Augen on 10 June 2015
From my experience it did have a major effect on parent's buying habits. When I was a kid parents weren't thrilled, but they'd buy their kid a $100 hand held and a $30-40 game. Now, many parents I see view this as an even greater waste of money, especially if they can just download some free mobile game on their phone and hand it off to their kid. To these parents the quality of games is irrelevant, it is just a way to keep kids occupied. Phones also have added benefit of other features kids want and parents can keep tabs on them via text or calling.
In essence Nintendo pushed the price point at the exact time outside factors were and are squeezing the value of games in many sectors.
