http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2014/07/18/npd-hardware-sales-numbers-leak-for-june-2014/

Was down 25% by June, since getting 3DS numbers is tough I've found a decent source even though they're missing numbers for one month, but what I get is:

July 13 - 150k

August 13 - approx 130k

September 13 - unknown

October 13 - 452k

July 14 - 108k (-38%)

August 14 - 91k (-44%)

September 14 - 140k (?)

Oct 14 - 130k (-322%)

So yeah. That 25% number is not getting better it's worse. Though you're right, this isn't just a one year thing, the 3DS was beginning to fade last year too, last year was *not* a good year for the 3DS, I knew something was very, very wrong with the system when it was getting all those good games, but it was starting to slump or not showing any growth from the previous year. 

By "fading" I mean in general a decline to a low level of sales ... like this year it looks like the 3DS is well on its way to only shipping 10 million for the fiscal year ... the PSP even was far stronger than that and didn't decline to those levels of sales until later in its lifecycle (DS of course blows the 3DS away). 

10 million will represent Nintendo's lowest handheld shipments for a year since 1995 or 1996. This is before the GBC even, this is not good. It's actually has to be Nintendo's no.1 problem I think, this erosion of their handheld market is absolutely devastating. 

They surely HAVE to be planning this? Even if it's just also to put out the odd teaser game to encourage upgrading to a dedicated system. But yeah I'm amazed they haven't look at least at partnering up. Something like an Xperia Play, but with an up to date OS/better spec would be very appealing to me if it had an exclusive Nintendo eShop on it. The form factor actually works really well with slide out controls.

What with the AV output capabilities of modern phones and tablets, it'd also make a great retro console to hook up to the TV.

Holy shit!

452k to 130k

To be fair they released Pokemon X/Y last year, but I am surprised Smash 3DS did virtually nothing to boost 3DS at all. I suspect Nintendo was hoping it would. The thing is I don't think they will get a big boost from Ruby/Sapphire this year because the remaining Pokemon hold-outs bought their 3DS' already last year for X/Y.

at least put a statistical chartz and compare it year to date and include with other handled platfor from DS and Gameboy advance. and also put another source from media, official one and also the numbers is kind difficult to read. OP just make your thread interesting.

Tablets will kill handhelds imo

as long as their is Pokemon/MK/Japan, i dont thinkit will, if it was going to happen it would of happened already^

While console sales in general got a kick in the teeth, portables suffered even greater. Taking that into account there is also the fact that fading sales over the lifespan of a console is a very normal thing. in About 1,5 years they'll announce a new handheld. It will come a year after that and we'll start all over again. If you look at the graph over the years it is quite flat. Yep there's a decline but for the most part that's a natural decline.

On a side note. You can't 1:1 compare console sales form similar parts of lifetime over the course of the last few years. The console sales have been in a steady decline the last few years, dropping 10's of millions at a time. For instance you can't say that when sales drop 15% for brand A while the market shrinks by 20% (fictive numbers) that brand A is doing very bad because they are actually beating the negative trend.

handhelds are shrinking because kids would use ipads, iphones to play those .99 games or even the free one. quality handheld games are becoming less and it is only Japan who are really pushing for the handheld industry to be relevant.

next gen handheld - i'm not sure Sony would push for one due to its financial issues. Nintendo - they won't push for superb graphics as it could cost the next gen handheld to be too costly and they won't benefit from it.

the fusion or even the Wii U gamepad and now they can use 3ds as a controller is a good option. Nintendo could go for a better console higher CPU and graphics for the console and the gamepad/hybrid 3ds as a portable. the games i don't know - maybe games stored on the memory on the gamepad maybe SD card would store the games they wanted to play outside of their house.

speculations but that is the only thing Nintendo could do for the handheld games. it could also be backwards compatibility which would help sales in a sense. androids and iPads are all over the US so kids would normally play much in it outside of the house. Nintendo's best bet is really somewhat of a fusion even though i also don't know if it is really the thing they wanted to move forward. we have a thread about it and nobody can really have a good guess.

First question for next nintendo handheld: single screen or double screen?
this is crutial.