Why Does 3DS Not Sell Too Well In The West?

[Mandalore76]

TruckOSaurus said:

Mandalore76 said:

NintendoPie said:

We all know that 3DS is doing phenomanal in Japan. It's even broken a few records for it's sales. But why does America not give the 3DS this love? Why aren't the sales as good as Japan's

Is it the Games, the Design, the Marketing, or even the Fact that it is made by Nintendo?

What and why do you think the 3DS is doing so well in Japan but not America?

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. 

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.

Again, the point is this, one year out from launch, here are the sales by the big 3 regions:  North America 5.6 mil, Europe 4.6 mil, Japan 6.3 mil.  That is an extremely even spread which I think should be viewed as the system selling well in ALL regions as opposed to selling well in Japan and poorly in North America and Europe.  I would rather see the system selling equally well in all regions as opposed to selling 6 million units in North America and only 2 million in Japan just for the sake of saying sales in the West should be higher because of population size.  But, I do see what you are saying about Japan's weekly #'s being about 20,000 higher than the US.  And, you don't have to look too far to find out where that difference is currently coming from.  A quick glance at the Weekly Hardware Chart for week ending June 16th will show you that a remarkable 22,000 units are still being purchased in a given week in North America.  If you look at that exact same week in Japan, less than 1,000 DS units were sold.  That's your weekly gap right there.  When the 3DS released, Nintendo announced a commitment to continued support for the DS even while they are phasing it out.  Clearly, consumers in the US are opting to purchase the DS until that support on Nintendo's end ceases completely.  Once the DS is phazed out of the market, the consumers that the DS has continued to attract will jump over to the 3DS and you will see the North America/Japan #'s match-up better.  The backwards compatibility of the 3DS will attract potential would-be DS owners, and current DS owners ready to upgrade to the new handheld.  But, I still stand behind my belief that the system is doing well, and it's sales will only continue to grow.