The fans cry out. The drought has ended.

Ever since Nintendo made that huge price cut to their fledgling 3DS, the company has been under fire. But through a series of events, it seems that Nintendo has done the impossible: please its fan base and please its investors. Is Nintendo on its way to making its 3DS handheld a huge success?

It all started with Nintendo’s price-slashing decision in late July, followed by the official price cut in August, which cut the 3DS’ price by a whopping eighty dollars, from $250 to $170. Sounds like a desperate measure? At the time, one could say so. But the price cut worked; the 3DS has sold more in its first eight months than the original DS did in its first eight months. And the 3DS did this with only one major title since the price cut: Star Fox 64 3D, a remake. Would the results have been different if Nintendo never made the cut? Most likely, yes. Nintendo’s decision was a success, and there’s no doubt that they made the right decision.

More things came in September with Nintendo’s pre-TGS press conference. Just days before the press conference, the Circle Pad Pro was revealed, causing huge commotion in the gaming community. But with the risks taken comes the reward: Capcom announced both Monster Hunter 3G and Monster Hunter 4 at Nintendo’s conference. It seems that Capcom was a majorfactor in Nintendo’s Circle Pad Pro decision, with MH3G being the first game to officially use it. Can the Circle Pad Pro be a good thing? For the “hardcore” gamer, very possibly. But only time will tell if the Circle Pad Pro will pay off, which for Japan, it most likely will.

Now you can be an ambassador... AND a pro!

In early October, Nintendo began its new Nintendo Direct service, aiming to connect with fans through prerecorded messages. Through the first installment of Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced updates to its online eShop, expected to… um… make it more organized (because we all know, the current eShop is not the most organized thing in the world). But along with better accessibility comes new StreetPass updates, 3D video recording, and 3D stop motion (my brother LOVES stop motion, so it’ll be awesome for him). Is this a big step? Probably. If anything, these small steps show that Nintendo is listening to its fans, and are determined to add more content to they pre-installed applications – something that the Wii severely lacked.

And of course, we end this blog with one of the biggest announcements from the latest fiscal year results. Despite the fact that Nintendo is lagging financially, they announced that the eShop would soon be accessible to smartphones and computers. Sounds stupid? Well, this is the same type of thing that Apple did in order to boost its popularity: they put iTunes onto PC’s. And did it work? You bet it did. Will Nintendo duplicate this success? Maybe. As always, only time will tell. If investors could predict the future, maybe Nintendo’s 6% stock jump after the worst fiscal loss in Nintendo’s history could tell you something.

But when it comes to the 3DS, it all comes down to software. We all know the huge games that are coming throughout the next year or so, but what else is there? What? REAL 3D CLASSICS? 3DS Pictochat? 3DSWare? Yep, all of that is coming to the 3DS. And its just what the 3DS needed.

So, the 3DS seems to be back on track. And so is Nintendo, as they expect huge sales in 3DS and Wii software (okay, for Wii, it might be just Skyward Sword). What more do we expect from the Big N?

Oh yeah... there&#Array;s still THAT.