Just went to the mediamarkt to check both this and the iPad 2 out. I overheard a salesman that the launch was huge with 130 people showing up at opening for 65 iPad 2s. Almost no interest in the 3DS as far as I could tell - it was definitely not sold out by a mile. I could check it out, see a running demo for pilotwings. The 3D effect worked perfectly and I could see it with no real issues from about 15cm from the screen until about 50cm. Side to side there were several sweetspots with double images appearing when moving between them. No-one was even remotely interested - I saw noone as much as glance at it and even when I pointed out to them that the thing had 3D some half-hearted attempts followed but either no-one could see it or no-one cared. I'm sure it will do well eventually, but right now, over here I'm not expecting much from it.
For me personally, I thought the 3D effect was excellent, but the level of the graphics is something I cannot personally live with, neither in 2D nor in 3D. The contrast with the fantastic iPad 2 screen couldn't be bigger, both literally and figuratively, and my interest in the 3DS went from high (I'm a big fan of 3D displays) to almost none. I thought the introduction of the dualscreen with stylus/touch was a much bigger deal back in the day. I agree with many that I do not see this competing much with the iPod Touch, and Nintendo faces an uphill battle. They will have to pull it through on the strength of their software. I'm sure they're capable of doing just that, but it won't be easy.