Mostly everyone on this site can agree that we all were predicting 3DS sales to go down a bit from last year. Not only did a wave of people buy, but major releases flooded the handheld almost monthly, and practically everything gracing it turned golden. But this year was a huge, huge embarassment. I know 2014 isn't quite done, and games were substantially smaller, but still, these numbers are pathetic. For it's third full year, the handheld only managed to push ~8,089,661, and with only 2 weeks left hitting 10m units looks bleak. But how did it crash so hard? I was honestly predicting it would still hit 12m at worst, but this is terrible. So, where did Nintendo go wrong? Was it over the summer when nothing released on it, or was it the minscule titles that received mainly mixed reviews. Or did Wii U actually steal some attention from something? This just is unbelievable and puts me at awe that 3DS won't even hit 10m, despite having Smash 3DS and Pokemon remakes breathing down each others necks this holiday season. I personally think Nintendo should've spaced launches better, not left the summer barren (This is for Wii U, too. They could've captured so much more territory in the market had games like Hyrule Warriors and Bayonetta 2 followed the end of Mario Kart bundle, which I was first predicting) and saved the 2DS for this year. 3DS had enough going for it with software, and cheaper hardware would've benefitted Nintendo greatly.

not a lot of software really to boost sales
next year I think will be better due to new 3ds majoras mask 3d, monster hunter 4, next pokemon, yokia watch, bunch of other games

There weren't many exciting games this year...
Still waiting for Metroid 3DS (even though it's gonna do nothing to sales :P)

What are you talking about? It sold a million more than Xbox One and I heard that one was doing just fine.

This was a pretty mediocre year for gaming all across the board. 3DS included.

Why is one option no new hardware, when new hardware is probably the exact reason it isn't selling? I'd say the announcement of the New 3DS is a pretty substantial part of the problem.

New Hardware announced + Not enough key games... We had what? Kirby in Q1? Pokemon remasters? Handheld version of SSB and a bunch of niche jrpgs? It makes sense as to why it went down really

Nintendo can't support two consoles now that the handheld has development cycles of any significant length (compared to DS games, much less resource-intensive). So they have feast or famine for one or the other. Mario Kart kicked off a good year and a half for Wii U which we're still only midway through. Next year similarly looks pretty good for Wii U but even poorer for 3DS.

Hence why high-portability twin platforms are needed.

Phones.

Not enough new games.