Nintendo of America announced Thursday that it's dropping the price of its newest handheld gaming device, the 3DS, a little more than four months after it launched.

Currently priced at $249.99 at most retailers, the 3DS will be available for $169.99 at retail as of Aug. 12 — a savings of $80.

I'm guessing that the fact Nintendo hasn't broken the million sale mark on the device is responsible for the price drop, regardless of what the company says.

If you've already bought the device at the inflated price, all is not a loss. Nintendo intends on giving current owners about 20 free downloadable games — if they meet certain conditions. Here's the boilerplate from Thursday's press release:

(The) free games are available to anyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS system and uses a wireless broadband Internet signal to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once before 10:59 p.m. Central time on Aug. 11. These users will automatically be registered in the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador program. The program contains two elements:

1. Starting Sept. 1, Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors will be able to download 10 NES™ Virtual Console™ games at no charge and before they are available in the Nintendo eShop to the general public. These games, including Super Mario Bros.™, Donkey Kong Jr.™, Balloon Fight™, Ice Climber™ and The Legend of Zelda™, are slated to become paid downloadable games, but Ambassadors get them early for free. Once the paid versions of the games are posted to the Nintendo eShop later in the year, the updated versions will be available to Ambassadors for download at no cost.
    
2. By the end of 2011, Nintendo will provide Ambassadors with 10 Game Boy Advance Virtual Console games. These include games like Yoshi's Island™: Super Mario™ Advance 3, Mario Kart™: Super Circuit, Metroid™ Fusion, WarioWare™, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong™. These games will be available exclusively to Ambassadors, and Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future.

More details about this program will be announced in the future.

OK, back to our regularly scheduled critic: There are some good games on the list. I don't think it's $80 worth of good, so if you were thinking of buying a 3DS, wait until the price drop. But for those of us who already bit the bullet, it's a welcome extra.