥20 billion ($257M), an 82 percent drop from the ¥110 billion ($1.41B) it expected. The company stated the modification had been done to reflect "trends of stronger-than-expected yen appreciation and sales performance, the decided price reduction of the Nintendo 3DS hardware, and the sales outlook for the holiday season."

The steep profit reduction isn't Nintendo's only glaring concern, as the company couldn't regain investor confidence after announcing the Wii U at E3 and its stock currently sits at five-year lows.

For the first quarter ending June 30, Nintendo saw its net sales cut by half from the same period last year to ¥93 billion ($1.2B), causing a ¥38 billion ($489M) loss in operating income, with a net loss for the quarter staying relatively even to last year's at ¥26 billion ($334M).

#3ds Until now, the Nintendo 3DS's eShop has only offered Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. Soon, that will change. More »

Well that's one way to jump start sluggish sales.

Nintendo has just announced that the price on the 3DS will drop to $169.99 stateside on August 12. That's down from $250 currently, which we don't have to tell you is a pretty shocking drop, considering the tech involved and how recently the system was released.

A similar cut in Japan (effective August 11) will take the system from 25,000 Yen (around $317) to 15,000 Yen ($190). No word on a European cut, we'll let you know what we hear.

3DS has not lit the world on fire in the same way DS did. You can blame your smartphone for that. When DS launched, devices like the iPhone did not exist. Decent video games were not available for your mobile phone!

That's all changed, and Nintendo's glasses-free 3D gimmick hasn't been enough to sway customers to drop $249.99 for its new handheld.

Maybe they'll pay $169.99, though, which is the new retail price of 3DS, effective August 12.

Nintendo also confirmed release months for Super Mario 3D Land (November) and Mario Kart 7 (December). Wait, Mario Kart...7? Really? I wouldn't be surprised if that one changed before release.

If you (like me) already bought a 3DS and are cringing, Nintendo's hoping to appease early adopters with the "3DS Ambassador" program, which roughly translated into English means "free stuff."

First, you'll gain access to 10 free Virtual Console games from the NES era, including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber and The Legend of Zelda. The others five aren't known, and all ten will become publicly available for purchase at a later date.

Additionally, Nintendo's offering up another 10 free Game Boy Advance titles. The games include Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. The other five weren't listed, but that's a hell of a list already.

Strangely, Nintendo claims these free GBA titles won't be made available to everyone else.

"Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future," reads the press release.

More details about the program are to be announced, but Nintendo's only requirement is that players connect to the eShop before 11:59 p.m. EST on August 11. Before the price drop, basically.

Sony can't be very happy about this aggressive move. Many did not expect the company to hit a $249.99 price point for Vita.

#3ds Boy, those 3DS sales sure fell off a cliff. So much so that Nintendo has instituted one of the swiftest and deepest price cuts for a handheld in recent memory. More »

Canadian retailer Future Shop has knocked $50 off the price of the 3DS from now until July 31. Both the Aqua Blue and Cosmo Black models are discounted, online and in-store. If you've been jealous of your friends' growing StreetPass Mii collections, now's your chance to begin building your own!

Actually, since there will be more 3DS buyers than usual at pretty much every Future Shop, you should just hang around there for a while and hope the new owners set up StreetPass while they're still in the store. That way, you'll be able to grab plenty of extra Miis until the police arrive.

#opinion There's a new 3DS update in the wild. And it does, well...something. What exactly that is, Nintendo isn't saying, because when Nintendo updates the 3DS, it doesn't tell you what it's updated. More »

Anyone looking to pick up a Cosmo Black 3DS today from Amazon was met with a disconcerting note: More »

The 3DS' Nintendo Video service, which sort of launched yesterday, really launched today, with two short animated clips (one with dinosaurs, rawr!), a Captain America trailer, and a new OK Go music video due July 27. Okay then, go. More »

After faking us out yesterday with a "coming soon" icon, Nintendo snuck its 3DS Nintendo Video service out late last night in North America. The initial video offerings include a "Nintendo Video Is" ad, a Captain America trailer, Dinosaur Office, and a short film called Sunday Jog.

Next week, on July 27, a new OK Go video will be released and Nintendo will post the 3D version on the service -- it'll be the second OK Go clip to be released as a 3DS video. Other content teased by Nintendo includes "exclusive 3D videos from Jason DeRulo, Foster the People, CollegeHumor and the world-renowned Blue Man Group, plus extreme sports and action videos, animation from various independent studios and 3D trailers for upcoming Hollywood movies."

Of course Nintendo will be removing old content when new content is released, so if you have any interest in seeing the initial offerings, check them out soon.

#watchthis Our very own Mike Fahey warned me that there were no new videos to watch on the 3DS today, despite today being some sort of 3DS Video Service launch day. Given that I trust Fahey about as far as I can throw him with one hand, I had to go to my 3DS' eShop and check. More »

#downloadables One of these days, when we least expect it, the Nintendo eShop will update and the new Nintendo Video app will be available for download. Until then, it's simply a placeholder in this week's Nintendo Download. More »

#speakuponkotaku Commenter Hongo has had it up to here with people denying devices the label 'portable' simply because they can't fit in their pants pocket. He'd prepared a portable primer for today's Speak Up on Kotaku. More »