Really, the lack of many large games has worsened the 3DS's sales. Their putting most of their attention towards the Wii U and phones are beginning to make handheld gaming obsolete for some people so a drop in sales was going to happen.

It may not be the main reason but announcing the New 3DS so far ahead of it's release in most territories and in the lead up to Christmas seemed like a strange choice. I don't doubt that it impacted sales to some extent.

Lack of third party support and no new software, I'm talking new IPs. What happens when fans get tired of the Marios and the Zeldas? They move on to a console with good exclusives and extensive third party support.

Yeah, splatoon, devil's third and X are coming but to the average person,, the Wii U is a mario console.

What does Wii U have to do with anything?

If you are peddling unoriginal content at least try to post it in the correct thread.

I think embarrassment is too harsh a term, but it has been a disappointing year on the sales and software front. I haven't been paying much attention to the 3DS this year, and although I knew it was down YoY, I didn't think it was as low as 8 million.

Well alot of kids want ipads and tablets instead even though the are very simple (temple run etc)

8mil? Even if is overtracked by 500k, its going to be over 9mil for the year ;-D (possibly close to 9.5mil-10mil)

Thats actually a good number considering many factors here^

Delayed/ing the revision...!

I know it will have a few more good weeks and end up over 9, but like I said I haven't been following it too closely and already thought it had done about 10 million, not 8.  Still not a bad figure, it's a shame it isn't better though