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The whole premise of your argument is false. People buy Nintendo consoles to play Nintendo games and Nintendo games are not available on IOS/Android. In past Nintendo had deal with machines like the one above which were cheap came with a lot of games for "free"
Did those machines prevent Nintendo consoles of selling well? No Why? Nintendo software. What is happening now is the same that happened with the GameCube and N64, Nintendo makes wrong hardware and software, consequently people stop buying their systems. If New Super Mario 2 was launch tile and had the right production values the game would be much more successful and would move much more hardware. However Nintendo decided to create Mario 3D Land. Notice that games like the new Pokémon and Animal Crossing not only sold well, but helped to move hardware as well. Why? Because Nintendo put a lot of effort into them unlike Nintendogs and NSM2. If we look at the 3DS, compared to the DS, it is much more expensive to develop for it. This means that Nintendo cannot keep releasing games for it like they did with the DS (third parties cannot too). Less software means less hardware sold, especially because Nintendo did not increase the number of employees to be able to keep producing games as fast as they were in past. So even if a couple of games like Pokémon and AC can move hardware Nintendo cannot keep the momentum of the console due the lack of games. The moment Nintendo realizes that they need to go back to the NES/Wii/GB/DS philosophy their will see their sales increasing again. They also need to realize that they need to increase the size and the number of their teams ASAP (hope that new building they made was for this reason). When you use the samples of the stores. I can contradict you because every single cousins I have love their Wii's and DS's and think that tablets/smartphones games are crap. They love Mario, Kirby, Just Dance, Smash Bross, Mario Kart, etc. What those games have in common? They are not available on the iOS/Android. The funny thing this that both samples (yours and mine) are pointless, if you had studied statistics you would know that and not would use it on a discussion. You can "prove" wherever you want by using "samples" you see on your daily life. Oddly, when you talk about the prince of 3DS and the price of its games you are essentially agreeing with me when I complained that both are above what they were supposed to be. Angry Birds was released during the best DS moment of the year for the console, and, despite becoming a instant social phenomenon, it had no impact at all on the DS sales. Before AB many other games were released for smartphones, none of them prevented the DS of selling well. There is a reason I talk about interface. It is because I've studied a lot about how to make games when I was at the college. Furthermore, my girlfriend (which is a designer) agrees with me about the 3DS hardware been full of pointless features (She has 2 DS's and 3DS). Notice that while you talk about buttons and screens, I talk about interface. This shows the difference in the level of abstraction I'm talking about. So when I say that the 3DS has usability issues it is because I know exactly what I am talk about, after all I've spent years of my life studding and coding games. If I were a parent the last thing I would give to my sons would be a tablet. Tablets are expensive, games are horrible and their screens are easy to break. I would rather buy a Wii or DSi with a 2D Mario game which is much more cheap and almost industructible. |
Well then if all you need is Nintendo games, then the 3DS should be doing great. It's a fine Nintendo handheld, maybe the best they've ever made. It has the best portable 2D Mario (NSMB2 IS better than NSMB1), the best portable 3D Mario, the best Fire Emblem, the best Animal Crossing, Zelda: ALBW is way better than either of the DS Zeldas, Kid Icarus Uprising is a great game, Luigi's Mansion is great too. It has Resident Evil games. Zelda: OoT is a great remake of the most popular Zelda game. It has Monster Hunter exclusivity (basically), something the DS never had. It has Nintendogs, Brian Training, Style Savvy. It even has Angry Birds too. Mario Kart 7 is quite great on the system too. Streetpass is fun. It's been very affordable for 95% of its lifespan and is even moreso now with the 2DS.
If it helps you sleep at night, go ahead and blame NSMB2 and other tertirary factors. The 3DS is selling below the GBC and GBA yearly shipments too and it certainly has a better library than either one of those. This indicates the market itself is collapsing on itself.
From the sounds of it, you're actually not around families or kids much. I travel a lot, I've been in 15 different airports the last 10 months. In every airport I see the number of tablets/phones being used by kids to pass time outnumber dedicated game handhelds by at least a 7:1 ratio almost uniformly across the board. This isn't the cheapo game handheld you posted. I also am a godfather to a 8 year old girl.
The other thing that people underestimate about tablets is just as many girls love tablet games as do boys. It's not like the "Game Boy" days where the gaming handheld was primary domain of "little Johnny" while his kid sister was content with Barbie. That's changing fast too, tablets/phone gaming has broken down the male centric dominance. My goddaughter doesn't want a 3DS and it has nothing to do with NSMB2's production values (lol). She even likes Mario just fine, but she prefers to game on her mom's iPad. So does her little brother. They have an XBox 360 with a bunch of LEGO games when they want to play games at home. That's all there is to it.
Hardcore gamers who are handheld enthusiasts don't "get it", but of course they wouldn't. They've been in denial of this situation for years now. Some people now seeing actual hard data are starting to accept the truth, it's become harder and harder to downplay what's happening.
