Post by Da Robot on Sept 17, 2020 5:08:41 GMT -5
Nintendo has confirmed that production of any 3DS hardware (3DS, 2DS, XL, "New" etc) has ended, so stock you see on shelves could be final.
Sales of the 3DS line have fallen sharply since the 2017 release of the Switch and it only accounted for 1% of sales in FY19/20.
Since it's release in Feb 2011, the 3DS has sold 75.87 million units (as of June 30th). While this is less than the 81.51 million of the GBA (2001 to production in 2006 in Japan or 2010 in NA) and under half of the NDS's incredible 154.02 million (2004 to 2013)
The 3DS survived in a period where cellphone gaming rose up as the device developers making "cheap" (like movie tie ins/shovelware/etc) handheld games would go for, and it's only other handheld competition the Playstation Vita (estimated 16 million units) made Sony give up handheld gaming altogether. While the 3DS has initial troubles with it's launch price and it probably didn't expand the market like with casuals like the NDS did, it sales most likely helped to give Nintendo good money during the Wii U's low selling lifespan.
Notable things that happened during 3DS era.
-Return of Kid Icarus and Luigi's Mansion.
-Return of stereoscopic 3D since the failure of the Virtual Boy.
-Fire Emblem series on brink of cancellation but then gets biggest sales and keeps the franchise alive.
-First Nintendo handheld with tilt/gyro built in and nearly didn't make it in.
-Paper Mario series ruined forever.
-3D Pokemon main series RPG on a handheld.
-Nintendo dips it's toes into augmented reality gaming.
-Nintendo then runs away from augmented reality because the 3DS's cameras are so fickle.
-First Smash Bros on a handheld.
-The Style Savvy/Girls Mode series (first appearance on the NDS) gets like 3 sequels on the 3DS for some strange reason and yet it's only remembered for giving the world the "Ring-a-ding" song in Smash Ultimate.
-Animal Crossing gets a proper sequel and sales to back it up.
-Animal Crossing then gets a free update 4 years after release giving it new content, who the fuck saw that happening.
-Refining the NDS "tag mode" feature as Streetpass and actually allowing the idea of it to work outside of Japan . . . Sort of.
-First return of GB/GBC games on VC.
Interestly, no notable new franchises have been created, just lots of niche ones (Dillion Rolling Western, Freakyforms, Ever Oasis, Steel Diver, etc), heck the Wii U gave us Splatoon (and only Splatoon). The again it could be too early to tell at this point if games like that could be getting sequels on the Switch.
Branching out to non-Nintendo gets us the Bravely Default and Yokai Watch series.
Sales of the 3DS line have fallen sharply since the 2017 release of the Switch and it only accounted for 1% of sales in FY19/20.
Since it's release in Feb 2011, the 3DS has sold 75.87 million units (as of June 30th). While this is less than the 81.51 million of the GBA (2001 to production in 2006 in Japan or 2010 in NA) and under half of the NDS's incredible 154.02 million (2004 to 2013)
The 3DS survived in a period where cellphone gaming rose up as the device developers making "cheap" (like movie tie ins/shovelware/etc) handheld games would go for, and it's only other handheld competition the Playstation Vita (estimated 16 million units) made Sony give up handheld gaming altogether. While the 3DS has initial troubles with it's launch price and it probably didn't expand the market like with casuals like the NDS did, it sales most likely helped to give Nintendo good money during the Wii U's low selling lifespan.
Notable things that happened during 3DS era.
-Return of Kid Icarus and Luigi's Mansion.
-Return of stereoscopic 3D since the failure of the Virtual Boy.
-Fire Emblem series on brink of cancellation but then gets biggest sales and keeps the franchise alive.
-First Nintendo handheld with tilt/gyro built in and nearly didn't make it in.
-Paper Mario series ruined forever.
-3D Pokemon main series RPG on a handheld.
-Nintendo dips it's toes into augmented reality gaming.
-Nintendo then runs away from augmented reality because the 3DS's cameras are so fickle.
-First Smash Bros on a handheld.
-The Style Savvy/Girls Mode series (first appearance on the NDS) gets like 3 sequels on the 3DS for some strange reason and yet it's only remembered for giving the world the "Ring-a-ding" song in Smash Ultimate.
-Animal Crossing gets a proper sequel and sales to back it up.
-Animal Crossing then gets a free update 4 years after release giving it new content, who the fuck saw that happening.
-Refining the NDS "tag mode" feature as Streetpass and actually allowing the idea of it to work outside of Japan . . . Sort of.
-First return of GB/GBC games on VC.
Interestly, no notable new franchises have been created, just lots of niche ones (Dillion Rolling Western, Freakyforms, Ever Oasis, Steel Diver, etc), heck the Wii U gave us Splatoon (and only Splatoon). The again it could be too early to tell at this point if games like that could be getting sequels on the Switch.
Branching out to non-Nintendo gets us the Bravely Default and Yokai Watch series.
