The biggest challenge the 3DS has to overcome

[Immortal]

RolStoppable said:

Iwata has gone on record to say that he wants the 3DS to be more successful than the DS, but it's doubtful that Nintendo can achieve that goal. Nearly half of the DS's userbase is composed of children and their parents won't be happy to pay $249 for a new device that plays the same games with some cats thrown into the mix.

Nintendo's biggest challenge will be to make the 3DS an attractive purchase to make the existing DS userbase (of which more than 50 % are children) upgrade to their next generation handheld and not settle for some competitor's product or worse, an Apple or Sony machine. Another obstacle are the concerns about eyestrain that comes with the use of the 3D effect which is especially troublesome for young children who are estimated to make up for about two thirds of DS owners.

While the currently announced titles for the 3DS are interesting at worst and very promising at best from a hardcore gamer's perspective, the lineup makes one question, if Nintendo isn't forgetting about their core audience that made the DS the big success it eventually became. I am, of course, talking about the kids here. At least three quarters of the DS userbase are aged twelve or younger after all.

As you can see, Nintendo still has to iron out some kinks to have a realistic chance to see the 3DS outselling the DS. Somebody has to think of the children and if it isn't Nintendo, then who else should it be? It would be stupid on Nintendo's part to keep putting more and more obstacles in the way of 90 % of their last generation handheld userbase.

<50%, >50%, >75%, 90%? Rather odd to use different figures each time, :P.

Honestly, though $250 is cheap enough and it'll be $199 in three or four years time so it doesn't really matter.

Nintendogs Cats, MK3DS and confirmed iterations of NSMB, Brain Age and Pokemon pretty much cover the DS's core audience.

The only part I'm worried about is the parents' concern over eyestrain. It wouldn't be very hard to get a "3DS will burn your kids' eyes" bandwagon going with its more or less unprecedented glassless 3D effects and whatnot. I hope Nintendo wasn't foolish enough to engage into this technology when it can be such a liability.