3DS Price Cut, Free Games For Early Adopters

Dan Lee 44 Comments

So the figures are in and not looking pretty for the 3DS, shifting 0.7 million last quarter. Nintendo will now be slashing the price of the 3DS to $170 in North America. A similar sort of cut will be made here in Europe as well.

What of those who bought the console when it first came out? Well, the answer is free games. Register your 3DS and connect to the eShop before the 11th of August and you will be entitled to ten free NES games starting from September 1st.

Rather more excitingly, though, is that by the end of 2011 ten free Game Boy Advance games including Yoshi’s Island, Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong will be given as freebies.

These GBA games will be exclusive to those who beat the deadline, and won’t be made available to anyone else.

Source: Press Release

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44 Comments

  1. “Mario Kart: Super Circuit”

    OH MAN.

  2. These GBA games will be exclusive to those who beat the deadline, and won’t be made available to anyone else.

    Well that’s a bit unfair for anyone that’s holding off isn’t it? I use a GBA emu on my android and don’t have a 3DS so it won’t bother me, but if the 3DS sales pick up after August 12th, that’ll be a ton of people who will barred out from those games

    • It’s not unfair; it’s business.

    • I would imagine with the money saved on the console you would easily be able to buy all the games and still be better off than those who got them for free

    • doesn’t seem like good business if they don’t put them up for sale afterwards.
      i have no doubt people would buy a few of those given the chance, especially as they removed the gba slot from the dsi inwards.

  3. would not get one at 50 pound just not for me the Vita is the only handheld I will be getting.

    • Same here. For some reason to me the 3DS dosn’t feel like a next gen handheld. And they have yet to interest me with their games. Only one is probably the Resident evil game but hoppefully that will be released on Psv.

      • Funny I have the exact opposite feeling. None of the games on the Vita interests me, as I rather play those games on the PS3, but I guess if maybe did a lot of traveling by public transport.

      • The only new tech in the 3DS is the glasses free 3D. The graphics are still subpar. The Vita drips next-gen tech. I haven’t owned a handheld console in years. Never felt like they offered much over my console aside from portability. The Vita is enticing and the pricing is spot on. A must buy for me. Dont worry Erroneus, you can play my Vita if you ask nicely!

      • feel the same the last handheld I owned was a gameboy this has made me want one again.

  4. Lack of piracy anyone?

    Bet some Sony execs are getting nervous now, wondering if PSV will sell outside of the commited core

    • I bet they are smiling, seeing as Nintendo are actually scared of them right now in a market they have dominated for the past 20 years.

      • “Nintendo are actually scared of them right now”

        They are?

      • Well would they have dropped the 3DS price so much in the wake of the vita? With all the disappointment of the 3DS and promise of the vita, they probably are since they Sony could be shifting the market their way soon, that’s if it does live up to expectations of course.

      • *why would they

      • You’re assuming there is still a market for £35–40 mobile games & the machine that plays them (beyond a niche/core who will most likely be reading this article & not getting my point)

      • If Sony can kick out 99p games then I’m sure Vita will do just fine. I get that Uncharted is worth the £40 (or whatever) but is it 40 times better than Gameloft’s Uncharted clone that’s 69p? Is it hell.

      • 69p games nofi you have let iphone tat take over your idea of gaming.

      • @skibadee:

        Lots of people have. The only reason I still play my psp is for the minis which are mainly ported iphone/android games.

        Also I have a blackberry which is an awesome phone for everything but games! :(

      • i’d rather pay a little bit more for a game on a machine with proper controls.
        whether that’s £40 more depends on the game.

        but if they can get companies like gameloft, and other ios/mobile creators, porting their games to the vita, they could be onto a winner.

        get the best of the mobile games but have the premium there for when you want a more involved experience.

        the beauty of a machine like the vita is it offers the touchscreen controls for games that are genuinely designed for them and proper controls for the games where touch screen controls are just a compromise for the sake of running on a touch screen device.

      • Although I have an Andriod phone I still use the PSP for gaming on the go.

      • @nofster
        Sony’s 99p games are £2.49 to £3.99 (last time I looked, which was a very long time ago) way above taking a punt price.

      • Unearthed looks amazing although thats not Gameloft which is a surprise.

        Well you could say that I’m core PSP customer… 69p is ok I guess but the games aren’t always that great or even memorable. As long as theres a few Japanese games from the likes of From Software, Capcom, Square Enix and Namco then the Vitas £35-£40 price would be quite justified.

      • Nofi, fella. Quick question, and please understand I have NO idea about the answer:

        What pricing structure do the games have on the 3DS? Seeing Sony have massive titles on the likes of the PSPGo worries me a bit but thankfully with the advent of the PSN/Store, we’re going to see an ever-increasing library of games which covers most wallets.

        Sure, Sony might never hit the £1 titles on iTunes but hopefully they’ve learnt a massive amount about the more casual gamer as they’re still happy throwing down for serious hardware to enjoy games they love.

        Is that the same on the 3DS? Do they have a full gamut of pricing with an even spread?

      • I agree Mason. Nintendo rarely drops price first. They usually never need to. This is in direct response to Vita’s sweet pricing. Nintendo thought Vita would be $350+ at launch given Sony’s track record. Add in the extreme drop off in Wii interest and the shaky response to Wii U and you have a company that is really outside their comfort zone. HAIL VITA!

  5. Nice, I’ll be having that. Seems like they are struggling to shift decent numbers of 3DS units without giving bundles of freebies. Sounds a lot like PSPGo part 2 to me.

    • pretty much where I work we sell give or take one or two consoles a week and I’m pretty sure we still have some of our launch stock

      • Blimey, that is pretty poor. Especially given the past DS success. I would point to (an it has been mentioned a fair bit around here) that Nintendo pretty much chose the wrong strategy by placing so much emphasis on the “3D with no glasses” element of the 3DS, and the near complete lack of first party titles at launch.

  6. PSP-Go all over again then.
    Must be a weird time for the Sony Vita team. On the one hand, their competitiion has basically been confirmed as dead on arrival, but maybe this is a sign that people aren’t really interested in portable gaming anymore unless its a 79p app on the Iphone.

    • Well to think about it would you rather play some new, cheap and fun games on a device that does everything, or ports of old games sold at high prices on a device that doesn’t do much at all? I know what one i’d prefer. The thing with Vita is that it has new fresh games and tech like a big lcd with touch and dual analogs that will make the thing enjoyable to play, but whether or not that will get smartphone users to buy it on top of what they have already no-one knows, but i for one will be getting one at launch. I can see COD, Uncharted and LBP being system sellers anyway :P

      • Vita definately has the advantage over the 3DS no question. Very similar price point, a much more promising list of upcoming titles, trophy support, dual analogue sticks. It actually feels like a new bit of kit, rather than an upgraded DS with hit-and-miss 3D support.
        Even so, I don’t think the Vita will sell as well as Sony are hoping. Smartphones are definately the leaders of the handheld gaming market now.

    • It’s already been massively more successful than the PSPgo. It sold more than twice as many units in its first week of sales in Japan than the PSPgo has since its release almost two years ago. (Japan being the only region we have PSPgo figures for.)

      http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2011/03/06/japans-console-sales-february-2011/

      Sony may have dreamt that the PSPgo would have achieved sales of the level the 3DS has but those dreams failed to come true in a spectacular way.

    • actually, this reminds me more of what ms did with the original xbox.
      it’s a lot closer to the launch than sony’s go promotion was, the xbox one was just a month or so after launch wasn’t it?
      at least in the uk anyway, saved me a 100 quid that did. ^_^

      • Ahh yes, I remember the quick Xbox price drop. A mate of mine got his day of release with 2 controllers, Halo and DOA3… set him back nearly 500! Needless to say, the speedy price drop got him a little angry lol

      • Yeah, I got burned by the price drop on the original Xbox too. The freebies they offered did nothing to make up for it, either. My Xbox gave me nothing but problems (HDD failure, scratched discs, fire risk), which is why I skipped the 360 when it was released.

  7. Well its a great incentive to buy early, especially with those GBA games, but it’ll be crazy to keep them exclusive to those who register before the 11th of August.

    As much as I’d love a 3DS at some stage, I’ve no desire to buy one at the moment as there aren’t enough games out for it yet that interest me. Ocarina of Time might be the best game ever, but I’m not shelling out for one just to play that.

  8. so I take it the price cut will happen a week or two before mariokart 3d launches as I would imagine without the reduced price they won’t be looking at good sales based on the fact Seles didn’t really get the console selling and that was supposedly a must for all nintendo fans

  9. My interest in the 3DS has been seriously on the slide, this piece of news might make me reconsider. Might.

  10. The sad thing is, the 3DS already has a better games line up than the Wii. It was the first handheld I’d actually been interested in since the launch of the psp many moons ago, and I’ve not been disappointed. Now we’re getting free games, happy panda!

    • nah not until it as a freakin RPG or even Monster Hunter, hehe

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