apanese Survey Lists Top Reasons Why 3DS Isn't Selling
3DS was released too early, it suffers the same problem that Sony did when they released the PS3. They should have waited until they had some good release titles i.e Legend of Zelda, a Mario game, Star Fox. Then released it, they would have made a lot more sales at launch had that been the case. In any case, I am still getting one ( from amazon or volumerates etc) and I will still keep my old DS Lite to play game boy games on.
Why haven't you bought a 3DS yet, and what would it take to get you to purchase?

No games.
 
I got the 3DS, but because I had to catch up on some DS games, I stopped at the GBA SP last gen.
Not too happy with it so far, its fun but rather useless, so here's hoping to Zelda.

Because there are no good games for it.

A better forum based ad campaign.

apanese Survey Lists Top Reasons Why 3DS Isn't Selling
3DS was released too early, it suffers the same problem that Sony did when they released the PS3. They should have waited until they had some good release titles i.e Legend of Zelda, a Mario game, Star Fox. Then released it, they would have made a lot more sales at launch had that been the case. In any case, I am still getting one ( from amazon or volumerates etc) and I will still keep my old DS Lite to play game boy games on.Why haven't you bought a 3DS yet, and what would it take to get you to purchase?

It's a simple answer for me. The handheld is simply too expensive and doesn't have enough captivating titles to validate purchase. 

No games, too expensive are the two reasons that are blocking me from buying it.

i like pickles.

It's a tad pricey and needs more games. 
 I bought one, and while I enjoy the design and graphics, Street fighter just got really old.  
 Gotta stick it out till the 19th. Zelda baby, Zelda.

no games too many good games on DS
 
price

No games worth playing at launch
The best games on the horizon are nothing but enhanced ports (hopefully at E3 we get to hear news of brand new games) 
Features that are in the system but not ready to be used 
Ridiculous "launch window" time (seriously from March-June?) 
Also at $250 it's a bit of a pill that's hard to swallow

It would have worked way better on nintendo's part if they had just waited a few more months that way there would be more games to play and all of the 3DS' launch features would be ready to use. 

Not enough great games yet.

It's because the eShop isn't up yet.

I wont buy one yet because i just bought an XL so im still enjoying my ds right now. I would like to see more colours available and a price drop before i buy one anyway. Im not in any hurry but once animal crossing comes out there will be no stopping me.

Fuckin thing hurts my eyeballz on the real

I don't understand why people say "sales will pick up when Zelda comes out." Why are people so willing to rebuy and replay a game they played and beat (and some STILL play) again?

I don't understand why people say "sales will pick up when Zelda comes out." Why are people so willing to rebuy and replay a game they played and beat (and some STILL play) again?

Iphone, Ipad, Android and what not... 

Iphone, Ipad, Android and what not... 

NO GAEMS!  
 
and kinda expensive. 
 
but still mostly no gaems.

@President_Barackbar said:

I don't understand why people say "sales will pick up when Zelda comes out." Why are people so willing to rebuy and replay a game they played and beat (and some STILL play) again?

It's likely that current and future 3DS owners never got a chance to play OoT when it first came out on the N64 or probably couldn't look past how it looked. Now those people get their chance to play what is highly regarded as one of the best games ever made.

I'm sure by the time of this post the following points have been made ad nauseum but it's pretty easy to look at both the rampant lack of software for the 3DS, as well as the pervasiveness and the widespread success of the iPhone and iPad as gaming platforms as the reasons sales are below expectations for the handheld. The market demands better content for the 3DS to matter and until it gets games that are meaningful to the general public, the system just won't matter to most people. 

No games, too expensive are the two reasons that are blocking me from buying it.

i wouldn't have considered buying one if DOA Dimensions was not coming out for it. like everyone said, there'snot really any appealing games. such a weak launch library. 

Best game is a 3d port. Expensive. Why buy it? I can PROMISE as soon as mario or zelda comes out they are gonna be sold out.

Maybe because it doesn't have games on it?

There are no games that interest me and I know it may sound dumb but I'm personally waiting for at least the next iteration of the hardware. 3 hour battery is pathetic for how I would use the thing. The Vita looks amazing and has some awesome games, assuming the ones being shown are launch titles, but if the battery life is also 3 hours than again I'll wait for the next one. 

apanese Survey Lists Top Reasons Why 3DS Isn't Selling
3DS was released too early, it suffers the same problem that Sony did when they released the PS3. They should have waited until they had some good release titles i.e Legend of Zelda, a Mario game, Star Fox. Then released it, they would have made a lot more sales at launch had that been the case. In any case, I am still getting one ( from amazon or volumerates etc) and I will still keep my old DS Lite to play game boy games on.Why haven't you bought a 3DS yet, and what would it take to get you to purchase?

No compelling games, and a bad battery life are what's keeping me away. Hopefully the 3DSi will fix these issues.

You might say it launched a little early, I'm not sure why. Expect it to sell more when Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart, Kid Icarus, Paper Mario and all that stuff comes out.
IMO the Iphone has have little to do with the sales.

I mean, if red named giantbomb folks aren't buying it, who is?
 
But release that new Paper Mario game, and it's totally mine. Intelligent Systems could be my favorite of Nintendo's internal developers and I make it a point to not miss any of their work.

I loved the hell out of my DS, but I can't justify the expense of DS games any more.  Certainly not when compared to the price of other games on other systems.  Here in Hong Kong, I can pick up Xbox 360 games, new, for only slightly more than the price of a DS game.  L.A. Noire cost me $300 HK, which is about $30 US.  Most DS games sell for about the same.  Disc based games often appear cheap, and can be discounted later, due to them being able to mass produce the discs pretty cheaply.  Cartridges never drop in price, so finding a "platinum hits" version of an older title just doesn't happen. 
 
That's not to say that there aren't some DS games that I sank tons of hours into, but sitting hunched over a small screen as opposed to sitting in front of the big TV ... when the price is comparable but the experience is not, then the choice is easy to make.  Mostly I played my DS when I was travelling around, and wasn't settled enough to have access to a home console.  Once I got my 360 back my handhelds started to gather dust. 
 
Coming from the other end, the iOS devices are really starting to punch above their weight now in terms of games.  Some good games are getting ported over, and some very good system originals are eating into the desire for a dedicated handheld.  Street Fighter 3D?  Well, I'm not much of a fighting fan, I'm very casual.  $30 for a gimmicky version of a game that I'll only play a bit ... well I can't justify that.  I picked up the iOS version when it went on sale for one US dollar.  One buck.  One.  Sure it has touch controls, but it works fine enough and I had a hell of a lot of fun for my dollar.  Because of the price, and the ubiquity of iOS devices, I was able to play it multiplayer in the pub against my friend too.  He was playing on his iPhone, I was playing the pixel-doubled version on my iPad, and it was the first time I had played Street Fighter against another human for 20 years.  Good times.   The chances of that ever happening if I were to make the substantial cash investment for the 3DS?  Pretty much zero. 
 
The App Store's pricing patterns are going to make it harder for other handhelds now.  I may still pull the trigger on the 3DS at some point, but it would be to buy and play specific titles only.  I would need to know that I'm going to get my money's worth from a game, and it would need to be a game that I couldn't buy anywhere else.  The days of taking a chance on a $30 game are over for me, not when for the same money I could get 25 games on the App Store.  Hell, worst case I could get 6 top iPad games for the same money.  Not to mention the sheer number of games that go for free, and I do mean FREE, in the regular promotions offered on the App Store.  Today alone I got Back to the Future Episode 1 and Speedball 2 for the grand price of zero dollars and zero cents.  I've literally been picking up free games faster than I can actually finish them.
 
Latest purchase for me was iPACROSS.  I put 100 hours into Picross DS, and 150 into 3D Picross on my NDS.  I love those games.  Now I have iPACROSS on my iPad.  Comes with the same sort of production values (though misses the victory animations), and has 400 puzzles.  Only cost $3 US though.  Well, that's game over as far as I'm concerned.

I'm not sure how it looks globally, but locally there also have not been a big push marketing the damn thing. It as if it was nothing more than a mere color upgrade as far as I can tell. I mean, if I didn't actually follow up on gaming news at all, I probably wouldn't know it existed. Or if I did, I probably wouldn't know it's strengths compared to the old DS.  
 
But I'm sure app-gaming is another killer to the portable gaming idea, at least above a certain age.

It is not selling because of all of the reasons listed above

No games exist, only promises.

 
OP is a spam bot.

People keep saying Zelda.  Yea...no thx.  But it's literally the same game that has been ported to every other Nintendo console after the n64 does not warrant a purchase from me.  I'm waiting on good original content.

I bought it day 1 with the knowledge that there were no games for it, and there weren't ever going to be any games for it until 6th gen pokemon or the next revolutionary puzzle type game 2 years down the line. Why? Because I've got a metric shit tonne of disposable income and I'm antsy for anything new. Still haven't bought a PS3 though for some reason. I blame Chad Warden for that.

Okay, maybe the OP isn't a spambot, it's just Amazon.com and the Chinese Amazon.

I haven't boughten one because I can't justify the purchase. $250 is way to much money for a device that I consider single purpose, 3D isn't a selling point for me, and there are no games for it. Even if I bought one I would probably still use my DS Lite more. At least there are actual games to play and the battery life is half decent.

That was the case for the original DS also. It didn't sell well at first because it had no games and no third-party support. But it got some eventually (a lot). It'll be the same for the 3DS, just wait.

They're pretty lame and have no games.

Price and Battery life, those are the two main issues that i have with the system right now. That, and i am waiting for the 3DS lite/advance/whatever they'll call the new model.