I thought west bought more 3ds than any other regions combined. Beside it is not as bad as the East hatred on the Xbox 360.

Hahahahaha.  I have no idea why the sales are like that there.  I just thought it was because Microsoft wasn't a very good international player in the east.

I think the Title of the post is misleading.  The 3DS has sold about 6.3 million units in Japan compared to 5.7 million units in the US.  You are talking about the difference of about half a million units after only 1 year on the market.  I wouldn't call owning 89% of this generation's handheld gaming market in the US as not doing too well.  A year out from release, I think the 3DS is doing just fine.  And, it's not solely because of the price cut that it is selling well this year.  Clearly, more games that people wanted started to become available late last year.   If you could save a flopping device simply by dropping the price, the Nokia N-Gage would still be on the market. 

I soundly reject the premise of this thread. The 3DS sells well in the west, roughly matching PS3 sales. The only legitimate question to ask is why does it sell so much more in Japan than all other regions... it's because of the mobile society, not the Nintendo name. Just look at Wii sales. As well, the types of games are more suited for (and have always been) that culture.

Just because it doesn't match X360 sales doesn't mean that it doesn't sell well. It's a silly thought, really.

Software releases aren't frequent enough. In Japan there's a new game practically every week, sometimes multiple. In the US we haven't had a new 3DS game in over a month. I mean what do we get? A licensed Spider-Man game? Meanwhile, Japan gets Guild 01 and DQ.

I understand -- Japanese third-parties are more interested in making games for handhelds than Western third-parties. Many of those games are not localized because they wouldn't appeal much to Western gamers, anyway. Where I'd say the real problem comes in is when games that COULD appeal to Western gamers aren't localized, or aren't localized right away. Games like Professor Layton, Monster Hunter, Rhythm Thief, Harvest Moon, Theatrhythm, Fire Emblem, Kingdom Hearts, the aforementioned DQ. All of those games are already available in Japan, and are not yet available or will never be available in America. Could you imagine if America and Europe had not some but ALL of those games on shelves right now? In that scenario, 3DS might not exactly be flying off the shelves in the West, but it would most likely be selling MUCH better than it is now.

3DS sales will pick up in the West in the next year, while they reach astronomical levels in Japan.

There's a number of reasons. Japan is more handheld-oriented who also happens to now seems to be a niche market whereas the west consists of a variety of differing audience.
As of this moment, however, it just so happens Nintendo is catering to the Japanese audience starting with Monster Hunter.
In addition, whether most people agree or disagree with this, the economy plays a vital role in prioritizing the necessities vs luxuries.

At this point in time, it's still difficult to tell how well 3DS or Vita will do lifetime. We'll see after the holidays, and a year from now where both stands.

There's over 311 million people in the US and about 127 million people in Japan. Yet weekly Japanese 3DS sales are constantly and considerably higher than in the US which means the console is a much much bigger success over there.

Not enough games. Apparently, they didn't learn enough after the big drought launch.

*waits for Rol post*

I think because 3DS games of note reach Japan, then maybe Europe and then a couple months or years later... maybe US

By that time, some other game is making news in Japan, and not much discussion/anticipation of the older game that finally released in US.

This problem is not unique to 3DS

I mean just look at Gravity Rush for PS-Vita. It sold well in Japan, but sold pretty poorly in the US.

Xenoblade finally released for Wii if released here 2 years earlier would have done gang busters, but instead it came after people already mostly stopped playing games on the Wii and moved to other systems which have ample quality RPG available like Skyrim, Witcher, Kingdom of Amalur, Dragon's Dogma, etc.

People are still buying the DS in America.