One Year Later: The Tragedy and Triumph of 3DS

The highs and lows of Nintendo’s latest handheld, and where it stands after a rocky first year.

By: Jeremy Parish
March 21, 2012

A year ago next week, Nintendo’s fifth generation of portable hardware arrived in the U.S. The 3DS found itself born into a hostile world: The market for dedicated portables had slid into decline while the bloom had begun to fade from the rose of the 3D visualization trend. The system didn’t perform nearly to Nintendo’s expectations thanks in part to an unreasonably high price; about half a year later the company drastically reduced the cost of the machine and offered 20 free games to early adopters by way of apology. While these facts would not normally inspire confidence, the 3DS has made steady inroads since then and could even be said to have established itself as a strong platform with a positive future. It’s not all sunshine and roses for 3DS, but things are looking up. Let’s explore the highs and lows of the system… starting (much like the platform itself) with the lows.

The Lows

The Frankenstick
Nothing symbolizes 3DS’s most disastrous failings like the “Frankenstick,” more properly known as the Circle Pad Pro. Its mere existence is a frank admission that Nintendo horribly miscalculated the needs and expectations of its consumers at the most basic design level — and it’s a clumsy, inelegant admission at that. The Circle Pad Pro is one part cradle, one part peripheral; it doesn’t so much attach to the system as wrap around it, transforming the 3DS into an awkward goliath of a portable. On the plus side, it gives the 3DS much-needed dual stick controls, but at the price of making the entire device a chunky mess and likely splitting the market. Any eventual hardware redesign will need the Circle Pad Pro’s feature set built in lest it be laughed out of stores… but should Nintendo actually go ahead with a right-stick-equipped redesign, they’ll instantly divide gamers into haves and have-nots. It’s an unmitigated disaster of ill-considered hardware design, and the cure is almost as bad as the sickness.