3DS sales slump below DS - why, and what Ninty can do to fix it

[Doobie_wop]

People keep comparing the 3DS to the DS,  but it should be compared to the PS2 instead. The PS1 began as a slow burner because Sony had to prove themselves and get people to understand their device, some games came out and then it legged it's way to 100 million units on the back of third party support, a few core first party titles and an innovation on consoles that set the standard for the next 17 years. That sounds fairly similar to the DS, the difference here is that once the PS1 became the greatest selling console of all time, it was reasonable to believe that the PS2 wouldn't have as much of a slow burn and it didn't, it was extremely popular at release and it even sold nearly a million units in one day in Japan. 

The 3DS was meant to be the PS2, it came off the back of an extremely popular console and by all accounts, it should have sold much more than it's previous console, but it didn't and people have a right to be surprised.

Here are the reasons why:

- Ancedontal evidence: I have like fifteen kid cousins who are spoiled as all fuck, they all have like three friends each and they all attend primary school or are in Year 7. None of them know what a 3DS is, they all play games, most of them have a DS and they attend schools filled with children of similar tastes and they all gave me a blank look when I asked if any of them might be getting a 3DS. The only one who knows about the 3DS is seven years old, he watches TV all day and so he catches the commercials for it and he is not interested at all, he didn't know what it was and he was satisfied with his PS2, Wii and DS combo. This leads to a few points:

* The ads are horrible, just some people sitting around on chairs, looking into what looks like a DS and going 'Whoa!', 'Wow' and 'Neato', all while talking around what's on the screen or what the hell they're doing. If I didn't know what a 3DS was, I would of that the DS had finally gotten a porn app and all those handsome people on screen are blown away by Jenna Hazes hot bod.

* The 3DS looks exactly like a DS, besides the nub and the larger screen, the design is exactly the same.Because the screen is faced away from the camera in the ads, people don't get to see the larger screen or nub (or games) and most people just think it's a new DS revision, they've had like five, why not have another one? I'll also add that most consumers aren't that intelligent, especially the mass market consumers that bought into the DS, which are children who have mothers that are willing to spend money on them. Mums don't research, kids don't research, Grandmama and Grandpapa doesn't research, that just limits the consumers to major Nintendo fans, techies and 20 year olds with weird beanies.

* The mass market consumer that does know about the 3DS is happy with just sticking with the DS. Do you know why the PS2 still sells to this day? It's because it's cheap and it satisfies a demand that parents have that involve shutting up their children for a few hours a day. My little cousin has a PS2, his mum (with my help) got him a Wii for Christmas, he never touches the damn thing, it sits in his room while he smashes stuff in some shitty Hulk game or plays one of the fifty used PS2 games that he has bought for like $3 each. Nintendo aimed the DS at an audience that mostly doesn't care about sequels, doesn't care about stories, doesn't care about graphics, doesn't care about the quality of the gameplay and so when a machine comes along and promises to have all those things, but better, then they aren't going to be interested, especially if it costs $250 or more.

* $250 is way too much, it's $350 in Australia. Do you know what I could buy for $350, I could buy a Wii with 10 good games, I could spend $50 more and buy a PS3, I could spend $100 more and get a 360 Kinect bundle or spend way less and get stand alone 360, I could buy a netbook, I could buy an I-Pod touch with 80 games, I could buy two DS bundles, I could buy a PSP with 10 games and the list goes on. The DS was an easy option because it was the cheapest option, the 3DS isn't an easy option, because it isn't the least expensive and other more feature driven consoles can be bought for a slightly higher or lower price. 

* Games are kind of shitty, though other launches have been worse and they did fairly well for themselves. Getting Nintendogs, Street Fighter, Professor Layton, a really good Ghost Recon game, a pretty good Ridge Racer games and a couple of Nintendo titles, that doesn't sound that bad to me.

* 3D is obviously not working out, it's a gimmick, Sony and Nintendo shouldn't have jumped on that broken bandwagon, the difference is that one launched a console based around that whole concept, while the other could just support the small userbase they have by just chucking 3D into all their first party titles for a fairly low price. Nintendo should have went with something else, but I have this odd feeling that Nintendo felt that they had been labelled as this super innovative company with garages full of wacky ideas, but they aren't, Nintendo aren't The Chocolate Factory, they are an incredibly talented console manufacturer and game developer with pressure on them to appeal to everyone, appeal to no one and change the industry while they're at it. I think the 3DS was an off shoot, they didn't know what to do with their next handheld and so they opted for a random un-obvious solution. 

I could be wrong and next month the 3DS could sell a million units, but these are just points I've made about what I've seen and how myself and the people around me reacted to the 3DS. It also helps that I've read a lot about it, I've listened to a lot of podcasts on it and I've read a lot of threads related to the device.