Nintendo has recently announced their “New Nintendo 3DS” which sounds like it’s just a 3DS upgrade, right? Something like the 3DS XL. Unfortunately, it’s not. It is, in fact, closer to the DSi than anything else. But even then it’s fairly unique. Why? Well, the new Nintendo 3DS is, essentially, a new console. It has a better processor and buttons and controls that its predecessors did not have. There will be games announced for the “New Nintendo 3DS” that the normal 3DS cannot play, though the “New Nintendo 3DS” can, in fact, play all normal Nintendo 3DS games.
This, simply put, is an absolutely horrible idea for several reasons.
First of all, this means Nintendo has not learned a damn thing from their launch of the Wii. One of the Wii’s biggest flaws was in its marketing. People still, several years after the Wii U’s release, don’t know that the Wii U is its own console. Marketing representatives going to E3 as prominent members of the industry don’t know the Wii U is its own console. People who aren’t in the know simply think that the Wii U GamePad is the Wii U itself.
I hate to break it to you, but Nintendo’s main customer base involves a hefty portion of people who aren’t in the know. The Wii won the console war last generation by being the console that the casual gaming crowd picked up. But the casual gaming crowd is not going to pick up a Wii U when their old Wii works perfectly fine. Look at it like the time you tried to get your grandma to buy a DVD player, and her response was, “I already have a VCR.” If Nintendo named the Wii U something else, something different, and said something like “from the makers of the Wii” on the box, it would have been a lot more effective.
But Nintendo is doing the same thing with the “New Nintendo 3DS.” Heck, it’s nearly impossible to talk about the damn thing! When I say the New 3DS, do I mean the New Nintendo 3DS or do I mean the newest baseline 3DS that has a new case or something? People are, once again, not going to know that this is a new console, and more importantly they aren’t going to know that games for the New Nintendo 3DS won’t work on the Old Nintendo 3DS. This will lead to frustrating accidental purchases of games like Xenoblade Chronicles , which only work with the New 3DS’s better processor.
In addition, the Old 3DS has been out for only 3 years. That’s a pitiful life-span even for a popular console! Nintendo’s choice to replace it already is going to frustrate their entire user base! Not only that, but the new 3DS doesn’t even come with a charger! You need to purchase a charger separate, but those are hard to come by! It’s almost as if Nintendo WANTS you to upgrade if you already own a 3DS, but that’s another 300 dollars that frankly people aren’t going to be jumping at the chance to spend.
Not only that, but then you have to go through the song and dance of transferring all of your content from your Old 3DS to your New New 3DS, which is annoying. Also, then your Old 3DS is basically nothing more than a brick with no games on it! In a world of digital distribution, needing to buy a new console every 3 years is way, way too fast.
At best, this means that the New Nintendo 3DS doesn’t sell at all. At worst, Nintendo puts all their finances behind New 3DS games and they take a huge financial hit. Nintendo is currently dominating the handheld market, but this is an incredibly risky move that may push them off their throne.
What do you think? Are you going to drop 300 dollars on a New Nintendo 3DS next year? Let us know in the comments.