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thismeintiel on 27 July 2016
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zorg1000 said:
thismeintiel said:

Seems like too many people are forgetting the history of 3DS, and the state of the HH market.  It also started out very poorly when it was priced at $249.  They had to drop it to $169, which lost them quite a bit of money, for it to actually start performing well. 

You seem to be forgetting the history of 3DS as well, so many people blame its early poor sales on the price but seem to forget that it had an awful software library and poor marketing at the time.

From Nintendo the only 2 major releases for 3DS pre-price cut were Nintendogs and a 13 year old Zelda remaster while the biggest 3rd party release was a 3 year old Street Fighter port.

In terms of marketing, it was initially widely believed to be nothing more than a DS revision with a 3D screen.

Im not saying the price wasnt a factor but we cant say 3DS sold poorly at $249, therefore NX will too. A strong software lineup and affective marketing can make the difference whether a device is seen as too expensive or priced just right.

As for HH market dead/dying, launches aligned 3DS is only a few million behind PS4 & over 15 million ahead of XBO.

Nope.  Sales show us that price was the #1 reason.  After it dropped to $169 on August 12th,  sales skyrocketed from 36K the week before to 350K the week of the price cut.  It wasn't even until the holiday that it got Mario Kart and 3d Mario Land, so SW didn't account for those boosts.  So, it's save to say that people who are used to paying $150-$180 for a Nintendo handheld, aren't interested in paying $249-$299 for one.

If I'm correct, the 3DS is something like 7M behind the PS4, launches aligned.  Of course, the PS4 launched at $399 and is only $50 cheaper almost 3 years after launch.  The 3DS, on the other hand, started out $150 cheaper and got a $80 cut less than 6 months after launch.