What was meant to be a single thread has now expanded to become some sort of ongoing series of mine. It's now time to take a look at the 3DS and consider whether or not it's a failure.

The 3DS has now reached sales of 50m, far behind its predecessor the DS in the same time frame, and it's very unlikely (to understate it) it'll ever reach the same heights as the original DS. But does that mean it's a failure, or is it possible to see some sort of success in this handheld console?

The 3DS is not only lagging behind in hardware sales, it's also far behind on the software side of things. BUT, it's beating its closes competition soundly; the PS Vita, and has over 80% of the market share. Mobile gaming has become huge in recent(ish) years, and considering the circumstances, has the 3DS manage to make the best of a bad situation?

It's also important to remember the beginning of the 3DS as well; it was off to a rough start with a pretty high price, which Nintendo had to cut and therefore lose money for the first time in over 30 years. But since then things have been looking brighter, and it seems as if the console will end up somewhere between 65m-85m units sold. But does that count as a success?

Keep the discussion civil, do NOT troll or flame! This is an interesting discussion to be had, so don't ruin it!!

This is (probably) my last failure thread! I promise! Well, I'll try not to make another one ^^

im pretty sure it was a financial success with nintendo... esp with their first party game sales....
yes it is not as big as the DS but it is like saying PS3 is a failure...

It has the most units sold out of all the consoles this gen, and has a very healthy and diverse library of games, both first and third party, so definitely not.

I was just about to ask what's up with all these fail threads. None of the consoles/handhelds you asked that question with were failures in my opinion. Failure is subjective and so is success. Only the company's opinion really matters if their product was a failure or not. I doubt any would openly admit it

Nahh, considering the competition from the mobile market and considering how well its "competition" is doing, it is a success

Compared to the original DS, it is a let down but it has still been quite successful. I still hope that Nintendo learns from their failures this gen so that their next successor doesn't end up being an actual massive failure.

It is making money, selling decently years after release and it has many first party multimillion sellers. I don't see how it could be a failure. The DS being a phenomenon doesn't make the 3DS less successful

I was just going to do the XB1 thread, but then I got to thinking about the PS3, so had to make that one as well. And I couldn't possibly leave out the 3DS then, right?

I think whether or not a product is a success or a failure is pretty.... hard to decide. SNES lost market shares and sold less than NES, but won the "war" and had awesome games. So in certain ways it's a success, and in others it's a failure.

Hmmm... So you made a thread for each fan base so none could say that you're targeting any of them? Makes sense.