For a Nintendo handheld, it is selling poorly. And then we have the DS that was their best selling one. There's no double standards, these are just the facts, let them sink in.

I think what some of them were trying to say is that even 3DS was also affected by the popularity of mobile games. ps vita never had a chance IMO.

Underperformer=/= failure.

Failures don't make companies tons of money

I suppose that all depends of the measure and perspective used. If we talk about the 3DS in hardware, software and profits, it failed to live up to the DS, but the 3DS has a bigger marketshare than the DS, and that can be considered a victory (specially with the incoming NX looking to be the only dedicated handheld device around). Even so, I'm pretty sure Nintendo didn't expect the 3DS to sell as much as the DS, so their expectations had to be closer to the GBA.

If we compare it with the GBA, it failed to sell as much hardware, but Nintendo sold way more of their software (27 millon sellers vs 29 3DS million sellers and counting). The GBA had almost the monopoly of the handheld, so talking about marketshare is pointless here (but the DS going from almost monopoly to 60% marketshare can be considered a big failure). I don't know which device has been more profitable, though.

Agreed the vita is a failure

But pointing that out only makes the 3DSs sales look worse, since they dont actually have any competition in the dedicated handheld space.

It is a failure though.

Look at all the iterations they have released. Nintendo hardcore geeks like me have like at least 10 x 3ds limited edition consoles lol.

FYI i never did that with the DS because i didn't really like it that much.

So say about a million Nintnedo fans get about 10 consoles each in their lifetime, thats 10million sales form the curent total. That to me is a little scary on how fa rit has declined.  That isn't even factoring in those people who upgraded from 3ds to 3ds xl or to the NEW models.

Exactly.  3DS didn't have any competition at all from ps vita.  It's obvious by now that 3DS sales would have been better if there wasn't a mobile market to compete with.  I guess what nintendo have planned for their next handheld will address that situation.

See that's the thing. They're fighting something bigger than competition in dedicated handhelds. They're competing against something that gets stronger every year, with better features and with cheaper games. Considering the competition, I think that 3DS did better than expected. Especially considering how little features it has vs mobile.

I would call it neither a dissapointment nor a failure.... 50 million pieces sold and counting is hardly a failure, specially considering that smartphones are rapidly replacing portable gaming today and it still keeps selling an average 100k every week.

If 3ds is a failure... what could we call Vita then?

Ops... better stop here.

That's a good analogy.