Nintendo's Penny Pinching Bites Them In The Ass

Nintendo has made a lot of money out of us over the years. All of our kids have been DS and Wii fanatics.

Sadly I knew the 3DS would be a flop when it was the first product they announced where the same kids showed zero interest. Some vague recognition that 3D might be cool but that's it.

Nintendo needed to build a competitor to cheap Android phones and iPod Touches, not a competitor to itself.

Despite our love of the DS, one thing has always driven me nuts, the goddammed hinges. They break constantly. Most of the DSes in this house are on their second case, with some even on a fourth!

Now I read that sales of the 3DS have been halted. It is believed that the crappy rubber bumps on the screen aren't big enough and the two halves of the device are scraping off each other when closed.

This made me go look for an image of the inside of the 3DS and yep, as you can see above, it has the same shitty cheap plastic guaranteed-to-break hinges they have had since the original DS.

An extra < $1 on the BOM to brace the hinges with metal would have sorted this out.

We won't be buying one.