In Third Person

Even prior to yesterday’s announcement of a massive price drop, it was fairly safe to say that the Nintendo 3DS isn’t doing so hot right now. The system hasn’t sold very well anywhere, the games haven’t sold well, the game library as a whole sucks, and a number of upcoming games have either been delayed or cancelled due to the system’s poor sales. I bought one at launch and I’ve been pretty disappointed in it. The software lineup has been very weak, the 3D effect is nothing more than a gimmick and the hardware itself takes some weird steps backwards from the DS Lite. While my website metrics aren’t the most accurate means of judging the interest level in a console, all of my Nintendo 3DS posts have tanked hard, which I blame mainly on lack of interest in the platform.

So the news of a Nintendo 3DS price drop isn’t exactly a shock. What is a shock, however, is how big the drop was. Nintendo is slashing over 30% off the $250 asking price to bring the new Nintendo 3DS price to $170.

With a price drop coming so soon and so big, Nintendo knows that the platform is in huge trouble. Is this going to be enough to spark sales and stabilize the platform? I don’t know. There are a number of factors outside of the price that make a revival difficult, chief among them is the fact that the library as a whole still sucks and won’t improve in the relatively near future.

If you bought a Nintendo 3DS early and feel ripped off, Nintendo is going to try and make it up to you with their “Nintendo 3DS Ambassador” program. If you connect to the Nintendo eShop before 11:59 EST on August 11, you’ll be elegible to receive 10 select NES games for free as early as September 1, along with 10 select Gameboy Advance games for free before the end of the year. I’ll for sure take advantage of the offer, but it won’t be enough to shake off my buyer’s remorse.

What do you think of this huge Nintendo 3DS price drop? Is this enough to get you into a store and buy one?