You may have caught rumblings of this over the past 12-odd hours or so, but Nintendo have dropped the price of their 3DS handheld unit, only months after it was officially released in the Western market.

Australia is still mildly shafted in pricing overall, but at least it's cheaper than when it was released. Ironically, despite the machine being region-locked, you'd still be better off importing the console and games from the US than buying locally at the moment, given the strength of our dollar, which if the price-drop had occured only here, would have made more sense. But it appears people just aren't flocking to the device, which I'll pinpoint on slow releases of key games and lagging functionality, such as the eShop, which took a long time to be released.

Nintendo announces that effective 12 August, Nintendo 3DS will be available for only SRP AU$249.95. Previously Nintendo 3DS was SRP AU $349.95.

Nintendo Australia plan to offer an exclusive Nintendo 3DS Ambassador Program to consumers who have purchased the Nintendo 3DS at the original launch price. The program will enable those Nintendo 3DS owners to download 10 NES games and 10 Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games for free from the Nintendo eShop.

In spite of our obvious pricing issues here in Australia, news of stuff like the "Ambassador Program" is still good to hear. The North American price-drop, for those interested, was from US$249.99 to US$169.99.