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[Christian Knudsen]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/07/28/nintendo-3ds-price-drops-from-249-to-169-august-12th-current/

Anybody have one of these already? I've been thinking about getting one but afraid the 3D effect is just a gimmick that'll quickly wear out its welcome.

[Zaphos]

Still waiting for them to release (new, good) games for it ...

Also is it normal for companies to announce price drops 2 weeks before they will happen?  It says the drop isn't till August 12 ... seems weird.  (Just wondering)

[Christian Knudsen]

Yeah, that does seem kinda odd. They're definitely making sure less people will buy it in the next two weeks. Or maybe they're thinking that the 20 free games will convince some people to still buy it at the current price?

[TeeGee]

That's quite a price drop, especially for new hardware . It must be selling like shit for them do do something like that. No wonder really.

[TobiasW]

20 free games

That eerily reminds me of Action 52... (Surely at least a FEW of these 52 games should be worth the price, right? Right? Why are you laughing?)

And yeah, it is probably to give players a... well, a "chance" to still get these 20 games and join this "Nintendo Ambassador" program as a "loyal customer".

[Zaphos]

The 20 games are just old NES and GBA titles.  They listed a few --

for NES: Super Mario Bros.™, Donkey Kong Jr.™, Balloon Fight™, Ice Climber™ and The Legend of Zelda™

for GBA: Yoshi's Island™: Super Mario™ Advance 3, Mario Kart™: Super Circuit, Metroid™ Fusion, WarioWare™, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong™

(Also for the GBA games they say "These games will be available exclusively to Ambassadors, and Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future" ... which is an interesting way to put a positive spin on the lack of content in their online store I guess.)

[Trevor Dunbar]

Sadly, they could have put the 3DS out at this price at launch and turned a HUGE profit from sure volume of sales alone. (It only costs them ~$100 to produce each.) This is what happens when you become so smug and are so sure people are going to buy your game system no matter what. Oh wait, you mean people actually want GAMES on their GAME system? WHAAT? You mean they don't want new 3D videos from the newest boy band!? Nandayo!?

On a less cynical note:
Those are still good games...for FREE!    

on a MORE cynical note:
...but the 3DS still has no NEW original "Must HAVE!" games.

...but you're still hungry.

Really, the only good games to play on this system from it's god-forsaken launch SO-FAR are:
Pokemon B/W (if you haven't played it to death), Link's awakening, and Ocarina of Time 3DS. And MAYBE Pilotwings. That's it.

I just got a good amount of laughs connecting to the eShop since it's debut and naming off the eShop titles you can buy to my friends. Come on, you know you want My Notebook Platinum!!! And My Exotic Farm!
The only new gameBoy games they added to the virtual console since the inital eshop launch are Tennis and Baseball. SERIOUSLY? ONLY Tennis and Baseball!? It's been like more than a month or two. Holy crap!

Also, if you buy one after this price drop do NOT buy Street Fighter 4 if you plan to use the download-play feature to play with one cart and another friend...UNLESS you both love only playing as Ryu. Jesus Capcom, you really make me want to go over to japan and punch you in the face. ARGH.

All-in-all the 3DS has been a perfect emulation of a post-apocalyptic barren waste land. Void of all life, with "awesome" 3rd party games to download from their eShop.

[SirNiko]

Huh. A price drop might sell me on this. Pilotwings looks a bit nifty.

[C.A. Silbereisen]

I can't wait to be a useless piece of shit all day and play all these games

It's interesting how much this goes against Nintendo's usual policy of never dropping prices on anything.

But idk I think the 3DS was poorly marketed. They just babbled on about 3D endlessly and didn't make it clear enough that it was a next-gen handheld. Quite a few people I know still think it's another DS redesign/minor upgrade like the DSi. I guess it was also a mistake to make all their high-profile launch titles "casual" games. Casual gamers aren't usually early adopters.

[Tumetsu]

This price drop means that I could actually get 3DS in future, but like people here have said, it doesn't really have many interesting titles so far. I suppose that I either buy the next upgrade model. That's is if I ever see need to get this. Vita could be interesting alternative though so far I'm not very impressed by it either.

[moi]

next nintendo console: a smartphone.
Launch titles: mario jump, zelda pachinko and metroid tower defense

[Bood_War]

This makes me glad that I'm waiting for more games to come out, though I'll probably just buy it now.

Seriously, Luigi's Mansion 2. I have been waiting for that shit for years.

[eld]

The 3ds is a fantastic piece of hardware, there's just not that many games out for it.

This means that Nintendo (after the whole wii success) put their profit margins WAY too high.

[---]

Heh, maybe I'll buy it.

[Richard Kain]

I already bought a 3DS, so this price-drop barely effects me. (aside from the free download games, which is a nice gesture) After the first few months that the 3DS has been on the market, it is clear that Nintendo's original price for the system is untenable. Back in 2004, when the DS released, this sort of pricing might have worked. In this day of the iPhone and iPad, there was just no way that Nintendo could let the 3DS ride at $250 for its entire first year.

The only real surprise here is how soon the price drop occurred, and how steeply the price fell. I imagine that this is mainly in response to the 3DS's lackluster sales record up to this point, and partially due to Sony's price announcement for the PSVita. (which was considerably lower than most people expected) To be fair, the profit that Nintendo is turning on every 3DS unit means that they have plenty of wiggle room for lowering the price. And the coming $170 price is going to be much better for their new handheld going into holiday 2011. A price that low is necessary for the 3DS to reach and appeal to the wider, broader audience that has been Nintendo's bread and butter over the most recent hardware generation.

[J. Kyle Pittman]

Got a 3DS on day one. Barely used it since then...played Pilotwings and a bit of Ocarina of Time and that's about it, save for futzing around with the AR games a bit. I like the hardware, but it's been having the same problem as the Wii...there just isn't enough compelling software to get me to turn it on every day.

Those free games are a nice gesture to early adopters, though, and the selection is good, if a little predictable.

[Richard Kain]

...there just isn't enough compelling software to get me to turn it on every day.

I feel that more and more, this particular expectation is becoming not only unrealistic, but impractical.

With my busy schedule, it is unusual for me to play any games every day, let alone for one specific system. There just aren't enough hours in the day to play that many games. As such, my personal expectations for game selection on a console-to-console basis are much lower than say, a college student or teenager. (and certainly lower than most under-twelves) When I purchase a console or a handheld, I no longer do so with the expectation that it will keep me entertained daily.

This is no excuse for the 3DS's fairly weak selection of games up to this point. But it does put things into perspective. I would imagine that many early adopters of a $250 handheld are in the same boat. (have more disposable income than time)

[Sabby]

Nintendo is getting serious, that's all I've got to say. The PSV's going to have a bit of a tougher time after this.

Wonder what the Wii U's gonna be like.

[Kramlack]

Price drop is stupid when there's still no games, but on the other hand, I guess Nintendo want more people to pick it up so more third parties will make games for it...

[Gimym JIMBERT]

With all those 3rd party game dev cancellation it might help them do the drop