"The 3DS has been topping the hardware charts since its price drop, but with rare exception, it rarely sees software appear in the weekly top ten. Enterbrain's October sales data reveals the extent of this discrepancy.

According to Enterbrain, publisher of the Famitsu magazines, 3DS sold 304,000 units in October, making it the number one platform for the month. The system has topped the Enterbrain monthly hardware charts for the past five months straight.

In software sales, however, the 3DS managed just 122,000 units, meaning only 40% of the system's buyers picked up software with their purchase.

PSP dominated software sales for the month, with a total of 1,298,000 units. Final Fantasy Type-0 was the top selling game, with 503,000 units over two weeks of release. Namco Bandai's AKB1/48 If I Loved an Idol in Guam took third, with 318,000 units.

So why are people buying 3DS hardware on its own? Mainichi Entertainment's report on Enterbrain's sales figures suggests that many current DS owners are replacing their system with a 3DS, but are waiting for the big year end titles to pick up an actual 3DS game.

The first example of a big year end title may be Super Mario 3D Land, which was released last week. We'll find out if 3DS software can sell once sales figures for last week are released tomorrow."

http://andriasang.com/comywq/

IMO, either people are really, really excited for the upcoming games, or the preinstalled games are are more of a killer app than we think. Since we can't see AR Games/street pass quest on the chartz like Wii sports(like in regions where it's bundled), we tend to forget it can make an impact.

Either way, this is risky business for Nintendo if they are losing money on each unit sold. Sure they are..

EDIT: I'm assuming they made an error in the heading for the article, probably suppose to be October rather than November.

No.

Let's first assume Nintendo is still losing a few grubs for each unit sold.

Nintendo clearly said that the sharp price drop is intented to boost the hardware sales.

They achieve that and now it's a bad news?

More like Risky business. Edited op

Nintendo must be losing more than a few grubs per unit, hence the loss they recently reported.  And before you say, "But they have to spend money on R&D for the Wii U", look here: http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/thread.php?id=136006&page=1  According to this, Nintendo has yet to post a loss, even when they were paying for R&D and launches of new HW, yet this year they are predicting a net loss for the fiscal year.  Where does this come from if the Wii is selling at a profit, the DS is selling at a profit, and the 3DS is only selling at a small loss?  I assure you that the Wii U is not going down in history as the most expensive console in terms of R&D.  Even the PS3 didn't cause a loss for Sony because of R&D, and it probably cost double the Wii U to develop.  No, it's because the 3DS is selling at a larger loss than some wish to admit. 

And Nintendo did hope the 3DS's price cut would push HW (and it has), but they also hoped SW sales would help compensate their losses, which it hasn't.  Plus, while the cut definitely boosted sales, the boost has mainly helped consistantly in Japan.  In Americas and EMEAA, however, consoles that are at least 5 years old and ~$80 more expensive than it are outselling it regularly.  This may change with a few more titles released, but we will have to wait and see.

I can't understand that article even in google translate. But they should  factor in the pre installed games effect into the equation.

They did? I can'tseem find anything resembling the built in software titles in the article.  What did it say?

This is late thread, it's a discussion already done one week ago.

Maybe they're waiting for Monster Hunter.

According to VGC, 3DS software was around 230 k and that's for last week?

Honestly I think this is alarming for Nintendo, they need software sales to increase though I would blame third parties for a hunk of this problem Nintendo expected them to have software ready for the launch window. Quality software that would sell should have flooded the market by now and it didn't.

As for this "Nintendo isn't taking a loss" or "Nintendo is only taking a small loss" that's bull shit. Nintendo has taken hardware losses in the past and never posted an annual operating loss. When Virtual Boy went down in flames Nintendo still didn't post an operating loss. Lets say the Yen is not responsible for 80% of Nintendo's losses which some media sources suggested was the case. With Wii and DS both selling at a healthy profit and software sales on all platforms also selling at a profit. Despite drops in software and hardware sales across the board their should still be a shit load of profit. 100's of millions of dollars should be made in profits yet Nintendo is said to be taking a loss of 200 mill. That indicates that Nintendo is taking a much larger hit with each 3DS unit then anyone is willing to believe.

As others said WiiU R&D can't possibly be the cause, PS3 barely cost Sony when it was in development and Sony had a much smaller amount of profits to rely on. Also Nintendo's profits have been consistent despite R&D for new hardware in the past. If all indications are correct and WiiU is only 50% more powerful then PS3 and the hardware is only barely capable of using two tablets I'd say R&D shouldn't be much more expensive then the original Wii.

Hopefully Nintendo's Super Mario 3D Land and MarioKart7 both blow the charts away or we have a serious problem. In fact we have a serious problem anyways because without SW sales third parties are dropping support and the remaining supporters in Japan will pull out if their heavy hitters fail to gain any traction!