Definitely happy I picked one up early, those free games are amazing. Really puts Sony's "welcome back" programme to shame. The 3DS is a good system, but it was over priced, poorly marketed and lacked games.. I'm sure they'll recover from the rocky start though and hopefully don't repeat these mistakes with the Wii U.

This is bananas. I wonder if this means they are finally losing money on a piece of hardware for now.

That's one hell of a price-drop 6 months after release.

so Nintendo is pretty much saying F U to the early adopters .

@EgoCheck616 said:

I can't feel bad about this as an early adopter. I've managed to get a ton of mileage from my 3DS and do not regret the purchase one bit. And free games? Bring 'em on!

I'm with this guy, pretty much. Only thing is battery life for me which is a bigger deal then I thought it'd be but not enough to make me regret getting it.

20 free games, 10 of them being GBA games noone else will get? I'm down with that.

Being one of the early adopters, I knew I was taking a big risk in buying it. With that being said, if they're going to give us something free, how about  giving us free stuff that's IN 3D?

I think I might actually go all handheld next gen now that the 3DS is so cheap. I'd pick up the Vita first as my main platform, then get the 3DS later when they fix the issues with the screen scratching and battery and has at least 3 games I want to play. A new gen of consoles seems a lot less appealing all of a sudden.

so Nintendo is pretty much saying F U to the early adopters .

Whoa, color me surprised, this is quite the twist!

Yeah, it still doesn't have any games I want to play and it's still region-locked. Still no purchase here.

wow nice price :)

I find your writing a breeze to read Patrick, very good structure.

I'm absolutely furious. I just bought one a couple of weeks ago! Those free games aren't good enough to make up for the extra money I've just paid. I literally feel like I've been robbed. Talk about buyer's remorse...

Wow, this is just amazing. Makes me wonder if Nintendo was planning this from the start, waiting to cut the price when the Vita was announced.

The most surprising part of this to me is that they didn't just stop at $199. I was expecting a price drop, but an $80 drop with less than half a year gone by? I know it didn't sell as well as they imagined but this is really shocking, especially for Nintendo. I guess they were really worried about the coming competition.

I still don't know how to feel, having bought mine day one, but while it may still feel not entirely worth it, the compensation seems justified and I will happily accept the free 20 games.

Wow. I should've waited, never expected it to drop so soon.

Very well, I hope more people get it so they can play some goddamned OoT3D that shit is the bomb(flower).

The 5 GBA games listed are pretty frakking sweet.

@Eujin said:

I'm starting to wonder if someone at Whiskey Media has Patrick literally chained to the office. Someone let that man get some sleep!

You gotta respect people who love their jobs and do them so well. :) Even the most sceptical weirdos on the site should have figured that out by now. The man knows what he's doing.. and he's doing it plenty.

The price-drop is really surprising to me, didn't see that coming.

When is the next price drop? Will Nintendo have to hold off on releasing the Wii U when the 3DS still doesn't sell?
I see the same thing happening to the PSP2

It's insulting if you're in Europe, or the UK. They're about £170 in the UK, and now it's dropped to $170? Why do Nintendo fucking hate the European market so much?

It wasn't that long ago I was playing Yoshi's Island 3DS and thought to myslef "I just want to play the SNES version, not this version that I have no nostalgia for". The mention of this completely redeems them from the fact that I still haven't bought anything after my first game.

this is crazy, they sold me

@AngeTheDude said:

I'm absolutely furious. I just bought one a couple of weeks ago! Those free games aren't good enough to make up for the extra money I've just paid. I literally feel like I've been robbed. Talk about buyer's remorse...

Really? Yoshi's Island, Mario Kart Super Circuit, Legend of Zelda? These are some of the best games ever made and will each be at least £5 each to buy when they go up on the store. I bought a 3DS day one, and I'm very happy with these freebies, they basically offset the price you would have paid if you'd waited.

Add 10 SNES games, Nintendo and we have a deal.

Still going to wait for the library to grow a bit more. It's definitely a sign of the times, but the lack of quality software for the system sure didn't help. I'll be interested if this effects Sony's Vita plans.

This ... this is awesome. I have no regrets getting my 3DS early, plus, I get a ton of free games that I would have wanted anyway!

They will be doing the same thing 6 months after the WiiU release when no one buys that too.

So when's the 3DS Lite coming out then?

@AngeTheDude said:

I'm absolutely furious. I just bought one a couple of weeks ago! Those free games aren't good enough to make up for the extra money I've just paid. I literally feel like I've been robbed. Talk about buyer's remorse...

That's what happens when you buy a console early. The original xbox was slashed by $250 in Australia a few weeks after launch. 360 owners got faulty systems. DS owners got a shitty design. The lesson is, don't buy consoles early.

@James_ex_machina said:

When is the next price drop? Will Nintendo have to hold off on releasing the Wii U when the 3DS still doesn't sell? I see the same thing happening to the PSP2

I think it'll do fine now that it's at a more manageable price, has actual games and better advertising (that clearly points out that it's a next-gen system and not another upgrade for the old DS).

So it says on Amazon 169 POUNDS. Which when turned into $ is 260-70. Would it be worth it if I just bought a US 3DS?

@Metal_Mills said:

@AngeTheDude said:

I'm absolutely furious. I just bought one a couple of weeks ago! Those free games aren't good enough to make up for the extra money I've just paid. I literally feel like I've been robbed. Talk about buyer's remorse...

That's what happens when you buy a console early. The original xbox was slashed by $250 in Australia a few weeks after launch. 360 owners got faulty systems. DS owners got a shitty design. The lesson is, don't buy consoles early.

PS3 owners got PS2 backwards compatibility! =)

Wow. Really makes you wonder how the market is gonna look in a few years.

Maybe we should start a boycott of the PS Vita for its first few months of release to get the price down aswel :-P

@patrickklepek said:

@skinnyluigi said:

late night post by patrick klepeck. does he have his brain hooked up to game news or what

What do you think the curls are for?

To denote your status as the youngest one in that Brady Bunch? :)

So it says on Amazon 169 POUNDS. Which when turned into $ is 260-70. Would it be worth it if I just bought a US 3DS?

@Redbullet685 said:

@Asurastrike said:

@scarace360 said:

FUCK YA IM GOING OUT TOMORROW TO BUY ONE!

lol, did you read the article? Or am I being trolled?

Maybe he wants the free games?

If he buys from Amazon or Best Buy or one of the other big stores, they'll price match the price drop so he'll get the discount and the free games. Good move.

@Redbullet685 said:

@Asurastrike said:

@scarace360 said:

FUCK YA IM GOING OUT TOMORROW TO BUY ONE!

lol, did you read the article? Or am I being trolled?

Maybe he wants the free games?

If he buys from Amazon or Best Buy or one of the other big stores, they'll price match the price drop so he'll get the discount and the free games. Good move.

@ptys said:

I'm interested in how many held off due to the hardware design, which is the case with me. I plan to buy one as I think it's a really good platform to play retro, indie and past gen. games which seem a bit thinly spread on HD real estate, but I want a slicker design.

Considering Nintendo's MO, this is probably going to push up the timetable for everything. It's usually tiny price cut, new colors, tiny price cut, new colors, etc. Now, to spur sales after this boost they're going to release a bunch of colors, and probably by next summer have a redesign announced at E3? One can hope.

Price is still too high.

Oh sweet, now I may actually have a reason to get one. Cool that the people that owned one are getting free games, I already own most of those as well. :)

Me and my brother both got a 3DS do these free games apply to European owners of the 3DS? Will a price drop be happening in Europe also or are we just being forgotten again? If they ignore us again this time I will have lost all faith in Nintendo.

@onan said:

@Redbullet685 said:

@Asurastrike said:

@scarace360 said:

FUCK YA IM GOING OUT TOMORROW TO BUY ONE!

lol, did you read the article? Or am I being trolled?

Maybe he wants the free games?

If he buys from Amazon or Best Buy or one of the other big stores, they'll price match the price drop so he'll get the discount and the free games. Good move.

awwww hell ya!

In Australia, the 3DS is getting a price cut from $349 AUD down to $249 AUD which is more or less the same price as the original US launch price and that $100 mark up at launch sucks balls.

@scarace360 said:

@onan said:

@Redbullet685 said:

@Asurastrike said:

@scarace360 said:

FUCK YA IM GOING OUT TOMORROW TO BUY ONE!

lol, did you read the article? Or am I being trolled?

Maybe he wants the free games?

If he buys from Amazon or Best Buy or one of the other big stores, they'll price match the price drop so he'll get the discount and the free games. Good move.

awwww hell ya!

It still doesn't drop until the 12th, and I'm sure Best Buy knows that. Still worth a try, though. Good luck!

Finally a reasonable price! I don't want to get burned when 3DSi comes out though. But there still aren't any new games on the horizon...

OK UK price drop is happening (price not confirmed but supposedly dropping by "about a third") and we do get free games for buying early. I am not disappointed I brought early but I feel bad for my brother who only brought his 3DS last week, at least we get a decent amount of free games and my friend who was on the fence will probably get one now.

@Shaanyboi said:

@Clippjoint said:

so Nintendo is pretty much saying F U to the early adopters .

..how does 20 free VC games equate to an "F U"? What, did you think they'd mail you a free copy of their next big three retail games or something?

How about some of that money back? These games are so goddamn old you could get them for free at this point AND probably the system you need to play them on. And that's if you have an issue with "pirating" games you probably already owned and certainly won't really be making anyone any money that should be making money from it. Those games should be free to the public at this point, if they want to make money off of Mario, maybe they should make some original content or release a DX sort of package or something. There is a reason they are so easily able to give this shit away: it's probably not worth much to them in the first place.

I'm absolutely shocked, actually.  I expected a drop to $200 around Thanksgiving.  This is not only abrupt, but steep. 
 
I don't entirely agree that mobile phones have anything to do with this (you'll never see a mainline Nintendo release on them).  The issue is the complete and utter lack of software on the unit, something the Bombcast crew have made a point of in recent weeks, with only Ocarina of time and Starfox 64 really worth playing. 
 
Nintendo needs to get their stuff in order.