3DS U.S. Launch Turnout Strong, Nintendo, Retailers Say

Nintendo of America (NOA) and major U.S. retailers reported strong consumer turnout for the Sunday 3DS launch, but there appeared to be ample supplies of the game system to meet initial demand. Both the “aqua” blue and “cosmo” black SKUs were still readily available Monday at many New York metro area stores and from major retailers’ e-commerce websites.

NOA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on how many 3DS systems were sold. Of the 4 million 3DS systems that Nintendo said it will ship this fiscal year, through March 31, 1.5 million will be in Japan and the other 2.5 million will be split between Europe and the Americas (CED Jan 20 p2).

Consumers started lining up March 21 at Best Buy’s Union Square store in Manhattan, and “it progressed as the days went on” toward the official midnight 3DS launch event there over the weekend, Amy Adoniz, the store’s general manager, told Consumer Electronics Daily at the event. About seven consumers turned up outside the store March 21 and waited “in the cold -- they camped out there without tents,” she said. Thursday is “when it really started getting a little crowded,” she said.

The Union Square store had enough 3DS systems in stock at launch for consumers who had pre-ordered the system, as well as those who didn’t order it in advance, Adoniz said. She predicted “there should be” ample 3DS supplies available at the store after Sunday, telling us, “I think we have enough for a while.” She told us she wasn’t sure how many had pre-ordered it. Some estimated that about 300 consumers turned out for the store’s launch event to buy a 3DS, but NOA said only that “hundreds” of consumers were there.

The 3DS launch was “up there with the other launches” that the store had held for prior game systems in terms of consumer “enthusiasm,” Adoniz said. Customers were buying games and accessories with the system at the launch event, she said, saying it was too soon to say which items were the most popular.

Eric Aichele, a 27-year-old New York web developer, was among the first consumers to buy the 3DS at the Union Square launch event despite arriving to take his place on line only three hours before the 12:01 a.m. zero hour. He wanted to buy the game system because “the newer technology” appealed to him, and there were “so many different options crammed” into one device, he told us. “The 3D was a given,” but also appealing was the system’s advanced wireless features, he said. Nintendo’s “graphics keep getting better” also, he said. Aichele was buying four games with the system: Nintendo’s Pilotwings Resort and Steel Diver, Capcom’s Super Street Fighter 3D Edition, and Ubisoft’s Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Shadow Wars. Isaiah Johnson of Brooklyn was the first U.S. consumer to buy the device, at the Union Square launch event, NOA said. Johnson told reporters that he also was buying the 3DS games Pilotwings and Super Street Fighter 3D Edition.

Best Buy didn’t say by our deadline how the 3DS fared at its other stores. Six Long Island and five Manhattan Best Buy stores, along with its Jersey City, N.J., location, all had both 3DS system SKUs in stock at about 2 p.m. Monday, according to the chain’s e-commerce website. The two versions of the device were also available for purchase from its website. Both hardware SKUs were also in stock at Amazon.com and GameStop.com at about the same time. The Capcom game was listed as the most-purchased videogame product at Amazon.com Monday afternoon, followed by the black 3DS, Pilotwings Resort, and the blue 3DS.

GameStop was “very pleased with consumer reaction to the 3DS,” and it was “still in stock and fulfilling pre-orders,” its spokesman, Chris Olivera, said. “Many” Toys “R” customers, meanwhile, “were lined up in advance of our store openings in order to purchase the Nintendo 3DS, as well as to take advantage of our Buy One, Get One 50% off deal on all Nintendo 3DS software,” that retailer’s spokesman, Bob Friedland, told us. “We have a very strong partnership with Nintendo and were able to secure enough units to meet the demand in most of our stores,” he said.

Target was “seeing a positive guest response with yesterday’s launch of 3DS,” a spokeswoman for that retailer said. “Target stores nationwide have strong inventory levels of the hardware and software,” she said. “A few of the most popular games so far for 3DS” were Super Street Fighter, Pilotwings, and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars from LucasArts, she said.

Like Toys “R” Us, RadioShack advertised the 3DS on the front page of its Sunday ad circular. RadioShack didn’t say how much consumer interest it was seeing initially for the system, but Robert Dunlap, divisional merchandise manager of mobility and services, said its “inventory looks very good.” RadioShack also said customers “looking to upgrade to the 3DS can get as much as $55 toward the new system when trading in” a 16-GB PSP Go or DSi XL handheld game system. “That means that customers at The Shack can get the new Nintendo 3DS for $194.99, regularly priced at $249.99, when they use RadioShack’s ‘Trade & Save’ program to exchange their old device,” it said.

The trade-in program started at RadioShack in 2009, and includes various products and accessories, Dunlap said. “Some of the most popular devices traded in are mobile phones and GPS devices,” he said. “Items that still have value with consumers are resold to extend the product’s lifecycle,” and “those that do not have value are recycled in an environmentally appropriate manner,” he said. RadioShack declined to specify what companies partnered with it on the initiative. Target last week expanded its electronics trade-in service to include the DS, to coincide with the 3DS launch (CED March 24 p11).

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The $249.99 3DS carries a bill of materials of $100.71, based on “a preliminary physical dissection of the product,” IHS iSuppli said Monday. Factoring in a $2.54 manufacturing cost, “the total cost to produce the portable gaming system rises to $103.25,” it said. The device’s BOM “represents a 33 percent increase from $75.58 in materials” for the DSi, Nintendo’s prior portable system, based on DSi pricing at its introduction about two years ago, IHS said. It procured a 3DS for analysis last week in Japan, where the system went on sale ahead of the U.S. and Europe, and started its teardown of the system then, it said. Because the device “largely uses components from suppliers based in Japan,” the 3DS “has much greater exposure than most electronic products to the supply chain risk presented by the recent earthquake and tsunami,” it said. The teardown confirmed that the device’s 3.5-inch 3D display was provided by Sharp (CED March 25/10 p1), according to IHS. The device uses “an integrated LCD-based parallax barrier panel sandwiched to the back of the color LCD, which rapidly alternates between left and right images,” it said. “At $33.80, the main 3-D as well as the secondary display -- also from Sharp -- together with the touch screen, represent the most expensive group of component costs in the 3DS, accounting for roughly 34 percent of the total cost of materials,” IHS said. The 3DS display “also has the biggest cost differential of any major subsystem of the new gaming system compared to the DSi, coming in at $11.85 more than the DSi display,” it said. The $10 apps processor accounts for about 10 percent of the 3DS’s total BOM, and “is 15 percent more expensive than the equivalent DSi semiconductor around its time of release,” IHS said. IHS’ guess is that Sharp also manufactured the apps processor in the 3DS. The research company said the device’s memory subsystem has a BOM of $8.36. The flash memory was from Samsung, while the multi-chip memory IC was from Fujitsu, IHS said.