Nintendo's older DS continues to outsell the 3DS, with twice as many sales of the older handheld game unit in June than its newer sibling, released in March.
The figures come from the company, which said this week that Nintendo sold 386,000 Nintendo DS systems in June, compared to 143,000 Nintendo 3DS systems.
It is the 3-D in the 3DS itself that is not finding an audience, with some players not taking to the optical challenges of glasses-free gaming or Nintendo's own warnings that the 3-D screen shouldn't be used by children 6 or younger because it could hurt their still-developing vision? Or is it the lack of games specifically designed for the 3DS? Or the price— it's $250, and the DS is about $100 cheaper.
It could be a combination of those things. But one thing's for sure, as msnbc.com games writer Winda Benedetti noted recently, "the games that launched with the 3DS just weren’t compelling enough to make people want to run out and buy a new gadget."
Nintendo wasn't bragging about 3DS sales lagging in its press release; the sales info was actually quite secondary to its announcement that "after less than two weeks on store shelves, "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D" for the Nintendo 3DS ... finished the month as the No. 2 best-selling video game on an individual platform."
It's games like Zelda, and the expected addition of Mario and Luigi, due out this holiday season, that may help bolster the 3DS' sales.