State of StreetPass

[Javelin]

I went out today and took my 3DS with me for the first time in quite a while. I walked around a mall, including a video game store, all around Wal-Mart, rode a bus or two and generally was out doing errands.

I received a total of 2 StreetPass tags.

When I was last playing 3DS heavily still in early-mid 2014, I would easily get 5 every time I went to the McDonalds two minutes away for a coffee and right back with it. I would get 15-20 on days out doing less than I did today.

What happened, has it died off this much this quickly? Has anyone else noticed this? Might even be old news, just tell me so, I took a hiatus from it and dropped off for a while. But it's curious to me.

 

[Linkachu]

It's not just you noticing, at least as far as Canada is concerned, but I think the decline is likely due to several factors. Not only is the 3DS getting on in age (it's almost 5 years old now), there hasn't been as many must-have games released for it the past year compared to previous years. It's also been over half a year now since the latest Mii Plaza games were released, so the hype surrounding them has likely died down. People probably don't have as much reason to tote their systems around as they once did.

This downward decline is likely to continue but I'd be willing to bet that once we have more high quality 3DS games floating around, like Fire Emblem Fates, we'll probably see numbers pick up a bit. I'd love to see what happens with the next handheld Pokemon RPG(s). Pokemon prints money, so I'm sure another major release from the franchise will help boost StreetPass interest, too.

 

[Psycho Monkey]

I don't get many Streetpasses in public generally, but if you have mass gatherings of people like conventions or street festivals, you'll get a few hundred by the end of the day.

 

[Javelin]

It's not just you noticing, at least as far as Canada is concerned, but I think the decline is likely due to several factors. Not only is the 3DS getting on in age (it's almost 5 years old now), there hasn't been as many must-have games released for it the past year compared to previous years. It's also been over half a year now since the latest Mii Plaza games were released, so the hype surrounding them has likely died down. People probably don't have as much reason to tote their systems around as they once did.

This downward decline is likely to continue but I'd be willing to bet that once we have more high quality 3DS games floating around, like Fire Emblem Fates, we'll probably see numbers pick up a bit. I'd love to see what happens with the next handheld Pokemon RPG(s). Pokemon prints money, so I'm sure another major release from the franchise will help boost StreetPass interest, too.

Makes sense to me.

Thinking now, it should not have been so curious to me as it initially was, and seems a little silly to comment on it...because after all, I myself had not carried my 3DS around for nearly two years. I was among those contributing to the decline.