isnt that the whole thing of it?

I can agree with the fact that 3D Mario is definitely not the system seller people on the internet make it to be, it's more of a critical darling or an extra. 2D Mario sells more consoles and the 3DS definitely doesn't have the best 2D Mario. In fact, it's the worst in my opinion. (NSMBU was also released only months after it, further reducing the "use" of NSMB2.)

However, that's definitely not the only problem with the 3DS. Do you feel that a new iteration could help the sagging bottom line? I certainly feel that it would help Japan out a lot considering their last 3DS iteration was the 3DS XL in 2012. 

I would also like to point out, in general not to you, Rol, that the 3DS has for a long time not been competitive with the DS. That's just silly. However, it should've sold around what the GBA sold, but that's even a stretch now. And that's not good at all.

if Vita is doing fantastic, 3DS is blessing from gods

You’ve pretty much covered it here. In switching focus to trying to revive Wii U sales Nintendo have inadvertently undermined the 3ds which is now in decline. Nintendo are in one of those dammed if you do dammed if you don't situations as if they had done the opposite and focused on the 3ds and neglected the Wii U they would have had a home console with very little support which in turn would alienate any Wii U owners and damage the Nintendo Brand for not being able to support the console.

Their best option in my opinion would be to boost support for both consoles through more partnerships both using deals for 3rd party games and renting out Nintendo franchises to 3rd party devs like with Pokémon Conquest ,Hyrule Warriors and Smash Bros 3DS/Wii U.

I disagree, i would argue that in fact it was the 3ds version that reduced the use of the WIi U one, since it was released MONTHS before. on a system that had already been on the market for some time. 2d mario was a launch title, but why buy the system and game if Ninty just put out a 2d mario just months ago on a system you might already have? You probably wouldnt, doesnt matter if the Wii U one is better (it is) i imagine most people buying either really dont care.

Wait for YW2 and Pokemon and MH4G. That will be enough to get a decent year.

Though, yes, i think it'll be one of the worst nintendo handheld in sales. It'll be a shock for Nintendo, not really good for them this dying market when their home console is not doing so well. I think they'll have to launch their Fusion console soon ( it's a great idea considering handheld market is dying, so fusionning both market is genius )

Yes, I noticed that the 3DS haven't been doing well also. The 3DS haven't sold a ton of units since early 2013. It used to sell a lot. I thought it would pass 100 million but now I don't think it going to reach that for a lifetime. It is still doing better than the vita. It is still the Next-Gen handheld to buy. The 3DS might start selling a lot after E3 this year or maybe next year, depending which games comes out.

yeah um no no im not, i dont try to come up with ideas for Wii successor because Ive never had an issue with Wii U (HW wise) or 3ds in the first place? Why are you even talking about Wii when we're talking 3ds? The motion controls sucked. they put out an addon made it much better. They didt support it much with Wii, it is now a controller for Wii U so yeah I dont have an issue there. Maybe you do.

1. im with you on the 3d even though i wasnt before, i dont even use it. But they did make a SKU without it, so thats that.

2. No argument there, but they are getting better.

3. Gonna have to give me some examples of what you mean? Are we talking something like...brain training/Nintendogs? those were made and it didnt help much

4. agreed

Seems to be doing fine even it has little chance of achieving DS numbers.

Furthermore, expect a massive boost during the holidays.

In that case, the PS3 didn't sell as well as the PS2, but do you call 83M (6th best selling system, all time) bad? DS sold 154M, yes, but that was the "PS2 of handhelds", so that's an extremely high standard to be held against. And the GBA had no real competition (N-GAGE? Neo-Geo? Tapwave? All of these bombed completely) so even holding it up to that standard may be a little unfair.

PS Vita compared to PSP? That's bad. WiiU compared to Wii? That's bad. But at 43M in year 3 (DS was at 54M when it was 3 years old), I wouldn't consider that "bad".

btw, I'm not amongst the people that say "X is selling well because Y is selling less". It was just a gripe I had with some user sentiment on this site and the 3DS was an example to bring it up. A lot of people say XBone isn't selling bad, it's just not selling as good as PS4, yet we have people saying the 3DS is doing bad, while selling higher than a system that's "not selling bad"