Nintendo announced the launch details for their new handheld console, the Nintendo 3DS yesterday, September 29, 2010. Many of the details were just confirmations of rumors that have been floating around for months, but there were some surprises as well. The biggest surprise of yesterday’s new was confirmation of the release date in Japan. Nintendo confirmed what everyone pretty much assumed that the 3DS would not be available in North America and Europe until Spring of 2011. However, it was also assumed that the 3DS would be available in Japan before the 2010 Holiday Season. While the rumors were right about North America and Europe, we now know that the 3DS will not be on sale in Japan until February 26th 2011.
This release date delay for Japan will have an effect not only on gamers, but on the Big N’s investors and accounting department. As a result of the delayed release for Japan and missing Holiday 2010, Nintendo’s estimated yearly revenues have been reduced to $13.2 billion dollars, down from $16.7 billion dollars (yes, Billion with a B). But I wouldn’t get too worried about all that, as they still expect to pull a profit of $1 billion dollars.
So exactly how many 3DS systems make up that $3.5 billion dollar drop in revenue? The pricing was only confirmed for Japan at at a conversion rate of $299 USD. That works out to around 11.5 million consoles if you don’t take first-party software sales into account. The pricing for North America and Europe still remains in the rumor mill, at any where between $249 and $299 USD. Either way, this is going to be the most expensive launch price for any Nintendo game console.
The biggest announcement for me today, however, was the confirmation that there will be a Gameboy/Gameboy Advance Virtual Console for the 3DS. Now you can definitely catch ‘em all while catching up on all those old Pokémon titles you didn’t get a chance to play. I personally am looking forward to downloading all the Gameboy Color Zelda titles, as I dumped my original Gameboy years before they were released. The 3DS will come with a 2GB SD card, which should be more than enough to store all the old school goodness.
This was all good news announced today, in my opinion. Hopefully the delayed release date will give 3rd party developers the time that they need to put some polish on their launch titles for the console. I am also OK with the price because of the power they are putting in such a small package. I was very impressed with the console when I had a chance to play it at E3 in Los Angeles this summer. If the 3rd party titles are a success, and then you add the Gameboy/Gameboy Advanced Virtual Console on top of everything else that I experienced with the 3DS, it will be well worth it, even with a $299 price tag.