Ummm...  Western 3rd parties hardly ever support the handheld market.  This has been true since the Game Boy.

Huh? Since when has western support had any influence in the handheld space? 

Third party support was never that large in the first place, but I do agree with the momentum part. After the huge price cut in 2011 and releasing their two biggest IPs in the time-span of a couple weeks (again in 2011) they didn't give themselves much room to keep momentum going because they already let three of their catalysts out onto the market. There hasn't been price cuts in awhile and there was only one huge game last year as well as Japan not having a new 3DS iteration for two years. Badly planned, I would say.

@NoName; what games do your propose? Do you have any specifics? 

no games so far....

kirby being the biggest hitter this year... so far

Wrong.  There is no western 3rd party support for handheld to begin with.  They care about console and mobile only.

ummm...how is it that the XBone "isn't selling bad, it's selling just fine. PS4 is just selling more", but the 3DS, which sells more than the XBone, is doing bad?

i think he has to be joking as NInty handhelds NEVER relied on west 3rd parties. They dont even make games for portables like that.

OT IMHO 3ds is just a system that most dont care about. I think like the Wii DS put some false sense of security in people (me included) but 3ds is just a more powerful Ds with 3d and people clearly didnt care about the 3d. The dual screen thing isnt that cool anymore. The fact that is had such a big price cut early on and more revisions in a shorter amount of time than any previous handhelds is telling and its still on track to be their lowest selling handheld coming of their highest selling one. Its a crazy cycle.  Not to mention they dont have a lot of heavy hitters left to release. Besides Smash.

It's not doing spectacular, but you can't say smartphones, smartphones, smartphones enough. Look at the Vita's stuggles as well. At least the 3DS is putting up significant numbers. I think things will improve once Pokemon and Smash come out. It's good that Smash is coming out this summer, because it needs a boost. Releasing the 2DS in Japan would be good too.

I really wish ppl would stop pointing fingers elsewhere to justify sales. Things like this should be based on predecessor performance and 3DS nowhere near as hot as the DS or GBA.

What games would those be? Super Mario 3D Land, ALBW, Pokémon X/Y etc. are all considered to be extremely good games that harken back to what made the series good in the first place. I understand this ideology with the Wii U, but not completely with the 3DS.