The world eagerly awaits the official announcement of the Nintendo 3DS release date. Ever since it was first unveiled at E3 2010, rumors have been swirling around the internet about the official release date. In September 2010, Nintendo held a press conference giving more details about the 3DS. This also included an announcement that the Nintendo 3DS would be available in Japan on February 26, 2010 for the price of 25,000 yen.
But I don’t live in Japan, I’m in North America!
Fear not, they also announced that the new models would ship to North America, Europe, and Australia shortly after March. If this doesn’t satisfy you (and I wouldn’t blame you if it did), there is hope on the horizon. On January 19, 2011, Nintendo plans to hold a conference in Amsterdam to announce dates and prices for the Nintendo 3DS system. Which means that by the time you read this article, the date and price may have already been set. Insiders have predicted the price of the system to be around $300. There has also been an apparent leak that the UK release date will be March 25, 2011.
OK, so I know the date, how do I get one?
Well, there are a few ways you’ll realistically get a Nintendo 3DS at launch.
- You can line up at your local game store/Wal-Mart/big box grocery store and hope they don’t sell out before you get one on launch day. Or try your luck over the next few weeks.
- You can reserve and guarantee your system for launch day.
- You can try to buy one later on E-Bay.
Let’s take a look at the facts. The Nintendo 3DS is going to be hot. People are already excited about this system. Do you remember what happened when the Wii came out? But what about Wii Fit? Stores ran out of systems almost instantly and there was a shortage of systems for weeks if not months afterwards. The demand became so great for them that things went crazy. Prices on E-Bay skyrocketed and it became unreasonable to go there if you wanted a system at a fair price.
So where does that leave you? Make an order!! If you must have this system on launch day and be the envy of all your friends, then realistically you should pre-order the system. Best of all, if you pre-order a Nintendo 3DS and the price you pre-ordered it for is lower than the actual price, you get it for the lowest price.