Nintendo 3DS price slashed to $169.99

Nick Mertes 28 Jul, 2011 at 10:13am ET Article published in Gaming

Lots of folks were excited by the concept of Nintendo’s handheld 3D system, but considered the $249.99 price tag a significant barrier to entry. Today Nintendo announced the price of the 3DS would be reduced to $169.99 starting August 12.

The rather large price drop comes during a period of strong title launches, including both 3D remakes of previous games and new entries in beloved franchises. Current games include The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D, and PilotWings Resort. Upcoming releases include StarFox 64 3D (September 9), Super Mario 3D Land (November), and Kid Icarus: Uprising (holiday 2011).

The new price will undoubtedly produce a far greater number of system and game purchases from people with smaller gaming budgets or just unwilling to shell out that kind of cash for a portable system.

Now, the good news:

Along with the new price is a “thank you” to all the early adopters who purchased a 3DS at its launch price : starting September 1, anyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS purchased at the original price and connects to the Nintendo eShop at least once prior to 11:59pm on August 11 will receive 20 free downloadable games from the eShop. Those people will automatically be registered into the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador program.

Ambassadors will be able (starting September 1) to download 10 NES Virtual Console games at no charge and before they are available in the Nintendo eShop, including Super Mario Bros, Donkey Kong Jr, Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, and The Legend of Zelda. By the end of the year, Ambassadors will also be provided 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. Those GBA games will be exclusively available to Ambassadors – Nintendo has no plans to release those titles to the general public on the 3DS. Those exclusive games include Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare Inc, Mega Microgame$, and Mario vs Donkey Kong.

Comments

28 Jul 2011 ~ 10:51am Starman I'm glad I waited. I think I'll continue to wait for the inevitable redesign, though. The "3DS lite", if you will.
28 Jul 2011 ~ 11:08am Thrax I should have waited.
28 Jul 2011 ~ 11:11am mertesn

Thrax wrote:

I should have waited.

Do the free downloads and exclusive titles help at all? Just curious because I think I'd be ok with it. Don't own a 3DS yet though.
28 Jul 2011 ~ 11:33am Thrax The free downloads have amounted to ExciteBike and Netflix. Cool, but not amazing. None of the titles have especially stood out, yet. I find the DS library to be considerably more compelling.

//EDIT: Read a little more. The 20 titles isn't bad.
28 Jul 2011 ~ 11:34am Cyclonite I own a 3DS and I'm okay with the price drop and free games. Nintendo could just as easily have dropped the price without offering anything to "early adopters."
28 Jul 2011 ~ 2:09pm UPSLynx I'm cool with the free games I guess, kind of wish I would have waited, but a ~$60 price drop announcement after the system has been on shelves for four months? Yeesh.
28 Jul 2011 ~ 3:50pm timuchan Makes me feel better about buying mine early... that's a huge price drop!!
28 Jul 2011 ~ 5:28pm Cliff_Forster Surprising, Nintendo normally masters a launch that can not meet demand driving further demand, discussion, parental panic, and fanboy rage. They made too many this time.
29 Jul 2011 ~ 2:23am cola Kinda sad I didn't wait, but I'm uber stoked to get my exclusive games/virtual console stuff XD
29 Jul 2011 ~ 8:54am MiracleManS This puts it in a price range that is compelling enough for me to consider.
29 Jul 2011 ~ 9:02am mertesn

MiracleManS wrote:

This puts it in a price range that is compelling enough for me to consider.

Same here, although it's still hard to justify. My DSLite still has excellent battery life, but I also haven't picked it up in a while to play any of the games.
29 Jul 2011 ~ 11:37am ardichoke

mertesn wrote:

Same here, although it's still hard to justify. My DSLite still has excellent battery life, but I also haven't picked it up in a while to play any of the games.

I'm with you on this... except mine is a DSi not a DSLite. I think I've played it for a grand total of 30 minutes in the past 3 months.
29 Jul 2011 ~ 1:39pm kryyst I haven't touched my DS since I got my iPad. Actually not entirely true I did try and play a couple games on it just because and then got quickly annoyed at how fiddly it now feels in manipulating buttons, d-pad and the stylus in some games. There are a couple DS games I miss, but most of the ones I like are already on iOS or there is something that fills the niche.

I also was thinking that when my daughter got a little older she'd like to graduate from her Leapster Explorer to the DS, which she used to really like. Sadly she has no desire to play it anymore. She prefers her Leapster for her learning games or the iPad for, well everything else.
31 Jul 2011 ~ 6:53pm CrazyJoe Some Costcos have already lowered their price to the $169.99 price, so if you buy one from there in the next two weeks you'll get the new price and the 20 free games...
27 Aug 2011 ~ 4:19pm TheMightyFuzzkins Even with this price drop, I am still not convinced to get a 3DS. My DSi is working well for me, and I already have enough games to keep me busy for ages. Only game that is coming out for the 3DS in the future that might be worth my while is the Kingdom Hearts title. I don't know, shilling out $169.99 for a system that still hasn't worked all of its kinks out doesn't appeal to me. And besides, the 3D feature on it gives me a really bad headache.
27 Aug 2011 ~ 11:34pm primesuspect Curious: What kinks has the 3DS not worked out yet?
28 Aug 2011 ~ 11:20pm TheMightyFuzzkins Well, the 3D feature makes the games on the DS really hard on the eyes, so that's one thing they can improve on. However, the main issue I heard people complain about is the low battery life. You may as well plug it in like a laptop in order to play it. Once they make a smaller model with a better battery life and more worthwhile games, then I might consider it. Nintendo already fixed the price issue though, so that's a good move. =D
28 Aug 2011 ~ 11:32pm Thrax Actually, it's simply that your eyes don't work well with 3D. It's an issue for 10% of the population.

As for battery life, I've played for 15 straight hours and never needed a charge. Your hearsay is, frankly, BS.
29 Aug 2011 ~ 10:38am mertesn

TheMightyFuzzkins wrote:

Well, the 3D feature makes the games on the DS really hard on the eyes, so that's one thing they can improve on.

If you're playing a DS game, the 3D slider should probably be in the down position anyway. That's not a problem with the console - it's user error.
29 Aug 2011 ~ 3:36pm primesuspect I own a 3DS and have no complaints at all about the battery life.