The Nintendo 3DS is almost six years old, and, in spite of some promising looking games on the horizon, certainly winding down, with the Switch on the horizon. And yet, it seems like people just can’t get enough of Nintendo’s handheld- multiple sources are reporting that the 3DS is flat out impossible to find at any store in the US at the moment. Apparently, the 3DS is all sold out everywhere.
This means that specialty stores like GameStop, online retailers like Amazon, electronics chains like Best Buy, and general retail stores like Walmart, are all out of the 3DS. What is unclear is why this is happening, though we can probably hazard a guess.
Sales for the 3DS have been spiking ever since the launch of Pokemon GO earlier this year, with another sharp uptake observed with the launch of Pokemon Sun/Moon last month. Nintendo themselves had projected total worldwide shipments of just 5 million 3DS systems through to March 2017. These two factors coming together means that more people want to buy a 3DS at the moment than there are 3DS systems available to buy.
Read more at http://gamingbolt.com/nintendo-3ds-systems-sell-out-nationwide-in-the-us#DmbGwm2d7IKiktbt.99
/nintendo-3ds-systems-sell-out-nationwide-in-the-us
3DS since the release of Pokemon Go, has seen a greatly significant sales growth.
For reference, November was the sixth consecutive month that 3DS was considerably yoy up, the only console to be yoy up in november.
Nintendo shipments forecast for 3DS in 2016, was just 5m, they was revised after pokemon go effect though, but only up by 1m. Nintendo has already shipped 2.71m 3ds units as of september 30th, leaving 3.29m for the quarter of holidays, while they had shipped 3.6m units in last year's holidays quarter when 3ds didn't have so hot perfomance. This year they have Pokemon sun and moon following the Pokemon GO frenziness....
Apparenly, Nintendo hasn't produced the commensurate with the high demand, amount of units because they underestimated it a lot.
Now, 3ds is very hard to be found across the USA and Nintendo is being deprieved of sales, because people may have lose their interest in 3DS, when it will be fully available. They have to hurry up. Super mario Run ( and super mario maker ) just were released.
Even though they were stating that switch won't affect 3ds sales, inwardly they could be afraid of this, otherwise there's no logic to not have produce enough stock in a time period that your handheld hardware sales are in a constanct resurgence due to a hugely succesfuly mobile game and subsenquently assisted by a like handheld console game. I can't say that Switch has any notable impact in 3ds sales!
P.s
3ds seems to be in the state that wii u was in holidays 2015 in Japan, when it had way more sales that what nintendo was anticipating, thanks to splatoon and super mario maker. Thus, wii u restocking was insufficient for the first three months of 2016, killing the momentum! Probably, the inventory in the warehouses had almost depleted, hence nintendo had to produce more units to replenish the shelves and the procedure is time-consuming.
