The 3DS has been selling well below anyone's expectation's, and it seems Nintendo wants to do something about that, as they are already giving the 3DS a massive price cut from its original $249.99 price tag down to $169.99 effective August 12th.

Early 3DS adopters will gain access to 10 free Virtual Console games from the NES era, including Super Mario Bros., Donkey Kong Jr., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber and The Legend of Zelda. The others five aren't known, and all ten will become publicly available for purchase at a later date.

Additionally, Nintendo's offering up another 10 free Game Boy Advance titles. The games include Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Metroid Fusion, WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong. The other five weren't listed, and strangely, Nintendo claims these free GBA titles won't be made available to everyone else.

"Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future," reads the press release.

More details about the program are to be announced, but Nintendo's only requirement is that players connect to the eShop before 11:59 p.m. EST on August 11. Before the price drop, basically.

Nintendo also confirmed release months for Super Mario 3D Land (November) and Mario Kart 7 (December).

~via Giant Bomb