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Forums - Nintendo - Is price a major factor in poor 3DS/Wii U sales compared to GBC/N64 & GBA/GC?

mountaindewslave on 10 June 2015
Soundwave said:
mountaindewslave said:


the DS was released because GBA sales were drastically slowing down after like 2 years. you can spin it your way, but the reality is it can easily be spun the other way- it was not a great handheld at the time in comparison to some of the competition of the mid 2000s (PSP being so graphically superior that the DS update/release was totally necessary)

the 3DS does pretty well, it could potentially sell over 70 million

people have to be realistic, when we're talking about a handheld system that costs a couple hundred $$$ and the fact that a set of games and accessories are going to cost a couple $$$, something like 70 million sales in 5 years potentially is fantastic

 

bear in mind that a GBA cost 100$ or less practically throughout its ENTIRE run. even when inflation is adjusted, the 3DS is way more expensive. the point I'm indicating is that price indicators do matter. if the 3DS was price at or was capable of being priced at a GBA price who knows how many it would sell

even the DS was much cheaper, at 150$ at the start and then 130$ for the majority of its life. 

the 3DS is extremely expensive compared to comparable Nintendo handhelds in the past, every single one, regardless of inflation. it's something that needs to be kept in mind, because obviously the question of quantity vs price shows up and if you sell 50 systems at 200$ rather than 100 systems at 100$ it's a very similar situation in terms of pure hardware revenue

Actually I think you're selling the GBA fairly short. 

Do you know what the fastest selling game platform in US history is from launch? It's not the SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, DS, Game Boy, or even the Wii. It's the GBA. Its sales were monstrous here out of the gate. GBA would've easily crushed 100 million LTD if it had been given a normal life cycle, I don't think you will deny this because it's plainly obvious. 

Also inflation adjusted the GBA is $133, which is about the price of a 2DS and not so far off from the regular 3DS price of $169.99. 

The 3DS is not "extremely expensive" compared to past Nintendo handhelds. Like I said a Game Boy in 1989/90 is $190 with inflation, that's a whopping 10 bucks shy of a 3DS XL and more expensive than the 2DS and vanilla 3DS. 


already established that GBA sales declined drastically after its initial release, there's no debating that. no one is arguing that it didn't sell well its first year or 2, but obviously it slowed down considerably

3DS price point (for the current newest version throughout its run) has been 200$ (or 199$) everywhere. that has not changed, at least in the USA. not sure where you're shopping finding it 169$, unless you're referring to older models. current regular top model would be at the 200$ range at all major US retailers, sometimes with a game packaged in

also the 2DS is hardly a comparable, besides maybe the Gameboy Pocket (which was superior to the Gameboy in some ways, especially size) I can't think of one way in which the 2DS has advantages over the 3DS, hence its price point



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Soundwave on 10 June 2015
mountaindewslave said:
Soundwave said:

Actually I think you're selling the GBA fairly short. 

Do you know what the fastest selling game platform in US history is from launch? It's not the SNES, Playstation, Playstation 2, DS, Game Boy, or even the Wii. It's the GBA. Its sales were monstrous here out of the gate. GBA would've easily crushed 100 million LTD if it had been given a normal life cycle, I don't think you will deny this because it's plainly obvious. 

Also inflation adjusted the GBA is $133, which is about the price of a 2DS and not so far off from the regular 3DS price of $169.99. 

The 3DS is not "extremely expensive" compared to past Nintendo handhelds. Like I said a Game Boy in 1989/90 is $190 with inflation, that's a whopping 10 bucks shy of a 3DS XL and more expensive than the 2DS and vanilla 3DS. 


already established that GBA sales declined drastically after its initial release, there's no debating that. no one is arguing that it didn't sell well its first year or 2, but obviously it slowed down considerably

3DS price point (for the current newest version throughout its run) has been 200$ (or 199$) everywhere. that has not changed, at least in the USA. not sure where you're shopping finding it 169$, unless you're referring to older models. current regular top model would be at the 200$ range at all major US retailers, sometimes with a game packaged in

also the 2DS is hardly a comparable, besides maybe the Gameboy Pocket (which was superior to the Gameboy in some ways, especially size) I can't think of one way in which the 2DS has advantages over the 3DS, hence its price point


GBA sales actually peaked in 2003 I believe with the release of the GBA SP. The SP was a huge seller (figures because you could actually play the damn thing without having to be directly under a light source at all times). 

If you're saying sales slowed after that, well no shit, that tends to happen when you have your legs cut off from under you with a successor released. 

If Nintendo released "4DS" 3 years into the 3DS life cycle it would wither up and die at 50 million LTD. 

The standard price for the 3DS has been $169.99. People PREFER the more expensive $199.99 3DS XL, that's the only reason NOA has phased out the vanilla 3DS here. Americans don't want the rinky dink smaller handheld for a whopping $30 less. Which if anything doesn't really help the "handhelds should be cheap as dirt" arguement. And of course the 2DS is going to have fewer features. It's lower cost, which is a basic tenant of like ... uh every product in consumer history?

Lower price usually means less features. You can't have it both ways and say "well 2DS doesn't count because it has less features", well you can't have the lower price without less features, the two factors don't exist in a seperate vacuum. 



SWORDF1SH on 10 June 2015
zorg1000 said:

It's no secret that this is looking to be the lowest selling generation for Nintendo, there are many theories for this and I think price is a major factor.

Back in 1998, Gameboy Color was released for $69.99, adjusted for inflation that's about $100 today. Back in 2003, Gameboy Advance SP released for $99.99 and in 2004 received a price cut to $79.99 or about $100 in 2015 money.

Back in 1998, N64 cost $129.99 and in 1999 it went down to $99.99 while GameCube cost $99.99 in 2003. Adjusted for inflation, both of these devices would cost under $149.99. So basically in the late 90s/early 00s, u could get a Nintendo handheld for about $100 and a Nintendo console for under $150 or under $250 for both. Now let's compare that to Nintendo's current devices.

The premium 3DS sku is $199.99 and has been for almost 3 years now. Wii U is $299.99 and has been since launch in 2012 but now with more value packed in. To get both its about $500. So adjusted for inflation, Nintendo's handheld & console cost about twice as much as they did in the late 90s/early 00s. Do u think this has a major impact on their sales?

I did an article a few years ago about the most expensive consoles. Wii U came in 39th out of 51.

http://www.gamingcapacity.com/the-most-expensive-consoles-in-history-ps4-at-33rd-xbox-one-at-18th/



oniyide on 10 June 2015
homer said:
oniyide said:

i remember when people swore it would boost 3ds sales a lot


Has Nintendo released numbers for it? I wonder because in my personal experience, I've seen more 2ds owners. They all have little bags for them too.

in my expericene ive seen 2 2ds owners. and im in NYC



mountaindewslave on 10 June 2015
Soundwave said:
mountaindewslave said:


already established that GBA sales declined drastically after its initial release, there's no debating that. no one is arguing that it didn't sell well its first year or 2, but obviously it slowed down considerably

3DS price point (for the current newest version throughout its run) has been 200$ (or 199$) everywhere. that has not changed, at least in the USA. not sure where you're shopping finding it 169$, unless you're referring to older models. current regular top model would be at the 200$ range at all major US retailers, sometimes with a game packaged in

also the 2DS is hardly a comparable, besides maybe the Gameboy Pocket (which was superior to the Gameboy in some ways, especially size) I can't think of one way in which the 2DS has advantages over the 3DS, hence its price point


GBA sales actually peaked in 2003 I believe with the release of the GBA SP. The SP was a huge seller (figures because you could actually play the damn thing without having to be directly under a light source at all times). 

If you're saying sales slowed after that, well no shit, that tends to happen when you have your legs cut off from under you with a successor released. 

If Nintendo released "4DS" 3 years into the 3DS life cycle it would wither up and die at 50 million LTD. 


I hear what you are saying, but if supposedly the GBA was capable of much greater sales ( and you're talking tens of millions) it's hard to believe Nintendo wouldn't have held the release of the DS for a bit

based on DS sales we can obviously tell that at that time the handheld market was much larger than now, most likely due to less usage of advanced mobile phones and things of that nature

GBA sales versus DS sales definitely indicate that Nintendo was not properly getting involved with the market. you can't spin it both ways, Nintendo released the DS and it sold huge-  despite being released not THAT long after the GBA. GBA sold well but arguably it was not really saturating the market that well based on the DS's performance starting in 2004 and onward

what I'm pointing out is that the GBA sold well due to the time and place, that  it was certainly easier to sell handhelds in the early to mid 2000s than it is today. the 3DS may not be matching the GBA in terms of sales pace, but it is doing extremely well when you consider price point and the competition that handhelds now face from mobile gaming



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mountaindewslave on 10 June 2015
oniyide said:
homer said:


Has Nintendo released numbers for it? I wonder because in my personal experience, I've seen more 2ds owners. They all have little bags for them too.

in my expericene ive seen 2 2ds owners. and im in NYC


oh yeah, 2DS is a total flop. bad design, bad idea (did Nintendo honestly expect people to want an extremely inferior product just because it is quite a bit cheaper? it doesn't even have reasonable screen protection). rarely see people with them, curious on the sales numbers of the 2DS in particular 



Soundwave on 10 June 2015
mountaindewslave said:
Soundwave said:


GBA sales actually peaked in 2003 I believe with the release of the GBA SP. The SP was a huge seller (figures because you could actually play the damn thing without having to be directly under a light source at all times). 

If you're saying sales slowed after that, well no shit, that tends to happen when you have your legs cut off from under you with a successor released. 

If Nintendo released "4DS" 3 years into the 3DS life cycle it would wither up and die at 50 million LTD. 


I hear what you are saying, but if supposedly the GBA was capable of much greater sales ( and you're talking tens of millions) it's hard to believe Nintendo wouldn't have held the release of the DS for a bit

based on DS sales we can obviously tell that at that time the handheld market was much larger than now, most likely due to less usage of advanced mobile phones and things of that nature

GBA sales versus DS sales definitely indicate that Nintendo was not properly getting involved with the market. you can't spin it both ways, Nintendo released the DS and it sold huge-  despite being released not THAT long after the GBA. GBA sold well but arguably it was not really saturating the market that well based on the DS's performance starting in 2004 and onward

what I'm pointing out is that the GBA sold well due to the time and place, that  it was certainly easier to sell handhelds in the early to mid 2000s than it is today. the 3DS may not be matching the GBA in terms of sales pace, but it is doing extremely well when you consider price point and the competition that handhelds now face from mobile gaming


Nintendo was worried that Sony was going to walk into the handheld market and take over the same way they did with the console market. So they had no choice but to release a repsonse (the DS). Otherwise they would have just let the GBA go, it was selling great. 

3DS has not been doing great the last few years. 2DS sales were dissapointing, the Pokemon bump was dissapointing, and last year was Nintendo's lowest handheld shipment in 17 years. Until this year, which will be their lowest handheld shipment in 18 years. You have to go back to before Pokemon became a hit to find handheld sales this low from Nintendo on a yearly basis. 

So while it's nice that the 3DS had a decent start to this cycle, the indicators as to where it's going now are not so rosy. It's clearly slipping against mobiles which doesn't bode well for the future. This is a situation that's getting worse year to year, not better. 

All of which wouldn't be so bad if Nintendo had even a half way decent selling console like they did in the mid-1990s where they had the SNES and N64 to weather a period where Game Boy sales went into the toilet, but the Wii U is not holding up its end of the bargain in that regard either and is going to be their worst selling console by about a mile. 



archer9234 on 10 June 2015
Soundwave said:
Augen said:
From my experience it did have a major effect on parent's buying habits. When I was a kid parents weren't thrilled, but they'd buy their kid a $100 hand held and a $30-40 game. Now, many parents I see view this as an even greater waste of money, especially if they can just download some free mobile game on their phone and hand it off to their kid. To these parents the quality of games is irrelevant, it is just a way to keep kids occupied. Phones also have added benefit of other features kids want and parents can keep tabs on them via text or calling.

In essence Nintendo pushed the price point at the exact time outside factors were and are squeezing the value of games in many sectors.


The problem is though, why even bother with a dedicated handheld in the first place then?

Even if the 3DS was $100 right now ... why should I as a cheap parent even bother when my kid is just as happy with the hand-me-down tablet I've given him/her with free/$1 games versus $30 games and having to pay another $100 on top of that? 

A low cost, rinky-dink handheld in the modern market is just going to look like a cheap piece of sh*t too in the modern market next to even a cheapo tablet that has a nice big screen HD display. Even with kids you'll get called out for releasing a cheap product. 

The sad irony is the first portable HD Nintendo games are going to be on the iPhone and Android, not on a Nintendo handheld. 

The "lets release something with 10 year old hardware and an absolute turd of a screen" thing worked in the GBA era ... but Nintendo has no competetion back then and consumers had no frame of reference for anything better so they just accepted it. I mean the original GBA is such a piece of shit honestly I can't believe now Nintendo ever got away with it. You couldn't play the thing in anything other than direct sunlight and games like Castlevania were so dark that you could barely see the game (lol) because Nintendo cheaped out on the screen at the last minute (so the developer didn't have time to re-adjust the graphics). 

I say you're wrong on the original GBA. It wasn't a cheap move. Put your mindset back to 2001. Having any form of backlighting LCD was an amazing feature then. I was amazed when the SP came out. Not only over the backlight. But the rechargable battery pack. Than the Pokemon Wireless adapter brought it to new levels. These where all brand new functions that are totally old hat and expected now. Not then. The original ipod was black and white. And cost a lot more than a GBA SP.



jonathanalis on 10 June 2015

yes.

few gamers would like to pay 300$ for a system that lacks the third party games.
lots of them would pay 150$.



oniyide on 10 June 2015
mountaindewslave said:
oniyide said:

in my expericene ive seen 2 2ds owners. and im in NYC


oh yeah, 2DS is a total flop. bad design, bad idea (did Nintendo honestly expect people to want an extremely inferior product just because it is quite a bit cheaper? it doesn't even have reasonable screen protection). rarely see people with them, curious on the sales numbers of the 2DS in particular 

i think they were trying to appease the people who were complaining about the 3d. Lesson here is dont listen to the vocal minority. OR they were just trying to get some quick cash by being uber cheap