Wonder how the US sales will turn out.  I went to Wally-world today and they were out of stock for the first time that I can recall.

With the holidays i expect it to be a big seller in the US--parents love Big N and that price point and maybe a mario bundle is going be killer.

this is great news. I am not sure if they were sold out at my local one or if they just haven't got much stock in but the display is empty. They have some good displays up around the city I am in. One of the bigger cities in utah, but one of the smaller as cities go

Oh, I bet the 3DS will be a major hit this holiday season. Not only is the price finally approachable, you have games like Mario Kart 7 and Mario Land making their debuts. Mario Kart alone could sell a lot of systems.

Despite my email rant to NWR, I came to a realization that if I can pick the 3DS up before Aug. 12, I can get the new price and 20 free games, so I bit on it. No retail games though. Probably won't pick any up until Star Fox 64 and even then I'll wait until it goes on sale because $40 is just too much.

Good to see sales are picking up though, I think this will build the momentum needed to pretty much cut Vita's lifeline before it even launches at $250/$300.

I don't know if the 3DS is ever going to be the huge seller that the DS was.

Sales look good the first week after a price drop, but part of that is just pent-up demand since people knew for weeks that the price was going down and had no reason to buy in the short-term. Wait and see how the numbers look over a full month (or two) before making any judgement about how successful the new pricing is.

Personally, I'm not even sure that the holiday season will be really kind to 3DS. Parents seem worried about the long-term effects of 3D content on their children's eyes... probably a valid concern when video games are played for hours without breaks and used as babysitters in some cases. Even though the DS wasn't just a "kiddy" system, children certainly were a significant part of the market that now might be missing.

I hope it did good in America too. My cousin bought one this weekend, and my brother got one yesterday. The price drop is definitely helping.

This shouldn't even be a concern though since parents can disable it with a passcode through parental controls. Assuming they do their research, they'll have no problems.

I know of a few people who have gotten a 3DS due to the price drop (in multiple countries), one of them even saying they weren't planning to buy one ever. This was definitely a good move for Nintendo.

Well in a survey earlier this year Japanese people did say that the 3DS was over priced.

These parents DO realize that their kids see in 3D every waking hour right?  Obviously staring at a small screen for hours at a time probably isn't great for your kid's eyes (although I suspect the lack of exercise is a more valid concern), but I get tired of people acting like the 3D in the 3DS is some magical invention.  No.  It works the exact same way as 3D in the real world.  Each eye sees the same image from a different pov and your brain uses the difference to figure out the depth.  It's math.

In fact, I might go one step further and say that it is more natural to look at 3D images, which our brains are specifically designed to understand, than 2D images.

Now, I'm not an eye doctor or expert.  Some day I may be proven wrong and at that point I'll bow my head and acknowledge my mistake.

In any case, I wonder how many parents are REALLY worried about it.  We live in a world where parents let their kids do all sorts of dangerous stupid things.

I can understand the parents concern, the 3DS does not produce a great 3D image and it even hurts my eyes to have it up all the way (only with the 3DS though, I have never had any problem watching a 3D movie). If the real world looked as strained and fuzzy as the 3DS, I would probably keep my eyes closed most of the time. Trust me, Nintendo still has a long way ago if they want to make 3D more natural, at the very least it has to be as good as 3D movies.

Everyone is different. It hurts yours, but not mine. Maybe the reason you don't think the 3D is all that great is because your eyes aren't perfect for it.

Maybe. Like I said, I can see the 3D in movie theatres perfectly (even the 3D on a TV at Sears looked fine). It's just the 3DS that does it. I can't have the slider any higher than half on the games I have played, any higher and it just looks blurry and strains my eyes. My ideal solution would be for Nintendo to get it to look like 3D in theatres do.

Yeah, more street passers!

Plus, Nintendo has no power over other studios' game in the way they handle 3D. So far, any built-in software and the home menu for the system has wonderful 3D. But in reality, we have had any real first-party games yet for the system. Soon we really see how the 3D is supposed to look like.

Back on topic, I am really happy this led to a big boost in sales. Hopefully this means more StreetPasses (I have only had 2 since launch), and more games since existing games should get a boost in sales.

Staring at any screen too long can hurt your eyes. Doesn't matter if the screen is 3D or not... although I hear those Kindle things Amazon sells have screens that are easy on the eyes, but I never tried them so I don't know about that.

But on 3DS it happens as soon as I turn the 3D up, I usually keep it pretty low since so I do get some effect (I almost feel like it's a waste not to use it a little).

Ebook readers use E-ink.  I have one and the best way I could describe it is like a futuristic etch-a-sketch.  It isn't a a screen capable of movent but basically getting rid of one page and replacing it with the next.  It is great for the eyes since it is just like reading a newspaper (or an etch-sketch capable of drawing extremely detailed pictures)


I honestly have trouble believing parents even know about the 3d effect's possible negative side for young children.  I know the 3ds warns about it but the regular DS and Wii had about a millions epilepsy and other warning things.  I think even attentive parents have trained themselves to ignore this stuff in products they buy since the chances of it affecting them are slight.

If parents ignore the warnings, it's their own fault. 3DS game boxes (even third party) have a warning on the back saying that the 3D may cause vision damage in kids younger than 6 and that parents should use the parental controls to restrict it.

It's nice to see the price having a positive effect on sales. If people are buying it at this price before the big games are released, it shouldn't have any trouble selling when they are. Hopefully, the US numbers will be pushed over a million after this.

And yeah, the Kindle screen is amazing. It doesn't even look like a screen, it looks like a page from a book, and has no light so it's easy on the eyes. If they can make a screen like this for a game system, that would be astonishing, but I don't know if it will be possible to have it in colour or have it refresh fast enough to display 60 frames every second.

There is a color Kindle coming out, but I don't know if it's still eInk or not.

But then there is this:
http://geekbeat.tv/fujitsu-demonstrates-gorgeous-next-generation-color-e-ink-display/

I really love my nook.  I have the LCD screen for things like picking books and the keyboard.  Then I have the wonderful e-Ink display for reading books.  Its so much nicer on my eyes.

I won't get a nookColor because its not e-Ink so defeats the purpose for me.  On the Flipside I like the new read me stories and like they've done so, if they produce one with a nice color e-Ink display I be right there.