Topic: Cost/Date: is it something to worry about?

Listen up. Nintendo isn't stupid, they've got everybody on their toes with the 3DS. They are not going to ruin it by marking up the system to some ridiculous price. The way I see it the max. Nintendo is going to market the 3DS for at launch will be $200. This would also just be assuring them the winners of the handheld market.

guys, its coming 2011 havent u heard?

All I've heard is from now until March 2011 is the release window for the US, Japan however will most definately be by the end of the year. I'm actually hoping for March 2011 cause my birthday is then. =p

yeah japan will probably get it this year but march is when US gets it

The 3DS costs the same as a DSi XL did when it first came out here where I live. How do I know that? Because it says you can order it for that amount of price on a website. The price is about 385 $ here, but everything is expensive in Norway!

i dont beleive that. we're talking a new handheld here! 3D,analog,exclusive games,etc. i think it would cost more than something with just bigger screens

I doubt they would make it 200$ I don't see why they would make their handheld more expensive than then there home console, maybe 150$ at most, I mean the DS launched at 130$ right so I wouldn't be surprised, I personally find 200$ too much for a handheld console.

iwata: "I have to refrain from talking specifically about the price point. What I can confirm is that, in terms of the production costs, it will cost more than the costs for the Nintendo DS today. Having said that, we believe we will produce enough value worthy of the production cost. We do not think we have to sell the products below cost."

so you can expect it to be more expensive than the DS, but i think most people were already planning on that. it still probably won't be that much more

Is he talking about the standard DS or the DSi? If he's talking about the DSi then the 3DS will be around $250 I assume.

It is true, though.

No the way I bought my DSi was by trading in my lite and that only got me $70! When you add tax it makes in $110.00! So I don't think you could trade in your DSi and still have extra money from the trade in.

If it was going to be released before X-mas, we would know already. That's not going to happen.

I think it'll be priced somewhere between $200-$250. It's still a huge chunk of change. The 8G iTouch is $200 retail, so unless they have different models with different sized hard drives or something, I doubt they'd include more than 8G of memory on their machine. The itouch does everything the 3DS will do, except buttons and 3D (which isn't new tech in Japan, these screens have been used on cell phones for years). I personally don't think they can justify more than $200 unless they add a lot of functionality non-gaming wise as well. That being said, Nintendo products are overpriced nowadays, because their brands are so hot. I predict $200-$250 (nobody will spend more than $250 on a 3DS for their kids, and many won't for themselves either, except the hardest of the core).

why?

Because that'd mean they'd be releasing it in less than 6 months. In reality, if they wanted to make the Xmas rush, they'd have to release it by mid november. That's only 5 months from now. It looks like there's a lot more that needs to be done with the 3DS than the "finishing touches." They don't have a price yet (they probably haven't sorted out their suppliers yet), their ideas for online are vague, and their games are still all just trailers and tech demos for the most part. It would really be pushing it to get it out before December.

I'm surprised they could even commit to within a year. It really sounds like most developers have only recently gotten their hands on it. I could see it coming out this year in Japan and by March in the West, but I'd bet the third party software will be mostly ports and quickly tossed together experiments, not the amazing launch so many seem to be expecting from the big list of developers working on it.

Not that I'd complain. It's still a DS, so it's not like there won't be a ginormous back catalog of games to play on it while developers work on all those big name games announced.

As long as kid icarus and purple 3ds are at launch, I just may be the happiest guy in the world

This sounds about accurate. I'd be willing to wait for it if better games got released from more dev time. That and I could use the time to save up some funds for it.

most people who played it thought it felt like a final or nearly final version, with little to anything needing improvement. iwata said that there definitely won't be any changes made to the 3D screen technology between now and release, so i don't think there's much left to do with the system itself.

as far as the pricing and features go, i don't interpret nintendo withholding that information as meaning that they don't know it yet themselves; they're very good at keeping things quiet until they want you to know, and i'm sure they've got a good idea of where they want to go with price and features.

a lot of the games at E3 were rough demos, but considering that we don't know how far along many of them are and that many of them are remakes of games over a decade old, i'm sure nintendo could have a good selection available by christmas. some, like metal gear, seemed to be more of an idea than a game at this point, but starfox sounds like it's was a pretty strong build. nintendo said they've done extensive eye health testing with the 3DS using actual games, which tells me they've got more than few demos at this point.

i'm not arguing that you're wrong, because there are good points against the 3DS coming out this year, but i think nintendo can pull it off.

We're not going to get it this year. Possible, yes, but extremely unlikely.

It's funny, though, because I often said on this very site (when people were downplaying the DSi as a temporary measure and expecting a DS2 immediately after) that the DSi would have a minimum 2 years as the primary Nintendo handheld before a successor comes along. For Japan, that 2 year mark will be hit this November. For the US, it would mean launching the 3DS right at the end of March. That actually lines up pretty well to what I now expect to happen. Way to go, me of the past.

About the game titles.. amazon just listed Nintendogs + Cats for pre-order for $39.99
Check it out: http://www.amazon.com/Nintendogs-Cats-Nintendo-DS/dp/B002I08ZTI/
So that might be the price for most 3DS games..