The price drop proves to be super effective!
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/27467
The 3DS managed to sell 207,000 units during the week the price drop was made effective in Japan, according to a report by Nikkei.
The data tracks the sales from the week of August 8 till the 14, the same week in which the price drop was made official. In comparison to the sales data from the launch of the system, it tops the previous 206,000 units sold during that week.
Prior to the price drop, sales of the 3DS were dwindling near the end of July, causing sales of used systems to rise in order to take advantage of the Ambassador program, which offers free games for players who purchased the handheld at launch.
Personally, I'm not even sure that the holiday season will be really kind to 3DS. Parents seem worried about the long-term effects of 3D content on their children's eyes... probably a valid concern when video games are played for hours without breaks and used as babysitters in some cases. Even though the DS wasn't just a "kiddy" system, children certainly were a significant part of the market that now might be missing.
Parents seem worried about the long-term effects of 3D content on their children's eyes... probably a valid concern when video games are played for hours without breaks and used as babysitters in some cases.
I can understand the parents concern, the 3DS does not produce a great 3D image and it even hurts my eyes to have it up all the way (only with the 3DS though, I have never had any problem watching a 3D movie). If the real world looked as strained and fuzzy as the 3DS, I would probably keep my eyes closed most of the time. Trust me, Nintendo still has a long way ago if they want to make 3D more natural, at the very least it has to be as good as 3D movies.
Staring at any screen too long can hurt your eyes. Doesn't matter if the screen is 3D or not... although I hear those Kindle things Amazon sells have screens that are easy on the eyes, but I never tried them so I don't know about that.
It's nice to see the price having a positive effect on sales. If people are buying it at this price before the big games are released, it shouldn't have any trouble selling when they are. Hopefully, the US numbers will be pushed over a million after this.
And yeah, the Kindle screen is amazing. It doesn't even look like a screen, it looks like a page from a book, and has no light so it's easy on the eyes. If they can make a screen like this for a game system, that would be astonishing, but I don't know if it will be possible to have it in colour or have it refresh fast enough to display 60 frames every second.