Topic: 3DS financial problems??????

I heard Iwata isn't satisfied with the 3DS sales outside Japan and hopes that it sells 13.5 million by the end of the fiscal year. So outside of Japan, how much has the 3DS sold? Is it bad or good? Will this be the end of the 3DS if it fails to reach expectations?

3DS has been number 1 everywhere for a while... I doubt they have problems with it, other than having expected DS-like sales but the DS was a monster that sold way too much(and I love it! ) so I think they are just being real as the "casuals" are mostly gone so the 3DS won't achieve DS numbers when it comes to sales.

The marketplace has changed. Smartphones and tablets suck up a large chunk of money. Given that, the 3DS is actually doing pretty well.

I have literally watched as 3DS sales have increased — the amount of streetpasses I've been getting at school has increased exponentially with the release of AC:NL, and then again later with the release of Pokémon X & Y... it has reached the point at which it's not unlikely for me to get 10 streetpasses a day! ...the amount of random streetpasses I get elsewhere has increased, too.

I read that it is doing just fine and had an incredible December.

Considering Iwata can finally afford his full salary again because of the 3DS .... yeah. I think he's just trying to keep the momentum going.

I could be wrong, but I heard the 3ds did the best over the last fall/christmas period. It even beat PS4.

I'm honestly amused that 3DS can be number 1 and Nintendo is still not satisfied.

3DS is doing well by all rational standards, its just Iwata that had projections without any base in reality

...After Pokemon X/Y and Monster Hunter 4? Worry about the Wii U, lol

3DS has been doing fine (unfortunately, Nintendo's high projections means that all media outlets will speak of is that Nintendo has missed targets). Nintendo's financial problem is that all of the profits made by 3DS and its software this year were sucked up by Wii U and increasingly expensive R&D projects at Nintendo. If the Wii U did not exist then I would bet that Nintendo would be turning a profit today.

I'm not entirely sure why we're even discussing on a possible 3DS failure

Nah, the 3DS's sales by itself are fine. Their expectations were unrealistic given the current market and this "disappointment" seems more like another rude awakening to them that: "No, you are NOT going to repeat the crazy success of the Wii/DS era. Stop trying." With it's current momentum, the 3DS can finish with around 80m which isn't a failure by any stretch but also kind of funny since it further feeds the comparisons between the GCN/GBA era and the present (WiiU/3DS).

@Gioku I'm also amazed by how in just these past 2 months how much more streetpasses I'm getting. Heck, now I wake up sometimes to find I've gotten a streetpass from someone who was likely just driving by my house! And it's obvious as day they're newer 3DS owners because usually they're useless in Puzzle Swap

The 3DS is doing better than all the other gaming hardware this year, but it's quite a bit down on previous handhelds by this point, due to the mobile market. People get carried away. It did not have an incredible year, just because it sold more than the other consoles. For incredible years, see the DS and Wii between 2007 and 2009. It's doing great, certainly not a failure, but it's not the 'It prints money' machine that people seem to think it is. It sold around a million in December, but that's very low for December's best selling hardware. If you compare it to previous December best sellers, you can see why they'd be a bit disappointed, especially as they've just released the first Pokemon for it and a really great Zelda.

2012: Xbox 360 - 1.4 million
2011: Xbox 360 - 1.7 million
2010: Wii - 2.36 million
2009: Wii - 3.81 milion
2008: DS - 3.04 million
2007: DS - 2.47 million
2006: DS - 1.6 million

I think they're also little concerned that with 40 million consoles out there, they're only going to sell 66 million units of software. The UK market got a lot of hate on here recently because despite the 3DS console being the best selling machine, there were hardly any games in the chart. It's a pattern that's being repeated elsewhere though. On average, a 3DS owner is only buying 1.5 games all year. I know people on here will say they've bought 10 or 20, and I have too, but the fact remain, on average, people aren't even buying 2 games a year for it.

@Peach64 your math sucks:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/04/18/3ds-sales-1-million-ahead-of-ds...

@KittenKoder Are you a SCAR alt account? You share his trait for responding with irrelevant or out of date links.

That article is about US sales only, and is almost a year old. See all those figures about December NPDs? They're correct. What is also correct is the DS had sold 65 million worldwide by the time it was 3 years old, and the 3DS is about a month short of that same birthday. What is so hard to understand?

Why is it so hard to have a serious discussion about this? If you say anything other than OMG 3DS is the best selling machine ever, apparently you must think OMG 3DS sucks? I'm not bashing the 3DS sales. They're very good! People are wondering how the heck Nintendo got their 3DS predictions so wrong, and I'm just providing answers. Nintendo knew the 3DS was not going to match DS figures, but they thought it would be a bit closer to these.

2006 - 20.7 million
2007 - 29.5 million
2008 - 29.7 million
2009 - 27.5 million
2010 - 20.6 million

I keep getting someone by putting it on sleep mode, and leaving it there. I live on a 1/4 mile cult-de-sac, so no chance of random drivers.

Used is the problem - Nintendo should fight against it using the eshop prices. All they get from the High Street is them stocking used (And only used) at the new Amazon price.

Well, they've done absolutely jack and squat in order to get western developers on board, including the big AAA publishers and developers. It's no wonder, really.

I think the majority of western developers with plans to develop a handheld game are - unfortunately - first looking at the mobile smartphone/tablet platforms before looking at the 3DS. A trend I do not applaud to and I'm not sure how Nintendo should battle it. On the other hand there is a somewhat steady stream of games on the eShop, so there are still developers believing in it and some reporting more sales on the eShop than on mobile, on mobile it's a matter to get noticed among the millions and millions of (often shovel ware) titles.