Posted by: Kyle Boedeker
I don’t think I’m alone in the core gaming community when I say I didn’t buy a Wii because there are very few games on the system I’d care to play. So far, history is repeating itself with Nintendo’s latest entry into the handheld market; The 3DS. To be fair it’s still very early in the hardware cycle, plus, time has proven that Nintendo really is king when it comes to handhelds, but I’m relatively certain that with Sony’s PS Vita hitting the market at such a competitive price, Nintendo will need more than cheap hardware to keep the 3DS at the top.
It’s the same thing we’ve all been saying for years about Nintendo: where’s the third party support? The first party titles, even as predictable as they’ve become lately, (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong etc), are by far the best games available on any Nintendo platform.
So what about the price drop? Nintendo recently lowered the price of the 3DS from a reasonable $249.99 to the bargain price of just $169.99. Why the drop? The pleasant surprise for the rest of world that was the $249.99 price point of the PS Vita wasn’t such pleasant news for Nintendo. Nintendo knows the 3DS hardware can’t compete with the PS Vita at the same price point and was forced to react.
(Check out Sony's marketing strategy after the break)
It’s the same thing we’ve all been saying for years about Nintendo: where’s the third party support? The first party titles, even as predictable as they’ve become lately, (Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong etc), are by far the best games available on any Nintendo platform.
So what about the price drop? Nintendo recently lowered the price of the 3DS from a reasonable $249.99 to the bargain price of just $169.99. Why the drop? The pleasant surprise for the rest of world that was the $249.99 price point of the PS Vita wasn’t such pleasant news for Nintendo. Nintendo knows the 3DS hardware can’t compete with the PS Vita at the same price point and was forced to react.
(Check out Sony's marketing strategy after the break)
Sony is making some smart decisions pricing their hardware so competitively for a couple of reasons. First, the hardware profit issue. Nintendo has traditionally made a profit selling both the hardware and the software for their platforms, plus money on licensing from third party publishers. That’s where Sony’s real strategy comes in. Sony, as masochistic as it sounds, is quite used to selling its hardware at a loss. They’re subsidizing the price of the hardware to increase market penetration while hoping that in return you’ll buy lots and lots of software. More software sales means more publishers producing games for the system, which in turn means more profit for Sony through licensing fees. Because Nintendo’s best-selling software has historically been first party, especially when it comes to unique hardware like the Wii and the 3DS, the lack of third party support so far is troubling. For Nintendo to take a loss on every 3DS sold without the extra revenue coming in from third party licensing fees could make the difference between a successful handheld for Nintendo or another piece of hardware that goes the route of the Virtual Boy.
It seems Nintendo didn’t anticipate Sony’s handheld entering the market at such a competitive price, and judging by Sony’s history when it comes to pricing hardware, it’s not hard to see why. But the reality is that because of Nintendo’s misjudgment on the Vita’s price, the 3DS may suffer in this generation’s handheld war.
But what it will really come down to is software.
Even with arguably better hardware and a larger base for third party support, if the PS Vita goes the way of the PSP, that is if Sony allows developers to continue to make terrible ports of PS3 games for the Vita, Nintendo still may walk away from this thing as the victor.
It seems Nintendo didn’t anticipate Sony’s handheld entering the market at such a competitive price, and judging by Sony’s history when it comes to pricing hardware, it’s not hard to see why. But the reality is that because of Nintendo’s misjudgment on the Vita’s price, the 3DS may suffer in this generation’s handheld war.
But what it will really come down to is software.
Even with arguably better hardware and a larger base for third party support, if the PS Vita goes the way of the PSP, that is if Sony allows developers to continue to make terrible ports of PS3 games for the Vita, Nintendo still may walk away from this thing as the victor.
