http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/blog/27290
For me, this is 2007 all over again. In the summer of 2007, I bought an original iPhone (the 8GB model) for $600. A few months later, in September, Apple dropped the price to $400. The Internet exploded. It wasn't good. Apple's customers were furious that in just a few short months their phone was now available for two-thirds of its original price.
Apple responded almost instantly, by offering up a $100 Apple Store gift card to everybody that paid the original price. It seemed to quell things for them pretty well. Even though the gift card was only for half the value of the price cut, I felt fine. We all knew the iPhone's price was going to drop eventually, and that we would be paying more by buying it first. We just didn't expect it to happen so soon. By thanking us with the $100 gift card (essentially making the price cut only $100 in our minds) it made things OK.
When I woke up this morning to news of a price cut to the 3DS, it flashed me back to the summer of '06. The situation is almost identical, with the 3DS getting a 33% price cut within a few months of its launch. But Nintendo learned something from Apple's mistake. Rather than offering up the 20 free games as a reaction to customers' negativity, they did it up front in an effort to prevent the negativity from even setting in. I think it's a rather smart move. At the very least, it worked on me.
Take a look at the average price of NES and SNES games on the Wii Virtual Console. They are $5 and $8 respectively. Nintendo is giving us 10 of each. That's $130 in games, half of which are "exclusive" to the Ambassadors (though I seriously doubt that will last). $130 in games in reaction to a $70 price cut is a pretty good deal. Apple's $100 gift card was 50% of the iPhone's price cut. Nintendo's gift-of-games is almost 200% the value of their $80 price cut.
To be honestly, I don't really care about the NES games. They're good, but they've all been played to death. The GBA games on the other hand, are 5 of the absolute best. Even though I own all of them except Yoshi's Island (which I have on SNES), it'll be nice to have them all on one system. As for the NES games, I would have preferred a $50 eShop credit. But I'm not going to scoff at free games. Even if I only play half of the free games, that's still $65 worth of content, which is about the amount of the price cut.
I say good on Nintendo for being smart enough to handle this price cut about as well as they possibly could. It's nice to see them really backed into a corner and responding with some aggressive tactics.
While I'm not the most qualified to talk of cost (I've got our review unit), but I've gotten enough fun out of the system to not be bummed about the $80 drop. Free games make me not give a **** at all, especially when it's a laundry list of awesome games on the GBA and classics on the NES.NoA has successfully done there job.
It's nice to see them really backed into a corner and responding with some aggressive tactics.
But now Nintendo, even after taking $80 off the price tag, are still making a profit on each unit sold (the breakdown of component costs apparently put the 3DS at just over $100 to make).Actually, they're apparently selling it at a loss now, which makes the move even more surprising.
Actually, they're apparently selling it at a loss now, which makes the move even more surprising.
BnM has it quoted to easily find in the Price drop 3DS because of Vita thread. It works out to being 100 and he give 50 for R&D to get it to $150. I don't think Nintendo would cut to a loss. Their is some speculation that the Translation has been misinterpretted from Iwata meaning a Loss in Profits.Actually, they're apparently selling it at a loss now, which makes the move even more surprising.
Is that right? I can't remember where exactly, although I think it was on these forums, but I could've sworn there was a table that broke down the costs of everything and it totalled at $102 or something like that.
There are a lot of others costs, manufacturing, shipping, etc.That being said, I still don't think Nintendo would cut to a lost.
There are a lot of others costs, manufacturing, shipping, etc.
iSuppli's accuracy has never been verified, and you need to factor in retail cost.I'm puzzled on why they would cut THAT hard and what the actual cost of a 3DS for Nintendo really is.
Also, the Bloomberg translation has been confirmed. http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=29653567&postcount=79
For myself (and the third parties), I'd rather have eShop credit, even at a much lower equivalent value, as I own most, if not all of the games on offer. Nintendo did offer credit with the early DSis, after all, and the Apple example in this post was also a credit offer. That said, I was very surprised by the extent of the move, and the offer is generous.That is generous.
It's interesting that they're using the Ambassadors name. If you recall the Wii Ambassadors program, it was a much more active program, but was limited to Europe. Wii owners who got other Wii owners online got 500 points each time. Getting 10 people online gave every first-party Nintendo Virtual Console title. And at 20, all NES, SNES, and N64 games were available for free!