I had written an email to Sean Malstrom (public enemy #1 on this forum) yesterday about the 3DS/2DS. Thought I'd share it. Sean Malstrom for anyone who isn't aware is an old-school Nintendo fan who doesn't like the N64, Gamecube, Wii U and 3DS. He liked the NES, SNES, Gameboy line, DS and Wii. He argued that the DS and Wii were a lot like the NES/SNES. When really the DS and Wii were heavily reliant on the casual gamers who are now on iOS, Android and Facebook:

Today (October 12th) marks the one year anniversary of the Nintendo 2DS. It launched at $130 USD. Even with the much more reasonable price point, the console still can't sell. The 2DS is $70 cheaper than an entry-level iPod Touch. And I found out that some of their 2DS skus contain a free pack-in game like Mario Kart 7! But they never really re-gained their lost audience. At $70 less upfront than an iPod Touch, you'd think that the 2DS would be an attractive buy for parents looking to get an entertaining toy for their kids. 

After the 3DS price drop to $170, I figured that Nintendo would do well with children and parents again. $170 is a good price for a handheld game console historically. The Gameboy debuted at $90 USD in 1989. The Gameboy is a good barometer to compare to given its widespread popularity and its iconic history. Adjusted for inflation, $90 in 1989 is equivalent to $172 in 2014. So you'd think that the 3DS at $170 and 2DS at $130 especially would be a home run right?

The problem though is that while the price of hardware for Nintendo portables is reasonable now (and if you count the 3DS at $170 as being reasonable, it's been reasonable for at least 3 years now), parents don't want to pay $40 for flagship Nintendo portable games anymore and they don't want to pay $30 for the less prestigious games either. Not when smartphone games are so cheap. $5 games. 99c games. Freemium games (free-to-play with optional micro-transactions). They have games like this on the PC too and Facebook. Diehard Nintendo fans still see value in $40 Nintendo portable games and niche $30-40 third-party games. But not parents. Not casuals. Not the king makers of the DS and Wii.

Nintendo is bleeding red ink. If Nintendo wants to stay relevant in 2015 and beyond, they need to revamp their Nintendo eStore. They should link eStore purchases to your Nintendo eAccount so that you can play all the Virtual Console/eStore games you bought with your Wii/DSi on your Wii U/3DS/2DS at no additional cost. Buy the game once and never have to repurchase it again if you want to transfer the game to another Nintendo console in the future. And they should put a greater focus on making cheap eStore games instead of $30-40 retail games. Keep the profitable full retail projects. Ditch the ones that bleed red ink.

And they need to push the eStore hard to third-party and indie developers. Get some third-party and indie guys to make $5 2D platformers and beat-em-ups designed specifically with the 3DS gamepad in mind. Make the kind of games that sold well on the NES, SNES, GBA and DS and of course also focus on providing innovative new experiences to gamers. But keep the budget low and sell the games at a competitive price. Only Nintendo hardcores and the industry whores on the Sony and Xbox platforms are willing to pay $40-60 each for games now. The Nintendo hardcores are not enough to get Nintendo in the black anymore. This isn't 2005 anymore. And only a minority of the industry whores respect Nintendo. 

You're never going to see a success like the DS, GBA or Gameboy again. And the dinosaur that is Nintendo won't get in the black again until they change with the times. Nintendo disrupted the market around 2006 with the whole touch screen thing. But then smartphones and tablets adopted touch screens and these devices became widespread and the rest is history.

I think core gaming as a whole is standing on a massive shift.. with the casual audience away to better places..its gonna be really hard to convince that core audience to buy your triple A game.. especially with every other company out there trying to convince you of buying their game.. there won't be enough money from the core audience..  portable already shifted away with its audience and there is nothing any of them can do anything about it.

Peope underestimated the sales casual audience were responsible for. Revamping the E-store won't help... Nintendo should have gotten more pro-active to go after the indies but thats too late now.. they are gone and never going back.

Yeah unfortunately it does look like the handheld market is breathing its last. Yes, the 3DS has been massively successful but it came out just before the really big take off of decent spec mobiles and tablets so this has fragmented the game players tremendously. I cant see Sony bringing out a successor to the Vita so really that leaves Nintendo.

For me, the only way a new handheld would succeed is if from the off, it was compatible with the entire library of an older generation. If the Vita supported digital PS2 games it would have sold a hell of a lot better than it did. For a new handheld to come out an succeed it really has to hit the ground running and offer something that countless android and apple devices already cant. And to me, that has to be a massive library and back catalogue right from the off.

It will in Gen 10.....for now I am enjoying what I can about my portable Nintendo 3DS XL.

No its shifted to Mobile.
i can play bioshock , crazy taxi gta sanandreas and old pc games as well as indies on my Tablet and Phone
why would i need inferior hardware with games that 39$
while i can buy GTA Sanandreas for example $3 or $4

3DS hardware sucks much and iPhone and Android is much better than 3DS

Unfortunately portable console market has shrinked a lot. Its not dead yet. But within a few years it will go dodo.

So you wrote a fairly boring email to someone on this forum and you put it on this forum now as a thread? What is the point of this? just a rant thread? I don't get it.

I agree. When all is said and done the 3DS will have sold about half of the DS sales. I predict the next nintendo handheld if it's a traditional handheld will sell sell than 40M lifetime.

Think a lot of nintendo fans will be shocked but you have to say you can see it coming a mile away. The market has moved with the times but nintendo hasn't.

The 3DS is approaching half of DS sales all-time in Japan. But it is only now approaching a quarter of DS sales all-time in North America, Europe and the "other" territories

The 3DS would have to sell another 30+ million units worldwide to hit the half-way mark of the DS. It's hard to see it happening at this point.

Even a large minority of the Japanese market is abandoning Nintendo in favour of Apple and Google. The 3DS is approaching half the DS install base. So Nintendo has kept the majority of their customers (50% +1) there at least. But it's still a significant loss and Nintendo has already rolled out the "New" 3DS in Japan now. Which is going to force Japanese gamers to buy the new hardware to play the games that are not backwards compatible with the 3DS. Artificially inflating the 3DS' install base numbers in the process.

As for PS Vita, there's a reason why I didn't even mention it to Sean Malstrom. It was DOA and SONY has given up on it. They learned absolutely NOTHING from the PSP. The PSP carved a niche for itself in 2004-2008. Offering PS2-like gaming on the go as well as a video and audio player on the go (and great homebrew. LOL). But then the iPhone 1st Gen started offering third-party apps in 2008 and the iPhone 3G that came after it started a smartphone revolution. After 2008, PSP was done in the west. And by 2012 (or was it 2011?), the Vita was DOA in Japan too. Sony is left to focus now on the media set top box market (Playstation TV) to compete with Roku, Chromecast and Apple TV.

Now iPhones and iPhone 2 year plans are expensive (the no.1 argument that people still use in 2014 on vgchartz to argue against smartphones). But you can get a budget or mid-range Android or Windows Phone smartphone for $0 on a reasonable 2 year plan that doesn't cost much more than what you were paying for your plan for your old flip phone. Canada is a rip-off for cellular phone service. And you can get a decent budget smartphone for $0 on a 2 year plan with 500 anytime minutes, unlimited evenings (5pm-8am) and weekends, unlimited text/picture messaging and 500 MB mobile data on a national network for $45/month. For a mid-range smartphone, $50/month for the same plan. An iPhone plan here goes for $80/month minimum and you need to pay $265 for it upfront. We get ripped off in Canada. If you are one of those people who just want to use Wi-Fi on their smartphone and don't care for mobile data, you can get a budget smartphone for $30/month (100 weekday minutes + 5pm-8am free + weekends free + unlimited messaging. no data) and a mid-range one for $40/month (200 weekday instead of 100 + 50 MB data). The barriers to entry in the smartphone market are so low now. The value proposition for a 3DS or Vita just isn't there now for parents or casuals. Only the Nintendo hardcore and PSP diehards.

Sean Malstrom is a member of vgchartz? Since when? That's news to me (and no I'm not being sarcastic. I haven't posted here regularly in 3 years. And posted a bit last year).

Nintendo brand hardware may be gone sometime in the future but if Nintendo is willing to team with Google or any other company that will allow Nintendo creative freedom, they can still sale many of their games to a much bigger audience.

Nintendo will have to pay royalty fees if they go third party for Xbox and Playstation which probably won't exist in the future anyway thanks to smart devices and freemium games.