With the excellent Pokemon Legends Arceus marking what looks to be the start of a whole new era for the franchise, this felt like as great a time as any to stop and take stock of the state of the franchise as it stands at the present moment in time. And so, we decided to go ahead and rank the Pokemon games. To be clear, we didn’t rank all of them – that would be insane, and also redundant, since so many games in the series are just slight variations of each other. 

Instead, what we did was take the best representative for each campaign and used it as a stand in for all other games that are also based on the same campaign. Put simply, this list doesn’t rank Pokemon Red/Blue, Yellow, FireRed/LeafGreen, and Let’s Go separately – it just takes what we think is the best one out of those, and ranks that one. (As for which one the best one is, you’re going to have to find that out for yourself now, won’t you?).

Is that clear? Great. Then let’s get started.

10. POKEMON X/Y

Pokemon X/Y was probably the first game in the series that caused wide scale disappointment among the fans – everyone had some complaint or the other with it. It makes sense – the game, which marked the series’ long awaited jump to 3D, was definitely a letdown on many fronts. The story was baffling and banal (even by Pokemon standards), the difficulty level was ramped down to such absurd levels that you could very literally finish the game without even paying attention to what was happening on screen, the region was extremely linear (and lacking in dungeons to a severe degree), there was nothing in the way of a post game, it pandered far too much to the first generation of Pokemon games, and it introduced the smallest roster of new Pokemon to date.

But there was also a lot to like about it – the Player Search System it introduced remains the single best online suite in any Pokemon game to date, and really, one the best multiplayer suites out there, player character customization was a hugely beloved feature that went on to become a series mainstay, it took the first steps towards making Pokemon training and team composition easier and more transparent by giving players direct control over the growth of their Pokemon, it added a brand new type that upended the meta game almost entirely, the Mega Evolutions battle gimmick was really fun, the design of the new Pokemon was uniformly excellent, and it looked charming as all heck with its chibi style 3D graphics. In hindsight, X/Y have become the most inessential Pokemon entries, because almost everything they did well went on to be appropriated by future games in the series, who would do it much better – and its shortcomings never got the chance to be fixed by an expansion or re-release, as would happen for so many other games in the series. But in spite of that, they’re very fun games, and probably exemplify the sentiment that even a “bad” Pokemon game remains an extremely well made, charming, and satisfying game to play through.

9. POKEMON BLACK 2/WHITE 2

The fifth generation of Pokemon was a wild time for the franchise, rife with experimentation and all sorts of new things the series had never dared attempt until then. One of those was a direct sequel – the first and only direct sequel to a game taking place in the same region the series has seen to date.

It made sense, though – the excellent Pokémon Black/White (which we’ll get to later on in the list) left a lot of sequel hooks in their story, and Unova was an amazing setting that clearly had more to offer. Pokémon Black 2 and White 2 deliver on that, but the adventure we get is decidedly inferior to the original games. While these are still excellent games, and essential for anyone who enjoyed the original Black/White, the campaign eschews a lot of the boldness and novelty that made the original games stand out so much, squandering the narrative opportunities hinted at by the originals (and in some cases it outright undermines them), and mechanically don’t really expand on the original games enough to really stand out on their own. They do offer a meaty, hefty post-game, and a frankly absurd amount of content – and all of it is absolutely great. But when you play through all Pokemon games, these ones tend to stand out less than the others – because very honestly, most of what they do was already done better by the original Black/White just one year prior, and they don’t really bring enough unique stuff of their own to the table to make up for that.

8. POKEMON ULTRA SUN/ULTRA MOON

Pokemon Sun/Moon were extremely interesting games – bold and ambitious, willing to experiment with the structure of the franchise, doubling down on a pointed narrative and storytelling focus, and giving us the most fleshed out and believable look at the world of Pokemon to date. They offered a lot of excellent stuff – Alola is a great region with a lot of personality and a distinct aesthetic, the new Pokemon designs are amazing and contextualized in extremely believable ways as part of a larger ecology and even the story and characters were interesting. But Sun/Moon were extremely flawed games, with their story falling apart towards the final act, extreme linearity and railroading making for the least player driven Pokemon game to date, an overabundance of cutscenes with trite and repetitive dialog that you could not ever skip, an online suite that was a shocking regression on the excellent X/Y, and, yet again, an acute lack of post-game content.

Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon… well, they don’t really fix Sun/Moon, but they patch them up to a level that they are no longer the worst games in the series (if Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon didn’t exist, yes, I would have absolutely placed the original Sun/Moon at the bottom of this list). They tweak the story and characters to be less bizarre towards the end, the cutscenes spacing and story pacing is improved, areas get bigger, allowing for more exploration (though overall progression remains extremely rigidly linear), the post game gets a hefty chunk of new content to sink teeth into, and they add an absurd amount of content to the original game as well. They are also among the most difficult games in the series, with a certain specific fight near the end being legendary for how brutal it is.

Sun/Moon, much like most other games in the series in the 3DS era, are flawed and a tale of missed opportunity – but Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon existing at least makes that missed potential slightly easier to swallow, if only because it hints at what might have been had developers Game Freak taken the time to properly flesh things out with their games.

7. POKEMON SWORD/SHIELD

The single most controversial entry in the franchise, Pokemon Sword/Shield became flashpoints for controversy. There were loads of reasons for this – a decade of resentment building over repeated disappointing entries, poor communication by the developers and publishers for taking away a lot of content that players expect from these games, and extremely poor graphical quality, even considering Pokemon has never been a technical showpiece, all became easy latching on points for the backlash these games generated.

I would argue that to a very large degree, the backlash was not undeserved. Pokemon Sword and Shield are not bad games at all, but they are very clearly products of a rushed and troubled development cycle. The new region they introduced was visually distinct and hints at lush beauty and interesting lore, but the games never get around to it. There was, at launch, a total paucity of post game content again. The games forced further mechanics that trivialized the difficulty even further, making for the easiest games in the series at the time of release. The Wild Area concept, a mini open world region for players to explore and catch Pokemon in, was conceptually sound, but fumbled in execution. The online functionality was a baffling step back from the 3DS era. They cut down almost half of the roster of Pokemon.

But in spite of that laundry list of complaints, the core campaign was extremely compelling and fun, and knew to get out of the players’ way to let them enjoy the adventure at their own pace (something the Alola games had categorically failed at); new mechanics such as Max Raids were excellent, and giving players full control over how their Pokemon grow was game changing. The characters are excellent. And while the Wild Area was underdeveloped, and the story never fleshed out, both managed to stumble upon some rather unforgettable moments nevertheless, with a certain late game story development still ranking as one of my favorite story moments in the series. And all of this is before we consider the excellent expansions, which actually addressed a lot of the complaints players had with the base games – they added in another couple hundred of the missing Pokemon back in, they delivered fully fleshed out open world areas that properly leveraged 3D space and delivered a believable patchwork of biomes and ecosystems that rewarded player exploration, and they offered some actual meaningfully difficult battles as well; plus, given that they are meant to be post-game content, they naturally address the absence of post-game in the base titles too.

Even with the expansions, Sword and Shield are an unfortunate tale of missed potential (I’m sure you’re picking up on this being a running theme) – but in spite of what their troubled reputation might suggest, they are very good games, and absolutely worth playing regardless of their many stumbles. What they do well, they do really well, and ultimately, their take on the core Pokemon formula, while finally beginning to strain at the seams by this point, still delivered a compelling, engaging, and fun adventure.

6. POKEMON EMERALD

This is likely to be the most controversial entry on this list, because Pokemon Emerald is beloved by a army of Pokemon fans. You can see why – Emerald, building upon the good but flawed Ruby/Sapphire, is arguably the apex of Pokemon games in almost every regard. The campaign was long and challenging; there was a ridiculous amount of side and optional content; the Hoenn region in Emerald is extremely memorable, with some standout locations, excellent dungeons, and fantastic level design; the story and characters were the best the series had seen at the time Emerald came out; the post-game was meaty and over-delivered, marking the debut of the fan favorite Battle Frontier (the absence of which in every new game in the series is lamented to this day).

Pokemon Emerald was absolutely amazing, and honestly I have nothing bad to say about it. Why, then, is it ranked so relatively low on the list? The answer is simple, we have now gotten to the part of the list where every single game is an amazing, excellent title and could justify placement at the top, depending on how you choose to classify and rank things. Basically, we’re now looking at six, amazing, excellent games, and trying to rank them is a bit like splitting hairs – no matter what you do, you’re still left with six amazing games. Emerald ranks lower than the others in this bunch because I feel the ones higher on this list than it did everything better for my liking. But that doesn’t take away from how incredible Pokemon Emerald is. It’s an amazing game, and legitimately one of the best RPGs of all time – everyone owes it to themselves to check it out.

5. POKEMON BLACK/WHITE

Pokémon Black/White marked the fourth new Pokemon entry on the DS, an at the time unprecedented volume of mainline games on a single system. Game Freak knew that to make these games stand out, they would have to work hard to give them their own identity. And they decided to do just that, in the process delivering among the best, and probably still among the most ambitious, games in the series to date.

Everything about Pokémon Black/White was so incredible – Unova as a region, basing itself on the urban aesthetic of continental United States, was a breath of fresh air after four regions based on Japan; a massive roster of new Pokemon (the single largest new batch to date, in fact) headlined these games, with Pokémon Black/White making the bold decision to only have new Pokemon in the game for the duration of the campaign – you’d be able to bring in your older pals, but they’d be limited to post-game content, meaning every new encounter was fresh and exciting in a way it hadn’t been for over a decade by the time Black/White came out.

And speaking of post-game, the post-game was fleshed out and meaty (the last time a new generation would deliver on this front). As good as that post-game was, it paled next to the campaign, a blisteringly fast story driven adventure (yes) that actually raised troubling ethical questions about the concept of catching and battling Pokemon (yes), with some legitimately well written characters and antagonists (yes), pulling in and recontextualizing the regular “win badges and beat The Pokemon League” conceit into the framework of a broader story (yes), delivering some legitimately surprising story developments and twists (yes), and culminating in an incredibly epic final act and a hell of a conclusion (yes).

All this, and I still haven’t talked about how this game marked the first time the series did away with the annoying HMs as a progression mechanic, the new experience curve mechanics that worked so much better for game balance than the EXP All that the games would force on the players in future entries, how much optional content there was, how excellent the region and dungeon design was, the new battle styles the games introduced (Rotation and Triple battles, I miss you…), how it simultaneously managed to represent the series’ first forays into 3D spaces, while delivering eye catching and attractive sprite art that remains arguably the best aesthetic the series has had to date… honestly, I can gush about these games forever, they were utterly excellent, thoroughly compelling, and so perfect, so great, so ambitious, that at the time they painted a bright picture for the future of the franchise.

The decade that would follow would not deliver on their promise – in part because Black/White remain the lowest selling mainline entries in the series to date, I assume. And that really sucks, because until very recently, Pokémon Black/White was the last time the series managed to deliver a truly great game. If you can, I urge you to track these down and play them – they are amazing, not just at being Pokemon games, just at delivering incredible RPGs.

4. POKEMON FIRERED/LEAFGREEN

Pokemon Red/Blue were borderline perfect – which is a terrible burden for games launching a series developed by a small, boutique development house that clearly was unprepared for how big their passion project would become. But let’s put aside that broader context for a second and just talk about Pokemon Red/Blue as games assessed on their own merits. To this day, those titles hold up. Oh sure, their primitive and rudimentary graphics are a bit of an adjustment, and they are so buggy that they would make a Bethesda game blush. But holy crap, did they nail the game design side of things perfectly. They took players on an amazing adventure, simultaneously breezy and challenging in just the right amounts, with a great campaign, amazing and memorable creature designs, wonderful lock and key progression, and a lot of optional content for players who went off the beaten path.

Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen, which remade Red/Blue, are all of that but better. Modernizing the original games to bring them to the standard of the then-current third generation of Pokemon, they polish away the bugs, modernize the graphics, add even more optional content, introduce a lot of QoL and UX functionality the original titles were missing, add a ridiculously hefty chunk of post-game content (the one area the originals were, understandably, lacking in), flesh out their world and region even more, and do so all while remaining incredibly faithful to games that were played and beloved by 40 million players worldwide. They also started off the series’ now longstanding tradition of revisiting older titles via enhanced remakes, and they set the bar incredibly high, delivering the definitive take on the Kanto saga, a take so definitive that even the more modern Pokemon Let’s Go games, which are also remakes of the original generation, did not supplant them.

FireRed/LeafGreen are perfect. As I mentioned earlier, we’re splitting hairs at this point.

3. POKEMON LEGENDS: ARCEUS

Ten years of constant disappointment and unfulfilled promises, mismanagement and rushed development cycles, ten years of consistently managing to lower the bar, and still not meeting it. There’s no wonder that people had no confidence coming into Pokemon Legends: Arceus, because the last decade has been a difficult one for Pokemon fans.

But Game Freak finally threw off the shackles of 25 years of tradition and reinvented Pokemon in a bold new format – and managed to nail it, hitting the ball out of the park on their very first go. A lot like the original Pokemon Red/Blue, amusingly enough. 

Pokemon Legends is such an incredible game. The open world design lends itself beautifully well to the Pokemon franchise, The Pokemon themselves are recontextualized as dangerous, lethal wildlife, the world is harsh and unforgiving and requires the player’s wit and ingenuity to traverse, the maps beckon and invite player exploration and discovery, the Pokemon are delightfully well realized as living and breathing flesh and blood members of a larger ecosystem, the changes to the battle mechanics work well for the game, the new additions such as crafting and Pokedex research all contribute to a self perpetuating, ridiculously addictive gameplay loop, the story is surprisingly fun with some great characters, the action RPG segments actually work surprisingly well, there are several dramatic leaps forward in so many areas (from QoL to mechanics to structure) and there is a ridiculous amount of content thrown in, with, yes, a very hefty post game. It is a shockingly accomplished take on an entirely new formula, and like with Pokemon Red/Blue, Game Freak comes dangerously close to getting it perfect on their first go.

Yes, it has flaws – most notably, it is a bad looking game, with the technical aspects and art style never coming together (somehow, it is still a better performing game than something like Sword/Shield, however), and there are a fair few bugs and glitches here. But ultimately, Legends is a bold new step for the series, and one that it manages to take with a surprising amount of confidence and and dexterity, delivering one of the best games on the Switch, and one of the best games in the series in the process.

2. POKEMON PLATINUM

Sinnoh is very legitimately one of the greatest game maps of all time. It’s a masterpiece of design, with ridiculous amounts of visual and location variety (swamps, mountains, snow, beach and coastal areas, forests, small pastoral villages, big urban cities), and an incredible lock and key design that, while overly reliant on an annoying HM mechanic, leads to the best sense of adventure and discovery the player ever gets in the Pokemon franchise. It’s also backed with some amazing lore and backstory, and massive areas that beg to be explored, tucked away with dozens upon dozens of hidden dungeons and optional quests that you could miss for years without even knowing they exist.

Sinnoh, being the region that Pokemon Platinum is set in, is a huge part of why this game is so great. When you have a map this well designed, and progression through it this well designed, you end up with an unforgettable game. But even beyond that, Platinum was just mind blowingly incredible – it has an excellent campaign, a shocking amount of multiplayer modes, great post game (the Battle Frontier returned!), just the right amount of challenge (people tell horror stories about Cynthia to this day), some great and iconic player designs, major strides forward for the series (including the Physical/Special attack split, as well as the introduction of online play), as well as polishing up the considerable rough edges Diamond/Pearl had – those games suffered majorly from the transition from GBA to DS, and are borderline impossible to go back to because of their bevy of technical issues (including a frame rate so low it’s like walking through treacle). 

Platinum remains the definitive take on Sinnoh to this day (even the recent remakes Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl do not supplant it), and is honestly peak Pokemon. Or at least, it would be, were it not for…

1. POKEMON HEARTGOLD/SOULSILVER

You knew this was coming. There is one thing constant in Pokemon lists and fans – HeartGold/SoulSilver are always at the top. And with good reason – these games are literally, legitimately, perfect, absolutely flawless at every single thing they do, while managing to deliver the biggest and best Pokemon games ever. The original Gold/Silver games were already extremely notable for their massive campaign (set across two regions, 16 gym badges, and two separate Pokemon League challenges) and the introduction of several major and mind blowing mechanics for the franchise, including real time time of day and week impacting in-game events, berry farming, Pokeball crafting, shiny Pokemon, trainer rematches, roaming Legendary Pokemon, held items for Pokemon, weather effects in battles and arenas, and the introduction of Dark and Steel Type Pokemon.

HeartGold/SoulSilver have all of that, plus an additional ridiculous amount of content (mainline, post-game, and optional), gorgeous pixel art graphics that keep these games looking the best ones in the series to this day, almost a decade and a half after their original launch, the availability of every single Pokemon at the time all in one game, plus the inclusion of Platinum‘s Battle Frontier, a brand new Safari Zone, brand new mini games, major QoL and UI enhancements (these games are the only ones that can be played almost entirely via touch screen!), full featured (for the time) local and online multiplayer, and the definitive take on one of the most epic final battles in any game ever. Excellent world and dungeon design, some actual challenging battles, an emphasis on player driven exploration and discovery, a non linear campaign that allows players to break sequence multiple times, and snappy and sharp writing. These games are perfect. There is no flaw to them. They represent among the best games ever made, not just for Pokemon, but in general. 

If you are going to play one Pokemon game, make it this one. 13 years after their initial release, and they still have not been topped. They probably never will be.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

It’s in the tradition of pretty much all Nintendo portable systems in the past – the Gameboy got Gameboy Color, the DS got DSi, and the 3DS got the New Nintendo 3DS (that was its real name). And while it’s a concept that PlayStation and Xbox both embraced with the PS4 Pro and the Xbox One X, it seems like the Switch Pro (we’re sticking with that one till the official name inevitably requires us to call it something else, and presumably something much stupider) will be more along the lines of the old Nintendo handheld upgrades than the console ones.

We can say this because of what the reports that have leaked this system’s existence have told us – these reports have told us of a fairly massive upgrade over the existing Switch system, with a fairly thorough modernization of its capabilities and specs, compared to the more conservative PS4 Pro, for example. These rumours also claim that, unlike the Xbox One X and PS4 Pro, which were not permitted to ever have any exclusives – meaning that while games could look and run better on them, they would have to run on base consoles all the same – the Switch Pro will in fact be allowed to have those. In fact, it also sounds like at least a few ones from third parties may even be in the works, games that otherwise wouldn’t work on the Switch.

This all seems to be in line with the kind of upgrades we have been told the Switch Pro will have, which allegedly include major bumps to the SoC’s CPU cores and GPU capabilities, as well as memory bandwidth, thanks to a new chip that is rumoured to be based on the newer, cutting edge Ampere or Turing architectures. More importantly, the Switch Pro is also rumoured to include Nvidia’s vaunted DLSS 2.0 technology, which allows for image upscaling and reconstruction using machine learning, and very often delivering better than native rendered images for very little in the way of performance costs, thanks to specialized hardware. All of this stuff is supposed to make the Switch Pro a hefty update – for example, we know it will support 4K resolutions, though it appears more via DLSS than natively, to be fair. And none of this accounts for other exciting components of the systems that have also been leaked, including a larger OLED screen (versus the current 6.2 inch LCD one), as well as presumably better battery life thanks to a more efficient node for the SoC.

Hefty hardware upgrades, superior construction, and at least some exclusive software make the Switch Pro more than just a simple PS4 Pro style upgrade – while it’s not a full fledged next generation successor, these would bring the Switch Pro closer to that than a PS4 Pro style incremental step up would have been. There’s a reason I specifically invoked the Nintendo handheld upgrades, because, as mentioned, the Switch Pro seems to be following in their footsteps more than in PlayStation or Xbox’s.

The difference is that having substantial upgrades for cheaper handhelds that had been made with fairly obsolete tech to begin with is a fundamentally different proposition than what we are looking at with the Switch. It was easy for Nintendo to have a Gameboy Color that was a major upgrade over the Gameboy, while still being extremely cheap. It was very easy to have a DSi or a New 3DS that provided a substantial improvement over the base systems, while still being priced very similarly. But the Nintendo Switch was not made using cheap or outdated technology. While more console-minded players may often like to sneer at its relatively more limited capabilities, the Switch was using some of the most modern SoC tech available in 2016-17 at mass market prices. Many will probably point to their $1,200 iPhone or Galaxy S and say how it outperforms the $300 Switch – which it should! But that comparison is as facile as is comparing a $2,500 PC to a $500 PS5, and then laughing at the PS5 for being weak in comparison. At those prices, you’re getting some of the best tech there is.

With the Switch already being such modern tech, then, profit margins on it were slimmer. In and of itself, this isn’t really an issue – there was definitely high markup on accessories such as the Joycon controllers (which keep drifting, so you’re probably buying a fair few of them), and Nintendo game prices, as well as increasing digital revenues, have all helped make Nintendo have the single most profitable period any console manufacturer has ever had with the Switch. But the hardware itself, that’s probably harder to iterate on while maintaining profit margins, and keeping it in the same price range as the current Switch, which is generally how their previous portable upgrades have gone. So how do we reconcile that with the seemingly fairly ambitious sounding upgrade the Switch Pro is rumoured to be?

The simple answer here is that the Switch Pro will probably be expensive. By a fair bit over the current model, actually. While putting it in a whole different tier of pricing will be counter to how Nintendo has done things in the past, the Switch is not marketed or positioned as a portable, it’s positioned as a console. And the entire concept of more expensive upgrades is far more commonplace now than it was back in the time of the Nintendo DSi, thanks to annual smartphone and tablet upgrades, or even the PS4 Pro and Xbox One X. By allowing themselves to hit a higher price, Nintendo presumably leaves itself more room to make the Switch Pro more capable than they would have been able to make under their older paradigm as well.

How expensive? That’s the (blank hundred dollar) question. There are several routes the company can take here. The first one is to have the Switch Pro take the current Switch’s $299 slot, while pushing the current model down to $249 (or discontinuing it); this, however, feels unlikely. As specified, the Switch Pro seems to be far too ambitious an upgrade to be able to hit a $299 price point while maintaining the kinds of profit margins on hardware Nintendo likes maintaining. Moreover, the same reports that have leaked the system’s existence have mentioned repeatedly that Nintendo is looking at pricing it in a higher tier than the current model.

So let’s go with that option for a second – it’ll be priced higher. Here, too, we have two possibilities. The first is that the Switch Pro takes a $399 price, while the current Switch retains its $299 price, and the Switch Lite keeps its $199 price. $399, however, would make the Switch Pro the most expensive hardware Nintendo has ever put out. It’s actually eye waveringly expensive, and puts it on par with the PS5 Digital Edition, and more expensive than the Xbox Series S. Then again, similar comparisons with the then-current PS4 and Xbox One never held back the original Switch, which was priced equal to the PS4 and Xbox One as well. There’s a possibility Nintendo may feel comfortable with this pricing model for a variety of reasons:

• It keeps things simple, clearly delineating and communicating an entry-, standard-, and premium-level tier to customers;
• $399 gives them higher profit margins than trying to keep the price similar to the current model would net them;
• Switch pricing relative to other consoles has not been an impediment to its success, as mentioned already;
• They probably feel comfortable with a higher price because of their understanding that the Switch Pro is aimed at a smaller niche, and their mass market movers will still be the standard and Lite models;
• It allows them to maintain the $299 and $199 pricing for the Switch and Lite respectively, which Nintendo really seems to be a fan of doing (because believe it or not, over four years in, the Switch has not received a single price-cut, the longest a system has ever gone in history without one).

This confluence of reasons makes this pricing model seem the likeliest. However, there is a chance that Nintendo chooses to keep that model, but with lower price points, in order to maintain some of their traditional price appeal with family friendly segments even with the more expensive Pro. In which case, I can see a Switch Pro coming in at $349, the standard Switch being dropped to $249, and the Switch Lite being dropped to $149. This model is essentially the same as the previous one, just with lower prices. It ends up retaining the elegant separation of tiers that that model has, although it does end up cutting into their profit margins across the board. Simultaneously, however, $349 is a more marketable price than $399 is – core, enthusiast players are likelier to buy a Switch Pro at a price where its cheaper than the PS5, even if it’s not by much, while that same price is also likelier to catch a lot of family purchases that may otherwise have not even considered the Pro and may have stuck with the standard model.

Simultaneously, dropping the prices of the standard and Lite models ends up opening those to a whole new demographic as well. The Switch Lite is actually extremely cheap at $199, but it’s still really expensive for a portable system, and $199 portable systems have traditionally been under performers compared to their cheaper counterparts. You have to assume that at $149, the Switch Lite can tap into a far bigger audience, particularly one that just wants to play, say, Pokemon or Animal Crossing, thus leading to substantially higher sales and revenue for Nintendo as well. Of course, $249 for the standard Switch helps it too – it’s a much more appealing price than the system’s current one, and again, more are likely to pick it up at that point than right now (not that the Switch has struggled to sell at its current asking price either, of course).

Here’s the thing, it’s hard to know what Nintendo will do. Not only are they a notoriously unpredictable company, but we’re in uncharted territory as far as the Switch Pro, and even the Switch itself, go. There are also a lot of variables at play, which make trying to divine any answer with any degree of certainty an exercise in futility. I don’t feel comfortable to committing to any specific prediction, other than saying that I feel like the Switch Pro will be priced much higher than the standard model – by how much, it remains to be seen. I’m personally a fan of the three tier pricing model for the Lite, standard, and Pro, separated by $100 each, but even that allows for a lot of variation (will the Pro be $399? $349?), and, again, is more down to my aesthetic preference for its symmetry more than anything else. 

It’s impossible to know what Nintendo is planning – assuming the Switch Pro is real to begin with (which, remember, officially it’s never been confirmed). Whatever they end up doing, presumably ends up going down well – with the Switch, Nintendo has exhibited uncanny business acumen, and the console is currently on a trajectory to end up as one of the highest selling systems of all time, and well above the PS4 or Wii ever managed. We’ll know soon enough, presumably by August or September at the latest, what, if anything, Nintendo has planned.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

Much like Sony, who recently intimated that they have crossed 500 million units of hardware sold, it seems like Nintendo have hit their own milestone quietly. Gamnesia is reporting that as per Nintendo’s last financial report, the company hit 727.67 million units of hardware sold, ever- of which 300.11 million were home consoles (this milestone being the one Nintendo had hit as of June 30, 2018).

It’s a tremendous feat- no other company in the history of the industry has done this. Nintendo’s numerical breakdowns reveal some interesting statistics, collated on ResetEra– for instance, two thirds of their hardware sales come from handhelds (one third of that third is the Nintendo DS!). No wonder Nintendo went in the direction they did with the Switch. Meanwhile, the dismally selling Wii U is indeed the lowest selling bit of hardware Nintendo has produced.

These numbers don’t account for Virtual Boy, NES Classic, SNES Classic, Game and Watch, and Color-TV Game- so the final tally is even higher (Game and Watch alone sold about 40 million). Still, it’s an impressive feat by Nintendo- hopefully the Switch elevates them to even newer heights.

One of the most mysterious and vaunted secrets of game development has long been the mysterious 1997 build of Pokemon Gold/Silver (back then known only as Pocket Monsters 2). You see, Pokemon Gold/Silver (often considered as the best games in the Pokemon series, and indeed, among the best games ever made, period), had a very turbulent development cycle- and they changed a lot from what they were originally envisioned to be to what they ended up turning up as in the end.

The 1997 Space World demo was one of the earliest looks anyone ever had at the game, but that demo has long since been thought to have been lost to time- until now. Apparently, it has ben found, and within has come a whole lot of insight into what the game was originally going to be. For instance, it now seems that the plan was to have Johto be far bigger than it ended up being (the intention, apparently, was to cover all of Japan), while Kanto at one point was all crammed into a tiny town- I… don’t quite know why. Old trainer sprites seem to have been recycled from Red/Green, and some of the Pokemon we had in the game were significantly different from what we finally got.

You can check out some images from these leaks for yourself below. It’s fantastic, and this is a significant piece of gaming history that now, thankfully, will forever be preserved. If this has made you nostalgic for Pokemon Gold/Silver, there’s some good news- while the original games, released on Gameboy Color, are a bit hard to track down, you can either pick up their remakes, HeartGold/SoulSilver, on Nintendo DS (also playable on Nintendo 3DS), or you can pick up the original Gold/Silver on Nintendo 3DS via Virtual Console.

The final Gameboy Pokemon game, Pokemon Crystal, will be releasing on the Nintendo 3DS via a Virtual Console release on the eShop, Nintendo and The Pokemon Company announced today. Previously, Pokemon Red, Blue, Yellow, Gold, and Silver had all been put on the eShop, with support for wireless trading and Pokemon Bank added to them.

Crystal will retain all that functionality, but also add the Celebi event in the game, which was originally exclusive to Japan only, thanks to Crystal‘s groundbreaking mobile communication technology being removed from the western version’s release, will be added in the game, too.

Pokemon Crystal will be coming to the eShop on January 26, completing the release of all the classic Pokemon games, before Ruby/Sapphire reinvented the franchise on the Gameboy Advance, on the system. As the best game of the second generation, which was, in turn, the best generation, I recommend that you pick it up when you get the chance.

Re-encounter the Mythical Pokémon Celebi when the groundbreaking #PokemonCrystal comes to Nintendo eShop for #3DS on Jan. 26! pic.twitter.com/sUZtomk0vf

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) December 14, 2017

Nintendo have their work cut out for them with the upcoming NX- we’ve all known that for a while, and we don’t necessarily need someone to tell it to us. But you don’t understand the extent of Nintendo’s current plight until you see their hardware sales numbers in America laid bare in their glory. Video game analyst at Niko Partners Daniel Ahmad has done just that, and the takeaway is stark. It is then that you realize- Nintendo have been bleeding hardware sales and market share for a very long time now.

In fact, barring the aberration that were the DS and Wii, their handhelds and home consoles have both been in a state of steady decline, with each new generation selling less than the previous one. Even this generation, the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo’s bright spot, and the highest selling system of the cycle (higher selling than even the PS4, with 60 million units sold worldwide), has sold less than half of the DS, and well below previous Nintendo handhelds.

These numbers make you realize- Nintendo need to stem the bleeding, and fast. The NX is supposed to be their comeback after the Wii U, and there is a general hope that the machine, which acts as a successor to Wii U and 3DS both, will end up selling well. And that will involve it reversing a steady trend of progressively lower sales.

Happily for Nintendo, they may be able to do that- even with the 3DS, though the handheld has not managed to recreate the glory days of Gameboy, Gameboy Advance, or Nintendo DS, Nintendo managed to generate some demand for the system when Pokemon GO launched for smartphones in July, when it ended up as the highest selling system in America according to NPD. This shows us that there is a demand for Nintendo hardware on the market, and that people will buy it- Nintendo just has to make it an appealing prospect.

You can check out their handheld and home console sales for yourself below:

CONSOLES

• 34.00m – NES
• 23.35m – SNES
• 20.63m – N64
• 12.93m – GCN
• 48.64m – Wii
• 6.29m – Wii U

HANDHELDS

• 44.06m -GB/C
• 41.64m -GBA/SP
• 59.93m -NDS Family
• 20.11m -3DS Family

Pokemon turns 20 this year- the iconic monster collection franchise has become a mainstay of the modern gaming scene, and practically synonymous with handheld gaming. We’ve already known some of Nintendo’s plans to celebrate the anniversary this year – re-releases of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console, as well as new, special Pokemon themed Nintendo 2DS and New Nintendo 3DS systems – but the full extent of what they have planned was unknown until now.

The new video that Nintendo have posted for the 20th anniversary celebrations of the franchise reveals the extent to which this milestone will be celebrated. It seems like we’re going to be getting a media assault waged on multiple fronts, as we are inundated with all things Pokemon over the next year:

• Re-release of Pokemon Red, Blue, and Yellow on the Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
• Re-release of the first three Pokemon movies in full HD, on Blu-Ray and digitally on iTunes and Google Play
• Release of brand new special themed Nintendo 3DS systems (including Nintendo 2DS models, and New Nintendo 3DS systems)
• Distribution of event Pokemon worldwide, including formerly unobtainable ones such as Darkrai, Arceus, Shaymin, Manaphy, and Genesect
• Release of new Pokemon TCG expansion packs
• Release of articulated Pokemon Ninderoids
• Release of multiple Pokemon games, including Pokken Tournament and Pokemon Go
• Release of Pokemon merchandise

And that’s just what we know now, two weeks into this year. Nintendo and The Pokemon Company will probably have more to share over the coming months- maybe a brand new game in the series?

Then there was Sony with the PlayStation Vita (back then still just called the NGP). Featuring smart device capabilities, astonishingly high end graphics that approached early PS3 games, dual analog sticks, an embracing of modern handheld input methods such as touch screens and gryoscopes, and advanced networking features, the NGP looked like the greatest handheld system ever built- and when Sony announced that they would be pricing it for $250, the same price as Nintendo’s 3DS, it was clear that they were going for the kill. We were primed for a hell of a handheld war, even fiercer than the early days of the DS vs PSP, before the DS claimed absolute dominance, and the PSP receded into the background. This time around, the handheld market would clearly be a hard won one.

"When Sony announced that they would be pricing it for $250, the same price as Nintendo’s 3DS, it was clear that they were going for the kill. We were primed for a hell of a handheld war."

Four years later, the PlayStation Vita is dead, to the extent that Sony doesn’t even announce sales figures for it anymore (a recent estimate pegged it at 10.5 million units sold worldwide to date), all major support for the handheld having died out, and Sony themselves having publicly disavowed it. The Vita got no western third party support like the PSP did, and all but a highly niche lower mid end of the Japanese market fled the system too.

The 3DS, by comparison, seems to have done better at first glance- 52 million units sold worldwide, and a healthy library of some great games. But look closer, and the cracks start to appear. In spite of Nintendo’s great support for the 3DS, western support for the handheld was stillborn, and Japanese support for it is mostly sparing, as third parties have largely stuck with the PS3 as their target system. Indie development for the 3DS seems to never have taken off, thanks to the 3DS’s hobbled and dated architecture. Meanwhile, even on a sales front, the 3DS has been a constant disappointment- it has been the slowest selling Nintendo handheld ever, outpaced by the Gameboy Advance, outpaced by the Nintendo DS, outpaced by even the PSP. The 3DS has never met a single sales target that Nintendo set for it, and it seems set to end with lifetime sales just north of 60 million- a catastrophic collapse from the 154 million the DS sold.

Meanwhile, Nintendo seem to have given up on it entirely- no major new internally developed Nintendo 3DS title was announced at E3 this year, presumably because Nintendo is shifting all of its focus to the NX’s launch next year, and after announcing and releasing a highly capable New Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo seem to have forgotten all about it, with the only exclusive game for the system being a port of an old Wii game, rife with compromises. The 3DS is dead, and while it will probably have the chance to go out on a high next year, thanks to some long pending localizations such as Bravely Second and Fire Emblem Fates, it, too, is a far cry from what Nintendo intended.

Four years later, we have two dead handhelds, which sold a collective 63 million units worldwide. The handheld war we were all waiting for never happened- it was a limp, damp squib, a no show. From a high of 235 million handhelds sold last generation – almost as many handhelds sold as consoles, mind you – we’re down to just a quarter of that number. Handhelds today are dead, having long been overtaken by the smartdevices market. The very future of the segment seems to be in jeopardy.

The question is- what the hell happened?

"Four years later, we have two dead handhelds, which sold a collective 63 million units worldwide. The handheld war we were all waiting for never happened- it was a limp, damp squib, a no show."

It’s a good question- how did we get from the highs of last generation to wherever we are today? Were Sony and Nintendo really caught so much on the backfoot by the onslaught of tablets and smartphones? Does the world really not care for anything but the most shallow experience on a portable device any more? Or did Sony and Nintendo screw up somewhere along the line?

The answer here is, everything went wrong. That is not an exaggeration- this generation of handheld devices was launched in the perfect storm of every single possible factor working against it. Yes, there was momentum from the highly successful DS and PSP, but that had tapered off by 2011- when the 3DS and Vita launched in the first place.

The reason for the failure of the Nintendo 3DS and the PlayStation Vita was the introduction of smartphones and tablets, yes, but that was further exacerbated by Sony and Nintendo messing up every step along the way. This is important to remember- after all, the DS and PSP both co-existed with the iPhone and Android smartphones for five years, and they had some of their best years on the market then. The 3DS and Vita had no reason to do as poorly as they did, but Nintendo and Sony hobbled them entirely in a spectacular act of self sabotage.

Let’s start with the Vita, because that one’s far easier to work with. I don’t have to tell most people what went wrong with the Vita, because everyone already knows- Sony never gave a damn. The Vita was the perfect handheld, with a lot of power, scope for some very innovative games, developer friendly policies, and a great price. It was after it had been made, and when the time came to sell it, however, that Sony just left it for dead.

"The Vita was the perfect handheld, with a lot of power, scope for some very innovative games, developer friendly policies, and a great price. It was after it had been made, and when the time came to sell it, however, that Sony just left it for dead."

Consider, for example, that Sony enlisted no third party support for the PS Vita- evident in the fact that there was none for the handheld when it was announced, and when it was launched. Sony let a game as major and integral to their portable success as Monster Hunter jump ship to Nintendo, and it was all downhill from there. Third parties wouldn’t touch the system- none in the west, because they had been burned by the PSP, and most of them were downscaling their mobile ambitions to focus on smartphones and tablets, if anything at all, and almost none in Japan, because Sony let them all migrate to Nintendo.

This means that some of the biggest and best games on the PSP – Monster Hunter, Tactics Ogre, Final Fantasy, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Grand Theft Auto, Burnout, Need for Speed – were all gone from the get go.

Consider, then, also, that Sony’s own first party efforts for the Vita were thoroughly lacking, and completely failed to build on the successes that they had had on the PSP. We did not get a new original Ratchet and Clank, we did not get a new Patapon, we did not get a new LocoRoco.

I can hear the objections to these arguments brewing already, so let me pre-empt you: Sony did try, you say. They got Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty to be the headlining games for the Vita, after all- two of the biggest franchises on their handheld! How, then, can I say that they did not try with third parties? And what about games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss, Gravity Rush, Tearaway, Killzone Mercenary, or LittleBigPlanet Portable? How can I say they didn’t try with their first party efforts?

"While Sony did in fact get a new Assassin’s Creed and a new Call of Duty for the system, that was also really all they did- and in the process, Sony completely forgot to capitalize on Japanese third party development."

The answer is simple- while Sony did in fact get a new Assassin’s Creed and a new Call of Duty for the system, that was also really all they did- and in the process, Sony completely forgot to capitalize on Japanese third party development, which, I must remind you, was what the PSP had been best at by the end, thanks to the success of games like Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep, Monster Hunter Freedom 3, and Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Those third parties were completely ignored in lieu of western third parties, who had long since determined that handheld game development was not for them, after their failure on the PSP. Sony failed to build on their own momentum, in a futile attempt to chase western third parties, and even there, they stopped after securing two token, throwaway and ultimately terrible games- an attempt to capitalize on the Vita-PS3 development ecosystem was never made.

Their first party initiatives were no better- just months after the launch of the Vita, Sony’s biggest first party studio, Naughty Dog, was seen publicly dismissing the Vita. In spite of this, on paper, Sony’s attempts seem impressive: a new Uncharted, a new Wipeout, a new ModNation Racers, a new Killzone, a new LittleBigPlanet, a new Resistance, as well as ports of Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper, and Jak and Daxter games, alongside some new IPs such as Gravity Rush, Soul Sacrifice, and Tearaway. What did they do wrong here, then?

The issue was almost all of those games were poor, being outsourced to low tier studios, which led to a bad stigma associated with games on the Vita overall- remember terrible, substandard games like Resistance: Burning Skies? Remember how bad the Vita ports for games like Sly 4 or Jak and Daxter Trilogy were? Remember how gimmickly games like Uncharted: Golden Abyss felt?

The further issue was that when Sony did have a good Vita game launching, they completely neglected to market it- how can anyone buy Tearaway, or Killzone Mercenary, or Gravity Rush, if they don’t even know that they exist?

"This lack of marketing of the system and its games betrayed an attitude of indifference on Sony’s part towards the Vita, which would continue to be exhibited for years after that."

Marketing was perhaps the biggest issue with the Vita- Sony completely neglected to market the system. The Vita launched in 2012 with next to no marketing, neither for it nor for its games, and it understandably tanked at retail- how would it not, when people didn’t know it was a thing, that it was out and available, that they could go and buy it? Why would any game release for the Vita spur any interest in the system, when Sony completely neglected to market said games?

This lack of marketing of the system and its games betrayed an attitude of indifference on Sony’s part towards the Vita, which would continue to be exhibited for years after that. The E3 right after the Vita launched, just four months after its launch, Sony spent more time discussing the Wonderbook than they spent on the Vita. Subsequent conferences would see them give barely a throwaway mention of the handheld, if that. The Vita would be reduced to montages, which wouldn’t even be shown off on stage- they would be shown at their booths. With such a total marketing disaster, when the Vita understandably did poorly, scaring off publishers and developers, and creating more bad publicity for the system, Sony was all too happy to burn bridges and distance themselves from the Vita entirely, pronouncing it dead in public multiple times, and completely ceasing all game development on it.

People often like to say that the biggest issue with the Vita was its overpriced proprietary Memory Cards, but the fact of the matter is, even if the Vita had had standard SD card compatibility, it would have failed- Sony ensured that it would right from the get go, and after being burned by Sony handhelds twice in a row, the mature, high end portable market demographic that Sony had aimed for with the PSP and PS Vita had had enough, and was convinced to move away from handhelds entirely.

Meanwhile, the 3DS was a mess from the start, although the issue there comes more from Nintendo’s complete lack of understanding that the market had changed, and their sustained refusal to respond to those changes, than it does to their game support or marketing. Nintendo launched the 3DS in a blaze of publicity in March 2011, and from the beginning, it failed to meet targets- the problem here was the price, which at $250, was too high for a dedicated handheld game device, especially considering the tech that was packed into the system. For what the 3DS was offering, it was priced unnecessarily high, and it was hard to justify it given that it launched with, well, no games, and its much hyped network functionality completely hobbled.

"For what the 3DS was offering, it was priced unnecessarily high, and it was hard to justify it given that it launched with, well, no games, and its much hyped network functionality completely hobbled."

To Nintendo’s credit, they moved to resolve issues swiftly- the 3DS price was slashed by $80 to just $169 in July, just four months after the system’s launch. Nintendo got their digital and network strategy in place right around this time, and fast tracked the release of some key games, such as Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7, as well. For a while, it seemed their gambit had worked, as 3DS sales took off. But they were not sustained sales, and in spite of Nintendo’s best efforts, including a killer 2013, which saw the release of games such as Etrian Odyssey IV, Monster Hunter 3, Animal Crossing New Leaf, Fire Emblem Awakening, Pokemon X and Y, Shin Megami Tensei IV, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds one after the other, the handheld was faltering at the market. What was the problem here?

The issue was that the 3DS had been designed for a pre-iPhone world. The kinds of games that had made the Gameboy and the DS so successful were now all available on smartphones and tablets for just $1, if that, making the prospect of $40 games on a $150+ handheld very unappealing to most. Why buy a 3DS for Tetris, when Angry Birds was free on your iPhone? Why spend $150, plus $40 on games, on a 3DS for kids, when they could just be handed older iPhones or iPads? Nintendo handhelds have always done best when they have targeted younger gamers, and more casual older gamers- the success of Gameboy and DS with games like Brain Age, Nintendogs, Pokemon, Tetris, and Touch Generations is a testament to that. Their more sophisticated, ‘hardcore’ games benefit from the massive install base boost that these more casual games bring, and sell loads. But the 3DS was singularly ill equipped to target this demographic, what with its pricing, but more importantly, the kind of games it was getting.

Nintendo had been caught wrong footed- they had no digital strategy to respond. The 3DS has robust network functionality, but the system has an obtuse, proprietary architecture, meaning that the iPhone and iPad, and even the Vita, were far more appealing to the makers of the kinds of smaller, handheld oriented experiences that had characterized Nintendo handhelds. Indie support for the 3DS was a non starter, since it was far too difficult to get these games working on the 3DS, after they had originally been designed for iPhones- which, remember, was catering to hundreds of millions of people compared to the 3DS.

In this context, Nintendo threw everything they had at the 3DS- a full fledged Kirby, a full fledged Donkey Kong, a full fledged Mario Kart, a full fledged Smash Bros., a full fledged Zelda, a full fledged Fire Emblem, a full fledged Star Fox, a full fledged Super Mario, a full fledged Animal Crossing, a full fledged Xenoblade… games that were so competent and great, that the 3DS became, essentially, everybody’s primary Nintendo system this generation. This is important- the 3DS sold as much as it did because it was fulfilling the role of a Nintendo console. People could spend just $150 to have the full fledged Nintendo experience- everything from Mario and Zelda to Super Smash Bros. to Fire Emblem was on this thing, and the games were all as good as anything ever done on Nintendo’s consoles.

"This is important- the 3DS sold as much as it did because it was fulfilling the role of a Nintendo console. People could spend just $150 to have the full fledged Nintendo experience."

This was further reinforced by the fact that the third party games the 3DS did get, from Monster Hunter to Shin Megami Tensei, from Bravely Default to Street Fighter, from Kingdom Hearts to Metal Gear Solid, were all pretty console like too. The 3DS sold as a primary Nintendo system, and in that light, its numbers become far more reasonable- its 50 million units sold right in the ballpark that Nintendo systems such as NES, SNES, and N64 sold.

The 3DS was so good at being a primary Nintendo system, it completely cannibalized the Wii U in the process. But Nintendo systems have a cap, and the 3DS hit that soon enough, after which its sales began to falter too. Understanding that the future of Nintendo lay not in its architecture, but in something else, and in the face of dropping sales and dropping third party support, Nintendo slowed development for the 3DS down. Today, it has been months since it got its last major release. It has been forever since its Virtual Console was updated. It has been months since it got its last major firmware update.

The 3DS, then, was a victim of being a system made for the pre-iPhone world. The mobile gaming market has changed dramatically, and the 3DS was ill equipped to deal with it. It managed to sell regardless, but that came more from it becoming everybody’s Nintendo system of choice than anything else. Today, it’s pretty much dead, having reached its ceiling almost a year ago, its sales having faltered after a short boost that the launch of the New 3DS brought it earlier this year.

So that was that, then- the 3DS and Vita both failed, as a result of a changing market, and Nintendo and Sony’s inability to respond to changing conditions. Today, the very existence of handhelds is in jeopardy, as Sony moves on from handhelds entirely, and even Nintendo announces its first mobile games.

"The 3DS and Vita both failed, as a result of a changing market, and Nintendo and Sony’s inability to respond to changing conditions."

The question now is, are handhelds dead, then?

They might well be- obviously, it is hard to tell how things will go. But I suspect that they are not, that they won’t be. Next year, Nintendo launches the NX, which will be a home console, and also a handheld. I suspect that the NX, made in a post smartphone world, and with all of the failures of the 3DS firmly in mind, will be equipped to handle the new market better. The issue with the 3DS and Vita was that the Vita was a device which could and should have succeeded in the post smartphone world, but its platform holder didn’t care enough to even try; the 3DS was an outdated device, but its platform holder gave it everything they had. A device like the Vita in the hands of Nintendo might have had a very different kind of life.

Which is why all indications of just what the NX is – a highly networked, digital device, with developer friendly architecture, and a unified ecosystem – are so encouraging. The handheld market may yet die, but as of right now, it seems as though the launch of the NX will be its last stand. And if Nintendo gets it right this time, who knows, they may even prove that handhelds still have a place in the gaming market.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

The Nintendo 3DS finds itself in a bit of trouble. It’s launch was horribly botched, with little to no marketing, a horrible launch lineup, and some key features missing, promised in a vague ‘future firmware update.’ The system was priced high, and launched at the slowest time for hardware sales of the year. And while it still sold decently- 4.3 million units in four months is nothing to scoff at- the system has not performed as well as Nintendo, analysts and customers thought it would.

In light of this, Nintendo has changed its strategy for the 3DS from the passive stance that they had until late July to something more aggressive. A huge $80 price slash, coupled with the announcement of some key titles hitting the system before this year ends, a reaffirmation of Nintendo’s commitment to online and digital distribution, a new advertising campaign that differentiates the 3DS from the DS and downplays the 3D feature in favor of some other unique 3DS capabilities, and the 3DS looks like it might recover from its nightmarish, PS3-like launch. The fact that Nintendo has constantly been adding to the system by way of firmware updates- it has a really decent eShop now, which plays host to some great games, it has Netflix for movie support, and another app for 3D videos, and demos and 3D video recording is promised in the next major firmware update- means that the system seems to be finally coming into its own.

There are those, however, who still feel that the 3DS is a failure, or will fail, and it is often compared to other mammoth handheld market failures like the PSP Go, the N Gage and the Virtual Boy. This article here is not going to try to argue facts- those who believe the 3DS has failed will continue to do so until the system begins posting the extraordinary numbers at retail that its predecessor was known to consistently post. However, this article will list out five reasons as to why the 3DS simply cannot fail, even in spite of Nintendo’s initial mismanagement, impending competition from the PS Vita, and the smartphones and tablets eating into the handheld market’s pie.

THE PRICE IS (FINALLY) RIGHT

Let’s be honest, a large portion of the 3DS’s troubled launch can be attributed to its shockingly high sticker price of $249, which, by Iwata’s own admission, was because of the overwhelmingly positive reception the system got at E3 last year. However, the problem was that, at launch, the 3DS simply did not seem to justify its high price of admission. At $249, we got nothing, no games worth playing, and most of the 3DS’s advertised features were unavailable, to be added in in a firmware update in the future. Moreover, while the 3DS is certainly a powerful handheld, it is thoroughly dwarfed by the PS Vita, and when Sony announced that the Vita would also be retailing for $249, the 3DS seemed like very bad value, especially since even after three months, its best game was an enhanced port of a thirteen year old game.

Nintendo has reacted to this admirably. The 3DS price was cut down to $169.99 recently, which makes it just $20 more expensive than the DSi, and the same price as a DSi XL. It also makes it much, much cheaper than the PS Vita, and suddenly makes it seem better value, as is evidenced by all the calls that Sony’s been getting about a potential Vita price cut. The 3DS is also now at the sub $200 mark, and is therefore in the ‘impulse buy’ category; it is also much cheaper than all of its smartphones/tablets brethren.

What this all basically means is that when a parent goes to buy his or her kid a DSi, they’ll just fork over the $20 extra, and decide to get the latest model. When a consumer has to choose between the PS Vita and the 3DS, he’s more likely now to choose the 3DS and get a couple of games as well, and all for less than the Vita would have cost. It means that if someone has a sudden influx of money, they’re more likely to buy the 3DS now than they were when it was $249, and perceived to be expensive and bad value. It means that a parent who was to get his or her kid an iPod Touch or an iPad will now most likely rather get him or her a 3DS, and save on a lot of money.

Basically, it means that the 3DS is priced just right, and it is waiting to take off at this sweet asking price.

GAMES AND THIRD PARTY SUPPORT

The common perception is that the 3DS does not have enough third party support. This comes off the back of a trio of major cancellations all done within a month of each other (Saints Row: Drive By, Assassin’s Creed: Lost Legacy and Megaman Legends 3), and because the games that are due for release are all being delayed. However, this perception couldn’t be more wrong than it already is. The 3DS does not suffer from a lack of quality third party content- on the contrary, the third party support looks the strongest a Nintendo system ever has had in years.

Major third party games like Metal Gear Solid 3D, Tales of the Abyss, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Resident Evil: Revelations, Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance, Cave Story, Shinobi, Sonic Generations, Rayman Origins, FIFA 12, Beyond the Labyrinth, Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, Nano Assault, Heroes of Ruin, Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright and Need for Speed: The Run are all due to hit the system within the coming twelve months. The best part is, a large part of the upcoming 3DS games from third parties are still due to be revealed, possibly at TGS next month, because major third party 3DS support comes from Japanese developers, not western, as is the case with all handhelds.

Of course, this does not even take into consideration the Nintendo games that are all due to hit the system- Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7, Star Fox 64 3D and Kid Icarus: Uprising are all releasing before the end of 2011, with Paper Mario, Luigi’s Mansion 2, Animal Crossing and Super Smash Bros. soon to follow. This, of course, doesn’t even take into account other Nintendo franchises that are bound to show up on the system- we can bet that we’re getting a 3DS Metroid sometime soon, and a new Pokemon game for the 3DS is not a matter of if, but when. Some other franchises that we can possibly expect to show up include Kirby, Donkey Kong and Advance Wars. And this doesn’t even consider the fact that the 3DS is probably getting an original, exclusive Zelda sometime soon, and a Majora’s Mask remake as well.

And we haven’t even started talking about the eShop. Slowly but surely, Nintendo’s online store seems to be coming into its own, and it offers quality content across so many storefronts, from the Virtual Console label to 3D Classics, to of course, DSiWare.

With so much quality content coming from every conceivable inlet- first parties, third parties and digital- the 3DS is bound to sell a good amount to gamers.

]]> https://gamingbolt.com/five-reasons-the-3ds-will-not-fail/feed 2 39213