Nintendo 3DS European Launch Date And (US) Price Announced

Dan Lee 98 Comments

Breaking news live from the (admittedly a little bit dull) Nintendo 3DS event in Amsterdam; the UK launch date for the 3DS has been confirmed for 25th March, with the price ‘up to the retailer’… The console will be $249 in the States, and several European retailers have said ‘250€’.

Nintendo also confirmed a relationship with Sky 3D, Aardman and Eurosport, which will provide 3D content directly to the console, and showed off Street Pass, which will enable easy, automatic sharing of data whilst your 3DS is on standby as you meet other users.

In addition, the 3DS will also only use one Friend Code, which is per console, not per game, thankfully.

We’re there at the conference, and we’ll be bringing you our hands on impression of the 3DS and all the games we can grab from Nintendo’s sweaty hands in the next day or so.

In the meantime let us know what you think.

[Update] Unconfirmed reports are quoting HMV’s price at £229.99.

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98 Comments

  1. 3DSNO! If that ends up being translated by retailers to €200-250, forget it.

    • Better not be £250. $250 is only £154. You can buy a ps3 for £250.

      • In conversion’s then yes you’re right. But retailers don’t work like that. They fix the price to what they want. If that means setting it at £250, then they’ll do it.

      • Apples and oranges, fella. Comparing the cost of a handheld with another handheld would be better. The PSP continues to suffer with a high price and I’m surprised at Nintendo releasing handheld hardware that hovers dangerously close to the fabled £200 mark.

    • I got an email from HMV –

      £229.99

  2. Where is the EU price? :(

    • The retailers can make it up themselves. I say £2.50

    • Reports are coming in that it’s €249.99.

      • Far too much. MY 360 was €80 cheaper than that.

      • 219£ at Shopto and I think they are going safe, so 199£ is much more likely.

  3. I wonder if that will equate to £249, as we usually get done in the UK.

  4. $249 = £156 + VAT = £187

    Things often cost a bit more in the UK/EU though so I’d expect £199 or at the absolute maximum £219.99

    Pretty good, and the games look damn good. Colour me interested

    • You can buy a PS3 for £220. £220 is far too expensive.

      • Incomparable.

        You can buy a car for £220 but whats that got to do with a new mobile gaming platform launch

      • What are you on about? It’s a games console so it’s perfectly applicable.

      • Good luck putting it in your pocket

      • So are you now classing mobile as ‘pocket-sized’? Come on, it’s not a matter of portable against home-bound when dealing with such a small variety of choices.

      • Desktops are cheaper & more powerful than laptops, but you wouldn’t buy one to use on the bus just because its cheaper? Apple & oranges

      • Ah, the apples and oranges situation here too. I’m with CC on this one. We can factor out any home console (or a clapped-out Austin Allegro for that matter). The new 3DS is bloody expensive. Premium tech comes with premium prices. I’m perversely glad that it’s not only Sony that can’t seem to learn from all of this. :-\ :-)

      • the point is, for the price of the 3ds you can get a hd games consoles that plays bluray movies and has proper online functions.

        it’s about what you get for your money, not whether you can play it in the park or fit it in your pocket.

        besides, you walk about with a 3ds near launch and you’ll be a target for muggers.

      • It’s a truly useless point, hazel. Sorry. There is no point in comparing a home console to a handheld. Just the same if we compare a laptop to the 3DS or a particularly fetching electric shower unit.

        Most people will be buying the 3DS because it’s a portable console. I won’t be as I have never wanted a portable/mobile console. My mate spends enormous amounts of time on the train and enjoys his PSP and his DS (as well as his iPhone and iPad). Not all at the same time, I might add. :-) However, people will be weighing things up and thinking “I want some on-the-go gaming and this 3DS is way too expensive for me. Then again, maybe the PSP2 will be so perhaps I’ll just go for it”. Either way, it’s a high price and many people will be looking to wait.

        It’s about the requirements from the device. Be it a home console or a handheld. Be it a motorbike or a car. You tick your boxes then see what’s out there.

        Obviously if you’re a friend or relative buying a present then the PS3 and the 3DS can be compared but even then, most people end up knowing that they don’t need something for the house but their DS recently broke, etc (or vice versa). You see where I’m going with this. :-)

      • How does any of that help you if you want to buy a mobile games device?

        That’s like looking for a watch and coming out with a grandfather clock because it has bits of wood and makes a loud chime every hour.

        Later this year your choices will be 3DS, PSP2, iPod Touch.

        2010’s entry level iPod Touch had a price jump from £149 to £179 so gawd knows what 2011’s will be.

      • I wouldn’t call the 3DS a portable console with a runtime of 3-5 hours per battery charge… ;) I too am on the side that 250€ is too much. The only thing that’s appealing about the 3DS is… well, the 3D screen. But it’s graphically underpowered in my opinion.

      • It’s not like that comparison at all and it has a valid point. Whilst you may not mind from if you’re buying a ‘portable’ console, but comparing it to a PS3 for value for money is perfectly valid.

        It may not compete at all when making a buying decision, but you will be concious of the price when other, similar products are similarly priced in a market as small as this one.

        It’s not about buying one over another, but comparing their value for money.

      • Back when I made the mistake of buying a PSPgo when I didn’t actually need it I instantly realized that for 50€ more I could have gotten a full PS3 slim.

      • For whatever purposes you want to manipulate in to the point, it’s still apples & oranges. If you think its expensive & offers poor value to other things you can do with the money then that’s subjective.

        £200+ is the going rate for a 3D camera, this has one built in – it could therefore be argued its cheap even if it doesn’t include a Blu-ray player or anything else. Apples with apples & oranges with oranges

      • Yeah but comparing apples and oranges when discussing the price of fruit is perfectly sensible :-p

      • And yeah a VGA 3D camera. Hardly comparable with top range 3D camera now is it? :-p

      • I bet those 200€ 3D cameras don’t produce grainy web cam like images. Because that’s what I imagine the 3DS will produce. Anyways, both systems are meant for playing games on them. Just because you can take one of them with you does not mean you can’t compare them based on their value. If I decided to only play my 3DS at home because I think a 3 hour battery charge game device is not worth taking with me when I leave the house then both systems have the role of playing games at home. I’m not saying it’s a fair comparison since the PS3 has been out for a while now and parts get cheaper while this is the first glasses free mobile 3D game device but when it comes down to playing games I would much rather spend the money on a console like the PS3 and be bound to my home TV than shell out the same money to buy a less powerful mobile handheld. Everyone has his/her preferences but in my personal opinion the 3DS potentially does not deliver enough entertainment for that price. Therefore I will wait for the price to drop until I think I get my money’s worth. I don’t want to put down the 3DS for other people. Just right now I can’t justify buying a 3DS.

      • Regardless – from Joystiq

        SYSTEM NAME *ADJ. PRICE to 2009’s inflation
        Game Boy (Nintendo) $153
        Atari Lynx $324
        TurboExpress (NEC) $405
        Game Gear (Sega) $233
        Virtual Boy (Nintendo) $250
        Game Boy Color $105
        Game Boy Advance $121
        N-Gage (Nokia) $350
        Nintendo DS $146
        PSP (Sony) $272
        Nintendo DSi $170
        PSP Go $250
        Nintendo 3DS $250

        Average $233

        So the 3DS is barely over the average price for handheld console launches and those prices are inflationary adjusted to 2009’s levels, not the current prices so would have increased by a few more percent.

        Also you know that retailer competition will force the price down and have more things included in the price (games etc.), manufacturers can always put the price down (look how quick the PSPgo tumbled) and then of course there is the PSP2 launching will provide further pressure on Nintendo and there will probably be a 3DSi at some point.

        All in all I don’t see how it could be different, if you personally think its expensive then thats very different from it actually being expensive. As far as handhelds go it only a couple of dollars above the average, the only question I have is how nintendo managed to undersell themselves in the past so much if it wasn’t for their previous kit the average would be way over the price of the 3DS

      • That average is hugely skewed with a variety of ‘expensive’ handhelds. The PSPGo was touted as very expensive when released at the same price as the 3DS. If you compare it with Nintendo’s last handhelds which come in at $105, $121, $146 and $170, then $250 is expensive and there’s no other way of looking at it.

        You claim that competition will drive down prices but that will have been the same for all other devices so is a moot point.

      • There is a commonalty with that chart though. All handhelds that came out for more than $250 bombed. Not saying the 3DS will but it seems that it is not an attractive price point.

      • The problem with retailer competition in Germany is that it doesn’t exist…

      • You could have said the average is hugely skewed downwards by some cheap Ninty kit, but you can only see it one way.

        Prices can always drop, they’re almost impossible to put up, people who buy for launches of things always pay a premium compared to people wait a few months and with it only being a couple of dollars above the average its not likes its as way out as suggested anyway.

      • Okay let me rephrase. It has been skewed by several very expensive consoles that commercially bombed.

        Those ‘cheap’ Nintendo ones are also the successful ones.

      • If we compare the console within its own manufacturer’s mobile consoles then it’s bloody pricey. Also, that psychological barrier of £200 looks to be well and truly punctured at launch. Still, be interesting to see how quickly it sells compared.

    • never at that price will leave it weak battery as well.

  5. So if it’s $250 that should be around £150, that’s less than I expected, I still would like to know more about it’s battery life though.

  6. Its up to the retailers? Just give us a rrp

  7. Current exchange rates would put $250 down at £156.41. So round that up to £160, then apply VAT, and it’s £192. Round that up again to be a nice number, and it’s £199.99.

    Any more than that, and it’s a shameless rip off.

    Having said that, if they charge €250 for it, then it’ll probably be £220. So I expect a rip off.

    • Does the dollar price tag include their own respective taxes? Don’t think so. Their price isn’t too peachy either (not implying you were saying it was but just mentioning).

      • No, but US sales tax is not only a lot less than the UK’s VAT where it is applied, but also very very easy to skirt around. In fact, Amazon are fighting tooth and nail in order not to have to add sales tax to things they sell, or something like that.

        In other words, if you buy a 3DS from Amazon, you can easily get it for $250 without applying your local sales tax.

        Even ignoring that, my calculations and conclusions are still valid. I took their base price point, converted to GBP, then applied VAT to come to my £199.99 price point. Twice rounding upwards to a nice number. If I’d been shouting that more than £160 was a rip off, then sure, I’d be wrong, but I didn’t, I duty-fully (ha!) added VAT before saying that £200 was OK, and £220 is shameless.

      • To be fair you’ve defended everything you mentioned which isn’t what I was after. Your post was spot on, fella. I just wanted to point out that it’s easy for us to harp on about how badly we get it in the UK when, often, it’s not quite the case. Obviously if it’s too bad, people can always move abroad. :-)

      • Why, your basing your arguement on a currency conversion and not taking into account what money is worth in the respective countries. The only way to compare would be to work out the US average wage & the UK average wage and work out how many hours work is needed to pay for the 3DS in each country.

        Another way would be to use something commonly available in both countries, like Burgernomics where you use a Big Mac as the currency and see how Big Macs the 3DS would cost in each country.

        Currency conversions are a false method of comparison

      • *you’re
        ** see how many Big Macs

  8. I dont why you are all doing the conversion rate thing, it just doesnt work like that. Example: Dead Space 2 RRP in US is $59.99, converted that comes out to £37.52. The UK RRP in the UK is £49.99.

    If its $250 in the us its going to be close to £250 in the UK, I would bet around £229.99

    • Your example is actually £45 as you forgot VAT.

      • No i didnt I just didnt mention it. It’s still £5 more than it should be for no good reason :)

  9. Sure beats the £300 that was rumoured not long ago. Hopefully we will see what bundles GAME, ShopTo etc. will be doing. I’m hopgin to get the console as well as Samurai Warriors Chronicle.

  10. I WIN TEH INTENETZ! :D

    • *ahem* you were off by 99p :P

    • I WIN TEH INTENETZ -99p!

    • Tuffcub, thanks for making me laugh. :D

      “I WIN TEH INTENETZ -99p!”

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