Topic: It worked; well done Nintendo. 5000% unit sales hike in Japan

This has nothing to do with having something to "fall back on." There are heaps of successful printer vendors that don't have "fallbacks," and they operate on a loss leading strategy.

It's about knowing what will, and won't make you money. In the gaming industry, the way to make money is to have a lot of consoles in the market.

Good point @WaltzElf.
They always have Physical media games and downloadable e-shop games.
But it would be nice if they made a profit on the 3DS though, maybe if it sells well manufactures may reduce the cost of the materials as other companies adopt the technology.

I think Nintendo would rather make a million from software, than 100,000 from hardware.

I think before we make any assumptions the the 3DS is going to take off now we'll have to wait a bit longer to make sure it wasn't just a temporary surge due to the price cut and that more and more people will continue to buy it.
Even if it still struggles a bit though, there are plenty of good games on the way so I'm sure once a lot of those come out there won't really be a problem.
And when they eventually make a 3DS Pokemon, that'll probably cause 3DS sales to sky-rocket.

The prices are just messed up here, most people have no clue which would be better; The DSi XL for 169€, or the brand-new 3DS for 159€.

I've heard those questions all the time when I stop at the local gamespot, and I can't blame them for being left out. It is kind of mixed up after all. Not to mention how this will look down on PS Vita's release. We also don't have much TV ads for the 3DS, my friends who wanted a 3DS so badly had until now not even heard about a price drop. The sales might change, but the 3DS was worth the 250 to me. I'm happy I bought it the first day and I hope it's reputation won't be completely ruined.

Yeah, I think they need to do a better job of advertising the 3DS and the price drop and everything.
Everyone involved in the gaming community knows what's going on the average consumer maybe just trying to buy a console for their child's birthday or something like that wouldn't really have a clue what to get.
I feel sorry for anyone who buys a DSi XL not realising that the 3DS is MUCH better value.

Japan isn't necessarily a good indicator for other markets.

You're right. It's only the second biggest gaming market in the world. Completely unimportant.

5000% more people realize there are almost no games to play on there new systems. (._. )

The games will be coming soon enough though and it's not like the system is going to get any cheaper between now and then so might as well buy the system now.

@BenAV: really? because the price just dipped quite a bit after its release in March, so that's what, less than five months? at this rate, it could be worth it to hold off another few months and see what the holiday season has in store, lol. :3

lol If they decide to make it too much cheaper they might as well just give them away. =P

All right, this may be good news, but it's only been one week in one region. How many of those people who just bought the 3DS bought it just because of the price drop? We should be looking at sales over the next few weeks or months compared to the sales slump following the 3DS's launch to see if the price drop was a success, and not using this first week as an indicator of the 3DS's health from now on.

true, but still — nothing first-party is coming out for months yet anyway, so it might be worth it to see if we get any kind of Black Friday specials or holiday bundles, y'know? :3

Well... besides Star Fox that is.

...it's quiet...
too quiet...
IT'S A TRAP!

Yes or breaking even. I know when it came out they could have gotten by at $200 to make just a sliver of profit and they got greedy. So given the few months and the $180 level they're likely even. Loss leading is a retarded way to go about business Nintendo has never played with and smartly so as you're losing on every unit you sell hoping the consumers buy enough other items to offset it. It has cost both MS and Sony so much money it is staggering, the original xbox took most its life to turn a profit on the units but never on the whole project as a whole, 360 even worse with the bad hardware and 3yr warranties. Sony did far worse with the $600 system they lost hundreds on and continued to until about a year ago finally with parts getting cheap enough so who knows when they'll even out.

@Jarvan don't you mean quiet?

@SuperLink... yes... yes I do...
Thanks

Oh well.