What bugs me about this guy is that he appears to be caught up in his own hubris just because some of his points are valid.

What irks me most about this particular post is when he says things like, "Nintendo is already 3/4 done with putting out their first party games for the 3DS" and "Nintendo is running out of software". Seriously?!

Along with Mario Kart (which, coupled with the new price and holiday release will move systems like crazy), we don't yet have 2D Mario or Pokemon (both sales giants), nor do we have an original Zelda (2D or 3D), an original Starfox, Metroid (2D or Prime), Kirby, Donkey Kong, F-Zero or Brain Age. In fact, by my count, the only popular first party original games we do have so far are Nintendogs, Pilotwings, Kid Icarus and a 3D Mario, of which the last two haven't even released yet.

Perhaps math isn't Malstrom's forte...

This and Nintendo may have kept the titles they usually want to sell their 3DS units a year after its launch to allow third parties to carry the system. Unfortunately, it seems the third parties cannot even release quality games on a  Nintendo system's initial 1 year launch window to attract potential consumers when the competition is low. Nintendo should not repeat this mistake with Wii U.

Pah. Pokemon. 'Nuff said.

Malstrom should join the Vgchartz forum.

I have to disagree even though with DS some internal development teams shifted to Wii and such Nintendo maintained decent first party support in the years to come. Nintendo is well known for always supporting their hardware, he references GameCube well Nintendo kept GBA and GameCube well stocked with titles. Well maybe not as good as they could have but Nintendo released plenty of software past launch.

Now I think Nintendo may have released all their big guns too early. I don't think Nintendo has a lack of games in development for 3DS in 2012. I don't think thats why Nintendo's panicking. I think the reason they are cutting price is due to investors freaking out. Also from a software stand point Nintendo is releasing every AAA+ title they can this year, they are sparing no expense so if 3DS sales don't pick up after all these titles launch, then yah Nintendo is screwed.

Again I think some development will be diverted to WiiU, however I think Nintendo will continue to support 3DS with new software. I just think Nintendo has announced the release of too many of its core IP's in such a short time, maybe Nintendo should have spread them out a bit rather then launching everything they have in the first year of 3DS life cycle!

I've read Malstrom's blog post as well as the rebuttal that is linked in this thread and another one on his site.
His main points are still valid, but in this particular case he also has problems explaining his argument properly, not to mention mixing in some pretty big factual errors that undermine his reliability as an expert - such as claiming no knowledge of an Animal Crossing game for 3DS, or saying Luigi's Mansion 2 has a launch-date.

What it boils down to though if you trim all the excess fat is this:
"Nintendo must know something that we don't to have a reason for such a drastic price-cut."
I think this is something that is not difficult to get behind.

On the other hand I don't really believe Nintendo seriously expected any of the games released up till now to be system sellers for the console. It's just not consistent with their previous ways of operation. If they did expect 3DS to sell on the basis of Nintendog+Cats, the packaged software (which admittedly, Iwata did compare with Wii Sports) and OoT 3D, then perhaps the people leading this project aren't the same ones that led the DS and Wii projects, or they haven't learned anything from them..

It would be extremely awesome though if this ended up being just an elaborately planned bait n' switch to get Sony to lose tons of money on the VITA again

Something he is very right about is not looking at sales in a one-dimensional manner. I see people looking at the box office of the Transformers films, and whine about how this shows the mainstream is stupid, when a simple look beyond the total would show the movies are largely front-loaded. Add general inflation, ticket inflation (especially with 3D), and increased population, and we see that movies aren't as attended as much as they used to be. And with budgets and marketing costs, they have to rely on tertiary revenue just to keep profits at a decent level.

This also applies to games though, which is why he points out that the great games have evergreen sales, regardless of the sales total.

yea i can see this