Huge 3DS Price Drop Effective August 12th

Nintendo has announced a massive price drop for their latest handheld in the United States, lowering the price from $249.99 to $169.99 starting August 12th. Dropping the price by nearly one-third of the overall cost seems extreme, but perhaps the struggling early sales of the 3DS and the competitive price of Sony’s rival handheld device, PS Vita, have something to do with it.

Early adopters may feel like pulling their hair out, but don’t worry, Nintendo has you covered. For anyone that has bought a 3DS and logged onto the eShop at least once at any point up until 11:59pm on August 11th, you’ll be able to download twenty free games. Starting on September 1st, “Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors” will be able to download 10 NES games before they are released to the public. The list includes games like Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., The Legend of Zelda, Balloon Fight, and Ice Climbers. Once the games are released publicly later in the year, Ambassadors will still have the option of downloading them for free.

The more surprising deal for Ambassadors is exclusive access to 10 GameBoy Advance games. By the end of the year, Ambassadors will be able to download games like Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare Inc: Mega Microgame$, and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. There are no plans to release these games publicly, so for now they are only for early adopters. Companies are rarely so generous to early adopters, so everyone who has been enjoying glasses-free 3D for the past few months has little to complain about.

Finally, Nintendo confirmed the release date for Star Fox 64 3D as September 9th (as opposed to the originally announced September 11th) and has given an official name for the upcoming Mario platformer. Super Mario Land 3D will launch sometime in November, Mario Kart 7 in December, and Kid Icarus: Uprising sometime in the vague holiday season.

Press Release