@Sakurina

note: these are just random thoughts in no particular order. These are definitely not well thought out or anything.

I think the main problem with the 3DS currently is that it doesn’t have very many good games. It’s been out for half a year and I still only have Ocarina of Time 3D—I’m still waiting for Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Cave Story 3D, Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance, Luigi’s Mansion 2…and all the other great games Nintendo will come out with. (Also excited for Star Fox 64 3D and Tetris Axis)

I’ve never played big games on my iPhone. I play games on my iPhone when I’m in a hurry somewhere. Games like Tetris, Canabalt, The Incident, Fruit Ninja, and Plants vs. Zombies are great, but are distractions for a few minutes. (except Tetris. I LOVE Tetris on the iPhone.) I can’t get into big iPhone games like Infinity Blade or something like Zenonia. The lack of physical controls is HUGE in my opinion and is why I don’t see the iPhone overtaking the 3DS. People who want to play games on the scale of Ocarina of Time and Mario will do so by playing those games. On a system with buttons and not stupid virtual analog sticks.

The most common argument I see for iOS being a full game platform is “Look at these graphics! Look at Infinity Blade, how can you not call this a gaming platform?” I think the iPhone, especially an iPhone 5 that would be even more powerful than the iPhone 4, could handle types of games like this, but, in my opinion, you need buttons to play them! Also they wouldn’t be Mario, or Zelda or whatever. I saw a game that looked a lot like Zelda on the iPhone. I’m sure it was a good game, but the review described it as a Zelda clone (or something like that). Because a full Zelda game would be better.

Somes games could work well—I love Osu on my iPhone, and from what I’ve seen of Kirby Mass Attack it looks like it would work on an iPhone. I just don’t want to play a full game on that system…

Also, eventually there will be Pokémon games on it. I bet if Nintendo came out with (main series) Pokémon games on the 3DS right now that would fix a lot of their problems :P

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Points I disagree with from the article

Last month, things looked a little better for the 3DS, thanks to the device’s $80 price cut to $169.99. According to Nintendo, it sold 235,000 3DS units during the period.

But as my fellow game-industry followers know all too well, 235,000 units sold in a single month just isn’t going to cut it for a portable device. If we look back in history, Nintendo’s other platforms, like the Game Boy and DS, were flying off store shelves for years. The 3DS, however, has not.

That’s because the GameBoy and the DS were out for YEARS and had good launch games. The 3DS has been out for ~six months. I just don’t understand how you can say “The DS and Game Boy flew off shelves for years! The 3DS hasn’t done that!” when the 3DS HASN’T HAD A CHANCE TO. How do we know the 3DS’ upcoming games won’t sell the system? Nintendo sold a lot of 3DSes after Ocarina of Time came out.

Now, I say “kill off” to drive the point home, but I don’t believe that Nintendo will actually discontinue the portable for at least another year. For some odd reason, Nintendo believes that it can turn things around with the 3DS. And it strangely feels that consumers who have yet to show that they care about the device will suddenly have a change of heart.

Nintendo won’t discontinue the 3DS. They’ll keep supporting it with games. I really doubt Nintendo will discontinue the 3DS. They would be admitting it was a failure. And it’s not a failure.

Here’s a news flash for you, Nintendo: consumers do not and will not care about the 3DS. And the iPhone 5, which will likely come with improved components to help deliver even better gameplay to owners, will make that abundantly clear.

Consumers don’t care? Where is whoever wrote this getting this fact that they will never care about it? Why won’t they care? Just because they’re not caring right now? Also, better gameplay? Not without buttons. The iPhone 5 would be more powerful, so it could do more powerful stuff, but I think the same types of games will show up on it, with the same kinds of gameplay. All that will get better is the graphics.

Also, I’m not saying the iPhone isn’t going to compete with the 3DS, I think it’s going to be a big problem. For a lot of people, not having Mario and Zelda games is okay. They’ll take their Zelda clones and Plants vs. Zombies. But I personally prefer Mario and Zelda and Pokémon.