When Nintendo came up with its 3DS, the handheld device was suitably welcomed. Its fans lined up to grab a piece of it and the pre-orders were filled in a matter of hours. However, this does not mean that the device is a documented success, far from it. The company president himself admitted that 3DS sales numbers are lagging behind the expectations and in his own words, "Sales of the 3DS have been weaker than expected since the second week of launch in the US and Europe."
Nintendo was looking at selling 4 million units of the device, while in reality, it could manage to sell only 3.61 million. While we can come up with one thousand and one reasons for 3DS failure, Nintendo preferred to blame the consumers' inability to understand the distinctiveness of glass-less 3D content. Awww, Nintendo, we consumers are dumb like this only, sorry to disappoint you. However, the company may be right in thinking that it needs to produce content which may be enjoyed by not-so-active users.
However, Nintendo is not completely clueless. It also admitted that the release of new and more popular titles may help in increasing the sales. Well, now you are going in the right direction, Nintendo. While, the novelty 3D is all good and everything, but the technology is almost useless, if there is a dearth of interesting content to play on it. Nintendo will do itself immense favor if it comes up with some good titles for 3DS.
Nintendo also admitted to the marketing and PR failure. Actually, it failed marketing and PR tests on so many fronts that it is difficult to keep the tally. First off, the company could have done some better advertising for the product. Nintendo again took the shame that it failed to communicate the non-gaming aspects of the device. It particularly missed the mark when it came to communicate about some novel features like StreetPass and Augmented Reality. Thanks to the companies like Layar, most of the consumers are fairly acquainted with the idea of AR. With a little effort, Nintendo could have easily snagged the AR crowd. And last but not the least, How about rationalizing the price of the device?