I Read the 3DS News Today, Oh Boy.

The rumors that Nintendo would be releasing a second analogue stick attachment for the 3DS had been pretty deafening during the last half of August. So much so that I’d written it off as unlikely because nothing in Nintendo’s history of hardware releases suggested such a blatant admission of a fundamentally flawed design. Let alone one that somehow managed to make it out onto store shelves. Imagine my surprise when this fat plastic crutch turned out to be legit.

I’ve stayed pretty quiet on this topic in general. Haven’t really chatted about it or brought it up to anyone. There’s a message board I frequent that has a thread devoted to the system that I’ve stayed out of and it’s for a pretty simple reason. For the first time as a loyal Nintendo customer and passionate fanboy, I’ve got to admit it:

I feel burned.

I can rationalize why this had to happen and why Nintendo had to bite the bullet and release this peripheral to myself pretty easily: A second control stick has been standard for home console controllers for going on 3 generations now and is kind of a nobrainer. Especially when your system is capable of duplicating the types of gameplay that’s been found on those consoles. Still, I’ve read plenty of blogs that come off as non-official apologies on behalf of Nintendo that have made me feel a bit easier in knowing that I’m not alone in my confusion. But the simple fact is that Nintendo fucked up by not including this second stick in the initial design and they continued to shoot themselves in the foot by screwing up their public image in a way that has made them look like they earned their business degrees from Sally Struthers.

First off, the price was way too high to begin with and the fact that Nintendo made the drop to $169.99 doesn’t necessarily mean that they had the consumer’s best interest at heart. They did this because they had to in order to keep the system from collecting any more dust in toy stores. Now, I’m not going to complain too much here because more owners for the system means more games. But sadly this was another significant problem at launch. The complete lack of AAA software out of the gate suggested that the machine was totally half baked before they ripped it out of the womb. I honestly can’t see why they couldn’t have waited a few more months and released the system during the summer (or hell, even a holiday release) at a $199.99 price tag with 64 remakes and Mario’s and shit ready to be bought right alongside the system. They could have slammed the coffin on Sony’s Vita before that thing had a chance to take it’s first breath.

All I can think of is that they’ve gotten used to making a certain amount of money during certain time-frames and they tried milking the 3DS as much as they could because the Wii fountain of revenue has been drying up the past couple of years and the DS brand is one that they have had no trouble returning to over and over again for some extra pocket cash. Whatever.

In any case, the price drop and Ambassador program has now been revealed to be not only completely shrewd on the company’s part but borderline deceitful. It goes like this:

1. “Hey, the 3DS isn’t blowing the doors off of Best Buy like we thought. We gotta drop the price but first, let’s cook up this “Ambassador program” thing and toss out 20 free games. We can milk the loyalists who were on the fence in the first place and sell a few extra consoles at the original price.” I can’t lie. It was a pretty smooth move and it suckered yours truly in like clockwork. But that was only the first step in Nintendo’s completely calculated plan to maximize profits.

2. The price drops on August 12th at a near 1/3 off of it’s original tag and guess what? More people buy it. Critically, however this move seemingly casts a harsh light on the company’s vision of their next gen portable. For the first time ever, a Nintendo portable system is on shaky ground the kind of which former Sega and Atari executives still wake up in a cold sweat from. Still, mission accomplished. Cheaper systems, more customers. Woo hoo.

Here is where things get kind of sketched out.

3. The rumor that Nintendo will be releasing an attachment for the 3DS turns out to be true. And not even just a little rumble pak or anything that can really count as optional. This is the first time in Nintendo’s history that something like this has happened. Essentially a hardware revision and not even a year after the original launch. In fact it’s easy to see the re-design that incorporates that hideous piece of plastic not too far off in the distance. This translates to anyone currently walking around with a 3DS basically being screwed out of owning a “complete” product. Now yes, one could argue that the DS lite came out not long after the infamous brick, so what’s the big deal about a 3DS lite or whatever they end up calling it being released? Well the difference there is that the lite was a slimmer, more compact and aesthetically pleasing design to the original release. But guess what? The control scheme remained identical because it was perfectly thought out and executed in the first place.

The fact that the 3DS made it onto store shelves before it was finished sort of blows my mind yet I’m nowhere near convinced that Nintendo is screwed in the long run. There have been plenty of voices out there calling for them to say “fuck it,” throw in the towel and just develop games for Apple products from now on but mine isn’t one of them (and never will be). In fact, I think that Nintendo’s pride is too strong for that scenario to ever come close to happening anyway. Shit, I can still remember back during those dark and terrible years between the Nintendo 64 and the launch of the Wii when the company still managed to convey a complete confidence and total conviction in their choices. This despite the fact that every product released that wasn’t a portable was a distant runner up in terms of sales. But that’s where the concern lies now. Their portable market is in a genuinely tight spot for the first time and Nintendo is reacting more out of desperation and less out of clear focus than any other time in their history. Not something you’d expect from the industry leaders they’ve established themselves as for more than the last half decade (and arguably of all time).

So what can Nintendo do now? How do they pull up from this nosedive, get the 3DS back on track and assure the average customer as well as us loyalists that they’ve got their shit together? Well, the answer to that one is simple and was thankfully was addressed at this week’s Tokyo Game Show. Concrete street dates were announced for Super Mario 3D Land, Mario Kart 7 and Kid Icarus: Uprising (the former 2 of which will be made available just in time for Jesus’ B-day) as well as the fact that Monster Hunter 4 is on the way (which is a pretty big deal in Japan).

What we as players and the 3DS need is nothing less than a solid library of not only “must play” but “must buy a system to play them on” games. Nobody bought the Wii to have a white piece of plastic sitting in the corner of their entertainment center. They bought one because they wanted to bowl, play tennis and knock out a home run in their living room. If the 3DS can establish itself as a system that demands to be experienced based on it’s video game software first and foremost, then the future becomes a lot less bleak.

Luckily for Nintendo, that’s something they’ve proven time and time again, decade after decade to know a thing or two about.