Yeah I was suppose to type obviously instead of obvious. Sorry about that.

But  we don't know if New Super Mario Bros 2 will be the best selling game on 3ds.  Even if it is, some games like Mario Kart which are already out and selling well do capitalize on the 3d.  I think pokemon could also be a massive blockbuster if the integrate spotpass well enough.  I get the points your argueing but I'm not quite sure why your defending Malstrom.  His arguement boils down to that Nintendo has no idea what they are doing and not tailoring to the masses.  

So if I'm understanding correctly your saying masses only care about games (which malstorm says nintendo doesn't make good games for the masses).  Maybe i'm the minority (but I highly doubt it) but I got a 3ds beacuse I was excited about the thought of what 3d can do to make my games better.  Just because the 3ds isn't having skyrocketing sales, but decent sales even  with a lackluster game library doesn't mean people aren't excited about the 3d of the system.  Which brings me back to my arguement that people are purchasing it on the current excitement of 3d.  I'd be willing to say that the majority of games that will sell well on the system in the furue will be a direct result of the 3d features Nintendo implements in the game itself. 

I doubt that very much.  While I enjoy stereoscopic 3D, I don't think it really adds much to games besides a spiffy 3D effect.  I don't think 3D is a truly game changing experience. 

You don't get to be a market leader by reacting to consumer demands.  You become a market leader by predicting demands.  Nintendo tried to do that, and in this time they missed the mark.  It happens.

But nintendo currently in the handheld market, is the market leader?

Yes, but I don't think that has much to do with the 3D features of the 3DS.  It has more to do with the price cut which left the 3DS at a mere 20 dollars more expensive than its predecessor.  After the price drop, we had arguably Nintendo's two biggest franchises, Mario platformer and Mario Kart, in quick succession.  After that, Nintendo had the holiday season all to itself, with no new hardware.  Last but not least, the Vita has been incredibly unsuccessful.

Interest in the 3D feature itself seems relatively low.

People may be impressed by the 3D (although I personally wasn't, and it's no exaggeration to say that no one I've shown it to has anything more excited than a "oh that's neat"reaction). But from a business perspective, that's largely irrelevant. What matters is if people are willing to pay for the 3D. Judging from the fact that Nintendo failed to meet its latest (revised!) shipment forecast, and that such failures have been more the norm than the exception since launch day, the answer apppears to be "no."

Put it this way: while I disagree with reducing market analysis to "casual" vs. others, let us assume you're correct, and that the casual gamer is not prepared to pay $250 for a system (or apparently even $180!). Why is the system $250? I'm pretty sure the stereoscopic 3D plays a large role there. If that's the case, then you're essentially arguing that the casual audience is not willing to actually pay the price for the 3D.

Isn't that conceding the point?

To put it in more proper perspective, it's the third-worst selling Mario platformer to date, beating only Sunshine (3D) and Galaxy 2 (3D). It's been outsold three-fold by one of the least critically praised Mario platformers (NSMB), and almost three-fold by the 2D game on the same platform (NSMBWii), notwithstanding that it's been out much longer and has been available for only $20 (vs. $50) for nearly a year.

I'll add that when you say "[s]o, the market doesn't want 3D Mario?  Apparently they do, because they're buying it" you're not actually contradicting his point, as he's repeatedly conceded that there's a market for it. It's just a much smaller market, but it's also the one that's being catered to in lieu of the demonstrably bigger one. That seems foolish, no?

3DS sales were far below expectations for most of the year. The exception was the last quarter of the calendar year, i.e. the holidays. That was when the system saw such games as Mario and Mario Kart. Japan also got Monster Hunter. Once those games dried up, the sales followed suit. This tells me that excitement at the prospect of more 3D isn't the motivating factor behind sales, or else sales would have been stronger initially and they wouldn't have tailed off once big games stopped arriving.

There's a reason Miyamoto said "Especially for the first six months following the system's release, sales were weaker than the DS. This was mainly due to the fact we didn't have any big first party titles, I believe. Also the price point was too high... In fairness to us, we realised that, reduced the price and worked very hard to have a strong lineup for the Christmas season, which we offered with Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and Kid Icarus."

He puts part of it on the price (which we talked about earlier), and part of it on the games. I agree primarily about the latter: more games equals more sales, just as they have for nearly every system ever. For example, I fully anticipate a prolonged sales bump come September.

Let me try another angle. If current excitement of 3D was a strong motivator for system sales, Miyamoto wouldn't be saying that "we also have some excellent features that appeal to non-gamers: 3D photography, the augmented reality features and other preinstalled apps. We tried hard to communicate these, but we failed." He's putting it down to a failure to communicate (insert your own Cool Hand Luke voice here). I suspect it's for the same reason that 3D movie ticket sales have declined after the initial novelty: most people simply don't care about it, certainly not enough to pay for it. Either way, per Miyamoto the 3D doesn't seem to be having the intended effect.

The fact that Sony, it's only competitor in the arena, was nice enough to repeatedly shoot itself in the foot with an elephant gun plays a large role in that. Seriously, what's the next big release for the thing? A Persona port sometime in mid-Summer?

"To put it in more proper perspective, it's the third-worst selling Mario platformer to date, beating only Sunshine (3D) and Galaxy 2 (3D). It's been outsold three-fold by one of the least critically praised Mario platformers (NSMB), and almost three-fold by the 2D game on the same platform (NSMBWii), notwithstanding that it's been out much longer and has been available for only $20 (vs. $50) for nearly a year.

I'll add that when you say "[s]o, the market doesn't want 3D Mario? Apparently they do, because they're buying it" you're not actually contradicting his point, as he's repeatedly conceded that there's a market for it. It's just a much smaller market, but it's also the one that's being catered to in lieu of the demonstrably bigger one. That seems foolish, no?"

3rd worst out of how many..?

We can't count Super Mario Bros, because that's a bundled game. Ditto for Super Mario World. That leaves us with...

Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario 64, NSMB Wii, NSMB DS, and the two land games having outsold Galaxy.

Super Mario Galaxy is still selling, and has a legit chance of surpassing Super Mario 64, and Super Mario Land.

The other 4 are all games that have managed to sell over 17 million, which is a ridiculous standard to hold any game to.

As for "catering to" a certain market, I don't see it that way. I see it as a different allotment of labor according to different needs.

NSMB Wii, with a little help from bundling, has sold about 25 million units. Let's say it was 20 million without bundled systems. Partially because that seems about right, and partially because it makes a nice round number.

If Nintendo cut Galaxy's team and budget in half and gave it to the NSMB Wii team. How much more do you think that NSMB Wii would sell? How much less do you think Galaxy would sell?

This is all just theory, but I doubt that NSMB Wii would sell much more, and certainly not enough to offset the lost sales of Galaxy. Different genres have different requirements.

But more to the point of why I dislike Malstrom, I haven't seen Malstrom say that there is a market for 3D Mario. What he's said was...

"Gaming, as a medium, grows with 2d Mario. Gaming, as a medium, declines with 3d Mario."

And that's why I hate him. It's these ridiculously broad and sensationalist assertions that make him a joke to me.

Malstrom isn't objective enough, he lets his own personal preferences cloud his views.

Not a forgone conclusion; NSMBWii never outsold Mario Kart Wii.

October 31st?  Definitely not.  I believe the game is coming out in August.  Even IF the game came out on August first, that would leave it 3 months to sell at the very least 5.9 million copies.  That's assuming 3D Land, which sold around 47k last week, came to a dead stop and didn't sell another copy until October 31st. The only way NSMB 2 would reach that goal is if it were being released over the holidays.