link : http://ds.ign.com/articles/118/1184980p1.html

"With the announcement of the Nintendo 3DS getting a price drop, Nintendo hopes to turn around the lackluster sales of the handheld and get back on track. There's just one problem: That has never worked for Nintendo. 

The fact is that Nintendo has never turned around the failure of a console or handheld by doing a price drop. What's more, every system they've had that had a price drop within six months turned out to be a commercial disappointment. 

Now, it's easy to point to the Virtual Boy every time Nintendo sales falter, but it really is the classic example, and there are some unfortunate parallels between that system and the 3DS. Not to say that the 3DS is the colossal failure that the Virtual Boy ended up being, but there are some other similarities with the 3DS, and Nintendo's other consoles. 

Just look at the other evidence. Back in the mid-90s, Nintendo was on top of the video game heap. They had effectively won the console wars with the Super Nintendo. However the launch of the Nintendo 64 was marred by lackluster sales. Whether it was due to more expensive games, or the competition's head start, the N64 did not perform as well as predicted, and Nintendo lost the lead. They tried multiple price drops, but it didn't save the system (which had some of the best games of the time). 

- Brian Altano

The next generation didn't fare any better with the GameCube. Coming into the race in third place, Nintendo was never able to catch up, and lost more ground to the Xbox and the PlayStation 2. 

Both of these systems got significant price drops within six months of their release. And both of these systems continued to underperform for their entire lifespan, despite great games, and additional price cuts. 

By comparison, Nintendo's popular systems, the ones that succeeded, don't get price drops for years. It took the NES six years to get a discount. And the Wii went almost three before it got a cut. The Nintendo DS only got a price drop after Nintendo released the DS Lite over a year and a half later. 

Is it a sure thing that the 3DS is going to continue to underperform? No, not necessarily. All of these situations are different, and theeffort Nintendo is putting into incentivizing the system is unprecedented. But it's something to be wary of. History has shown that when consumers decide they don't want a system right out of the gate, it's really hard to ever change their mind."

the past isn't always a good way to predict the future, so we'll have to wait and see if ign is correct

I'd love to say "lulz IGN doomz again" but this article is pretty coherent.
We'll know how correct it is soon.

So, the only way for it to not d0med is to not get a price cut? Sure

Well, it's kinda funny because Nintendo price drops are sometimes irrelevant, but we'll see

Now, there's little wrong with remaining open to the possibility of 3DS sales failing to improve despite the price cut, but this is a ridiculous parallel to draw. While early price cuts do indeed signify weak reception, they are certainly not representative enough of the console's health and potential lifetime appeal to judge its future by. In a more extreme case, this would be like saying "oh, look, every one of X company's consoles that releases on a leap year is a failure - that must mean that any console they release on a leap year has to fail". I'll grant that this actually has some logic backing it up and it isn't superstition, but I'd argue that this isn't as much causality as it is correlation.

It provides some good reasons but I am not a fan of using history to predict gaming success/failure. In the end, it will come down to two things - the forthcoming games AND the launch of the PS Vita. Im wondering if the increasing hype around the PSV will shadow the hype/sales of the nintendo IPs - dont think it will affect games sales/success but Im sure the focus on the PSV will hurt the 3DS in comparison (if not for too long).

IGN sure knows how to bait people

History should just shut the f*** up. :P
(BTW, I hate history. It was my weakest subject at school.)

Meh, I still think 3DS will sell more than all of those in the OP, but, the likely hood of being a mega hit, selling beyond 100 mill, just looks unachieveable right now.

IGN jumping the gun here. It's still too soon to know. There's no Mario or Pokemon to sell the system, and they had a price drop recently. People may start to buy the system now.

It won't be on pair with the smartphones business, but it will manage to do well. Not so much in japan once the vita hit the shelves though. Vita will be dominant there.