This may sound like a strange question, but how much do you think the name of the console effected sales? Wouldn't some of the general public just assume it's a DS with 3d rather than a whole new handled and not bother buying it?

I was under the impression that that was exactly what it was, so I guess you may be right.

Yeah, totally, they confused the market. I don't like 3D and I have a DS, why would I buy a DS with 3D added?

I think everybody who isn't paying attention who has a DS looks at the name and says "I already have one of those but without 3D." I think they will do the same thing with WiiU.

It certainly didn't help that the damn thing looks basically the same. Although the same argument could be made about the Vita as well...

I dislike the cinema and 3DTV 3d stuff but I am really impressed with the 3D on the 3DS. So quite possibly as 3D seems to have lost all its appeal because its been implemented so poorly.

@Enigma777 said:

It certainly didn't help that the damn thing looks basically the same. Although the same argument could be made about the Vita as well...

That is my main concern. I think they should have taken a fairly radical approach to design so it was clearly a different product. Some obvious raised artwork of the top would have helped as well.

As for the name, would you have them drop the DS name? I doubt it. It has too much market value. I think by now, most of the confusion has gone, but I would have given it a different name myself. Not that I have any good ideas, but perhaps DS2-3D or DSA-3D (Advanced) wouldn't have been too far off the mark.

That's not a bad theory, but if the name was negatively affecting sales, then there ought to be a corresponding drop off in sales of the DSi and DSiXL compared to the DS. I think the price and lack of software support at launch were bigger problems.

I wonder if Wii U games will play in 3D on Sony TVs.

@Claude said:

I wonder if Wii U games will play in 3D on Sony TVs.

No. Sony will put in a chip that doesn't recognise Nintendo. Bastards!

@Enigma777 said:

It certainly didn't help that the damn thing looks basically the same. Although the same argument could be made about the Vita as well...

Vita is a lousy name, but It doesn't imply 3d, that solely fact makes of the Vita a better marketable product IMO.

Barely at all, the reason why they started off in hard times was because there were no good launch, or even close to launch games, 250 dollars was a pretty confident price, seeming that everyone knew Nintendo was making massive profits on each model, and lastly, the advertising was god awful. All it was was just people smiling over battle submerines and street fighter, and then the cam moves to show a small box inside the 3DS, of course we knew that meant 3D, but for anyone watching, it just looked artsy and conveyed no message about the systems' features. Now that the 3ds has a few nice titles like MK7 and the new resident evil, I think they won't have a problem selling these.

The name shoot them in the foot right out of the gate. Leading up to the 3DS there was: the DS, DS Lite, DSI, and DSI-XL. Then this thing came out and I'm sure many people thought look, now I can play my old DS game in 3D. It looked and sounded too much like the old DS's.

I don't know. The name maybe didn't help, but the lack of software, that appealed to those with similar-minded people like me, probably didn't help either. I think there are more games on the system now that look cool, but it's a little too late as I'm now waiting to see how the vita pans out.

EDIT: If you're just talking about the bunch of people that bought the DS and Wii, that don't play a ton of games, then it's anyone's guess.

Pretty much everyone I know who isn't a gamer doesn't understand the difference.

not a lot they were doing casual DS upgrades which may have hurt them already. how many times can you buy the same thing. It was a DS with 3d not much of an upgrade to an average person. it did not help that there was no must-have game to incentives people. the only reason i bought one was because it was a nice upgrade to my launch DS

I was in a store last week with a kid and his mother talking to the clerk and they didn't understand why a 3DS game doesn't work on the DS. I think maybe if they impressed on people that the new system has better graphics and other features besides just being a DS that's 3D then people might have been more interested.

But, maybe not. There's a lot of reasons for why the 3DS has struggled so far. It didn't have any cool-looking games for a long time, it was crazy expensive when it first came out, and of course, people can buy games for next to nothing on smartphones, so who the heck wants to buy a system with games that are more expensive than they were on the old DS.

Sorry about the italics but the whiskey media forums are poorly made so now I can't turn italics off.

alot and with good reason. the way i understood it was do you like the ds well heres the same think only with glass-less 3D that works most of the time

I think the lack of a 'killer app' (I hate that term) was the bigger problem. I was quite interested in checking out the 3D thing, but there just wasn't a single game to justify the purpose.

I know of some people that thought it was just another model of the DS and didn't want it for that reason, so I guess it could've affected sales.

they should of called it the Super Nintendo DS 3D!

I wasn't someone who thought it was just the same console with 3d so i cant say much abut the people who did, although i was under the impression the 3ds is selling at the rate or better than the DS did so if it did affect the sales it was such a small amount either way.

It was definitely a problem, the more casual Nintendo audience didn't have a clue that it was a new system. The fact the new ads use the tagline "this isn't Nintendo DS, it's Nintendo 3DS" shows that they picked up on the problem themselves.

The utter lack of games was the bigger problem though.