Nintendo: Current 3DS Owners Are 'Most Important Customers'

In light of the upcoming price drop on its 3DS handheld, Nintendo has admitted that it is worried dedicated fans will lose faith in both the hardware and the company. Nintendo revealed this morning that the Nintendo 3DS is to receive a price cut next month, with those consumers who have already bought the console set to own 20 Virtual Console games for free. "There have been times in the past when we, Nintendo, have marked down the trade prices for our video game machines a certain amount of time after launch to further accelerate adoption of the hardware," the company said in a statement, "but never in Nintendo’s history have we dropped a system’s trade price so significantly less than 6 months after launch." "We are aware this may cause you, the loyal fans who supported Nintendo 3DS from the beginning, to lose trust in us," the company admitted. However, it was quick to point out that, "this is not our intention in any way," explaining that those people who already own the Nintendo 3DS are its "most important customers." "Although we may not be able to completely prevent you from regretting purchasing Nintendo 3DS early, we would like to express our gratitude to our special customers like you by offering 20 free downloadable games from Nintendo eShop," it said. Nintendo today modified its financial forecast for the current fiscal year ending March 31, 2012, reducing its expected profits for the fiscal year by a hefty 81.8 percent.