The Unexpected Comeback of the Nintendo 3DS (And how Nintendo can apply this to the WiiU)

Not sure if you are noticing, but the Nintendo 3DS is kicking major amounts of arse.




Not sure if you are noticing, but the Nintendo 3DS currently has nearly an 86% market share in the handheld battle against the Playstation Vita. Even though Apple has sold over 22 million IPads and 47 million IPhones in 2013 the 3DS continues to put up impressive hardware and software numbers.

Examples:

Animal Crossing New Leaf: 4.4 million
Luigi's Mansion 2 (Surprising, to say the least): 2.1 million
New Super Mario Bros. 2: 6.1 Million
Super Mario 3D Land: 8.5 Million
Mario Kart 7: 8 Million
Ocarina of Time 3D: 3 Million

And now, the handheld is currently outselling the consoles in the U.K. merely two years after we were sure that Apple, Samsung, and the phone companies would eliminate the need for a handheld at all (I was hinting towards that in the past too). My a lot has happened since E3 2010 when the pundits declared that Nintendo was going in the wrong direction with their hardware.




But the truth is, they were.

The 3D craze was a mere fad that was dying, and it was also a fad that does better with kids and families and much less with the more dedicated fanbase. And when it launched, it was quietly a disaster. You can't even name the games that launched with the handheld. Not even a remake of a beloved classic could help it, as Star Fox 3D couldn't even break a million.

So what did Nintendo do? Well, practically bombard the market with a killer blend of sequels, remakes, re-releases, and a couple cool new ideas. As a matter of fact some of these better games were simply buried underneath all the quantity, like Paper Mario and Donkey Kong Country. After selling just 4 million in the first several months, the sales nearly reached 20 million after 15 months. Hey, actually caring about the online service and the downloadable content always makes for a positive note.



Now we have the WiiU in desperate need of help...

....another Nintendo niche system with a different way of playing games..but its a way that gamers have not been emotionally invested in quite like when the Wii and the Kinect first came out.

Despite what they want you to believe, if you simply deliver the arsenal of games required to keep gamers happy, then you don't have to worry about whether or not the niche of the system will become enough to entice people to buy your product.

Newsflash Nintendo: We didn't buy the 3DS for the 3D, we bought it for the superior memory, the superior online features, and the exciting-looking games.

Newsflash #2 Nintendo: We aren't buying the WiiU because of the "inferior" hardware to the competition---we aren't buying it because there has been a lack of software, disk and downloadable. And....we know that a price cut is beyond the horizon.

The WiiU has all the potential to pull off the 3DS-sized comeback. Despite the limitations, this is still Nintendo's first HD system, which in itself leads to lots of potential. We need more games first and foremost, and unlike the 3DS it has the third-party support of a Neo-Geo Pocket. So this means not just the typical sequels like new Mario 3D, a new Zelda, or a new Metroid. We need more Links-to-the-Past to make sequels to neglected or forgotten gems like Kid Icarus, the Mario and Luigi RPG series, and Paper Mario on the 3DS. Nintendo is the only one of the Big 3 that can thrive on a few games selling a lot, because those are usually the system pushers. I promise you the XBox 360 has more million-sellers than the Wii, but n.o.n.e. of them even came close to the success of Mario Kart Wii.

Also, we need more support of Nintendo's past. Earthbound is a decent surprise, but we need more SNES, N64, and Gamecube games available for the WiiU, no excuses. Lastly, once all the games start turning out, we need for the WiiU to not have a price tag that is just $50 less than the next generation systems. This is silly, you need to but at least $50. When the 3DS dropped $75, it was because they knew they shouldn't match the price of superior hardware, and because that way it made the competitors seem that much more expensive. Nintendo has only a few months to repeat this same trick.

But the WiiU can be saved, and Nintendo has proven themselves to be a company that can save systems----and the 3DS' unexpected powerful comeback is their greatest example.