There are few things as bad as when you realize that the entire time you've known something you've been completely wrong about it. Sometimes it's as simple as using the wrong fork at a fancy restaurant. Sometimes it's as bad as telling Chinese people that you "bite purple duck nipples" as a way of exhibiting your mastery over their language. Every time it happens it's embarrassing, and causes you to have to back-peddle in some form or fashion, which can be injurious to your pride. For Nintendo, that time came a couple weeks ago when they announced they are going to drop the price of the 3DS $80 by mid-August, although the actual realization undoubtedly came much sooner than that.
I've written at-length about handhelds on many occasions. The last time I wrote about the 3DS in particular, it was enthusiastic, but cautious on its prospects. That was a while ago though--shit, that was before we even knew the official name of the NGP. Things are a little clearer about its future now, and there's a lot to recap that has happened since that last rambling, so let's just quickly go over it.
First, price. I haven't written anything about modern game systems since E3, and that was when we learned that the NGP will regrettably be called the PlayStation Vita, and that it will cost $250 (baseline). Right away the proclamations of doom and gloom came flooding in for the 3DS, and it became pretty clear to most people that unless Nintendo set aside their arrogance and dropped the 3DS price in response, that the system would be remembered as a major stumble in Nintendo's history. Initially Nintendo denied questions of a price drop, but the plain truth is, you can't ask Nintendo anything unless they've already announced it, or they will lie to your face. Eventually they DID announce a price drop for the 3DS, and a sigh of relief followed for all those watching the industry.
If we got a price drop this year, I never figured on it being more than $50. I was even reasonably sure that if it did happen, that it could very well be less than $50, and in my mind, that wouldn't be enough. If the Vita was anywhere close to $30 more than the 3DS, I felt that it was still the clear winner. But $80 is HUGE. It's a complete about-face, a total market adjustment. It's not just Nintendo changing to respond to a new development, it's an admittance that they were wrong. The 3DS hasn't sold well, and price was a big reason for that. It's like when NVIDIA dropped the cost of the GeForce GTX 280 by $150 within two weeks of its release (god I'm such a nerd). NVIDIA even offered distributors a chance to refund customers who bought the card at full price, and Nintendo's doing something very similar. As part of the Ambassador's Program, you get 20 free digital games as a result of being suckered into buying the 3DS early. These games won't even be widely available until many months afterward, in some cases possibly never. It may even be a better deal than Sony's Welcome Back program. What's even more telling is that Nintendo is apparently going to be losing money on the systems sold under this new price, and they don't even have any immediate plans to lower the price of the DSi XL, which will be sitting at the exact same $169.99 price point. They're essentially losing whatever extra money they made from the original price point with free games, they're losing money on subsequent 3DS systems being sold, and they're threatening the sales of their current bread winner DSi systems, all for the sake of retaining a competitive upper-hand. This is a desperate move.
Nintendo's never done anything this drastic before, and I think it illustrates something very important about the company. They firmly believe they cannot afford to lose the handheld market, and they will do anything they can to make sure they don't. I think this is in contrast to their home console business, which they essentially decided to throw in the towel several years ago in regards to, and while that resulted in unexpectedly huge sales for them, their next generation doesn't show any real signs of taking things more seriously. They still don't care about specs, they're still disconcertingly quiet on the online front, and they're still out of step with the rest of the hardcore gaming market. As more gets revealed about the Wii U's performance, the more it looks like it will not be a significant leap over the current HD generation, and being several years late the party, looks to be less than a compelling sell for the already-entrenched gamers. But the Wii has sold a little over 87 million units since it launched, and while that's a great deal more than any previous home console they've ever made, it pales in comparison to the nearly 150 million that the various Nintendo DS iterations have sold. My guess is that if they're looking for lightning to strike twice, their best hopes lie with the handheld market, not a console market that has largely left them behind. Specs has never mattered in the handheld market, and while the Wii was a success, its market is not craving an upgraded system, and the only hope for growth is to sell to people who care about better graphics and more intuitive, traditional controls. Unfortunately those people haven't taken Nintendo seriously for over a decade now. Their only chance is indeed with handhelds.
Second thing to discuss that was announced was their software lineup for the rest of the year. There's no word on Kid Icarus: Uprising, so we'll assume that's been pushed back to next year. In its place though, we get an iteration to one of their bestselling franchises, Mario Kart 7. This game is my most anticipated for the system, because I am a Mario Kart nut, and this game will move units, doubly so if they can get a nice package deal going for about $200. The number one bestselling game for the DS was New Super Mario Bros., and so following in its footsteps we'll be getting Super Mario 3D Land as well, another that I'm sure they're hoping will push sold units. It's probably just me, but I think the game automatically becomes more appealing just by having 'Land' in the name. It's about damn time they brought that nomenclature back, and this will hopefully be an awesome return to form for handheld Mario adventures. In between now and then, we get Star Fox 64 3D, which is cool...I guess. Certainly it looks pretty, and for many it's the best in the series. Not a lot of new features seem to have been added though, not even online support, so it seems like the title could have made do with a digital release instead of a full game, but oh well.
Nintendo definitely wants to take as much advantage of the 3DS's first year and the holiday season as they can, especially now that the Vita has been confirmed for a 2012 launch. Sony undoubtedly wants to not repeat Nintendo's mistake by launching their system without a good software lineup, but could they be trading one mistake for another? Giving Nintendo free reign for an important shopping period will do wonders for them, especially with the price drop. In fact, as much as it might dent Nintendo's finances in the short term, I think they've set things up for a success that was anything but guaranteed in the beginning. They're positioning themselves closer to the larger demographic that made them billions in the last generation, and Sony better have a hell of a launch to make up for the lost opportunity. Instead of catching Nintendo when they're weak, they'll get them at their strongest, and credit should be given where its due for being able to turn their situation around so fast like that. You might say it's too early to be telling fortunes, but I can tell you that by the time the holidays come around, if the 3DS with a new Mario Kart and Mario Land game isn't the undisputed hottest selling thing on the planet, I'll start wearing headwear just so I can eat my hat.
But does this mean that we're right back where we started with the DS vs PSP comparisons again? Certainly the PSV is significantly more expensive than the 3DS, and certainly it will appeal much more to the hardcore crowd, a tactic that many will claim hurt the PSP more than it helped. A lot of my arguments against the 3DS get thrown out the window because of the price drop, but let's not forget about all the things that have not changed. The 3DS is still more expensive than the DS was, and it still doesn't have the wide appeal the DS did. Why? A big reason is the 3D feature. For a lot of people that's the big selling point, but for many others, it's detrimental to the enjoyment of the system. Many can't handle 3D for very long, and for some it doesn't even work right, because it requires almost perfectly aligned eyes which not everyone has. If anything 3D is actually a limiting factor to its appeal, because it effectively locks out a decent chunk of potential buyers, people for whom a regular 2D system will pose no such barrier. And even though you can turn off 3D and play in 2D, you then have to contend with rest of the package, a slightly less glamorous looking set of features that does little to differentiate itself from past Nintendo systems and even other portable systems, some that aren't implicitly gaming-oriented. And the fact of the matter is, the PSV will not play a mutually exclusive role in handheld gaming between casuals and the hardcore. Sony will be investing heavily into online distribution, a lot more than Nintendo ever could, and that will lend themselves well to smaller gaming titles more akin to indie devs and smartphone markets, as well as larger Wipeout HD and Super Stardust types that would have been passed off as full games under Nintendo's business model. The PSV has every bit the chance to deliver the same kind of niche titles that Nintendo has enjoyed, especially with full multi-touch support, and aside from additional new entries in popular Nintendo franchises, which will undeniably sell well, what has Nintendo got? There's one thing they won't have ever again, and that's the explosive sales they've experienced the last generation. The perfect storm is over, and I still think Sony has a better chance than ever at striking big at where it will hurt Nintendo the most. But at least Nintendo has their guard up now.
