“If you’ve been following the gaming business over the last year, you know that the Nintendo 3DS, which allows gamers to play titles in 3D without the need for special glasses, has faced a difficult market,” Don Reisinger writes for SlashGear. “In the second quarter of this year, Nintendo sold just 710,000 3DS units worldwide. Even worse, it could only get 110,000 units into homes in the U.S.”
“If we look back in history, Nintendo’s other platforms, like the Game Boy and DS, were flying off store shelves for years. The 3DS, however, has not,” Reisinger writes. “The 3DS is failing right now, more than any other reason, because of smartphones and tablets offering compelling gaming experiences. And when the iPhone 5 launches in the next several weeks, you can expect it to officially kill off the 3DS.”
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Reisinger writes, “Now, I say ‘kill off’ to drive the point home, but I don’t believe that Nintendo will actually discontinue the portable for at least another year. For some odd reason, Nintendo believes that it can turn things around with the 3DS. And it strangely feels that consumers who have yet to show that they care about the device will suddenly have a change of heart. Here’s a news flash for you, Nintendo: consumers do not and will not care about the 3DS. And the iPhone 5, which will likely come with improved components to help deliver even better gameplay to owners, will make that abundantly clear.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Nintendo may not believe they can turn things around with the 3DS. More likely they are employing Microsoft’s Zune strategy, which is to pull the plug on a product without officially killing it off in order to avoid the negative publicity fallout of the Kin kind. Some PR departments faced with high-profile flops seem to believe it’s better to fade away than to burn out.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward Weber” for the heads up.]