Nintendo 3DS To Be Released In February/March

angry tapir writes "Nintendo's 3DS, the first portable game device with 3D graphic technology, will go on sale in Japan on Feb. 26 next year. The 3DS will cost ¥25,000 (US$298), Satoru Iwata, Nintendo's president, told a packed news conference in Chiba, Japan. It will launch in Europe, Australia and the US in March." Nintendo also detailed a number of games that will launch at or near the same time, and they said the online shop would get some improvements

Comments

Not first.

[pecosdave]

The Virtual Boy was portable.

Also a friend of mine had a game that looked like a pair of binoculars far older than the Virtual Boy. It had a passive back light, meaning it was best played outside or under a lamp. It was from the late 70's or early 80's, it was akin to an LCD game though it was 3D.

Re:Not first.

[MikeFM]

I dunno. The VB was hard to use even if you were sitting still. The little stand thing on it was a horrible idea. I'd have rather it just strapped to my head even if it needed a counter balance. I have my doubts about the 3DS. For $300 you can get an iTouch which has apps that are overall on par, or better, than most DS games, are far cheaper, and you get a lot more functionality. I'm not sure a lot of people are itching for 3D. I'm barely interested in 3D HDTV and for mobile gaming I'm not sure it even rates a curiosity - but maybe other people are different.

I think Nintendo would be better off focusing on making their consoles and games cheaper and playing to their strength with casual and active games. A Nintendo branded Android device that had access to Nintendo's existing library of games would be interesting if it was affordable enough, gave Android a Nintendoish makeover, and was otherwise non-suck.

Re:Not first.

[pecosdave]

I hate to say this, because Nintendo is awesome even if I am getting mildly annoyed at all their gimmicky stuff that is popular with the kiddies. (must be a sign of getting old)

I think Sony would be better off adopting Android than Nintendo.

Hear me out of course:

Sony tries to appeal to adults more than Nintendo does, even though Nintendo captures both and Sony is sort of floundering at the moment. I just see the whole Android interface working better for Sony, especially after using both a DSi and a PSP. Sony already makes phones through their formerly Ericson division, with Android phones available. Sony is better equipped to make a PSP/Phone hybrid than Nintendo is.

On that note I have said on more than one occasion Nintendo is stupid for not
1. Making their own phone/console hybrid
or
2. Licensing out their GBA/DS tech to phone manufactures.

Seriously, I could see HTC turning out an awesome DS Slider phone complete with a cartridge port, standard Micro SD slot, android OS merged with DSi functions. (controls and touchscreen always showing, speaker in the middle of the ABXY buttons, mic next to +, top screen slides out)

Of course Nintendo wont do that for piracy/hacking reasons, not like they aren't happening on the native platform as is, but dilution is an issue.

Sony on the other hand has nothing to lose. The PSP-3000 already has most of the requirements to meet the phone challenge, you can already make Skype calls directly on that thing, no extras needed. Make it a little more portable - it is rather large to be a mobile phone, distribute games on Pro-Duo cards (which I hate BTW), so they can work with ALL PSPS models instead of pulling a download only setup. Obviously we don't want a UMD drive on this

Of course for that to work, Sony would have to wear pants.

Re:Not first.

[Anonymous Coward]

a game that looked like a pair of binoculars

Sounds like Tomy's "Tomytronic" games. Those things are pretty great actually ... especially the tank one. The 3D effect is decent and I used to play them for hours without the fatigue that the virtual boy apparently suffered from.

Re:Are these hackable?

[walshy007]

Very hackable, very cheaply too (flash cards are a dime a dozen these days), there's an open source sdk called devkitpro that will handle all your dev needs also.

Limitations to consider though, the ds only has 4mb of ram, and it's 3d hardware is not too crash hot, it has no floating point units at all and does everything in 16-bit fixed point.

Re:3DS screen on cell phone?

[Rolman]

As someone who played quite some time with the 3DS last june, I can say that I started to despise the now obsolete 2D display on my phone. And that, without taking the 3D camera into account.

The 3D effect is almost flawless. The "3D slider" which helps you adjust the degree of the effect, makes it perfectly usable for just about anyone.

I think it's pretty safe to say we're going to see news of a phone with 3D display soon after the 3DS launch.

Re:$300. Ugh

[wiredlogic]

Notice that the original price is set at 25000 Yen. It will likely sell at $250, £250, and 250 euros.

Re:3DS screen on cell phone?

[sqrt(2)]

Other than being cool what does it add? What advantage does it provide over the 2D screen? Is it really just more pleasurable to use and that's it? I guess that's as good of a reason as any to want it but I have a hard time believing it's going to be all that impressive.

Re:3DS screen on cell phone?

[marsu_k]

Actually, some weeks ago I participated in a study about "mobile 3D TV". The study was conducted by researchers at the local technical university, but sponsored by Nokia. The display technology they used was actually quite impressing - they said that it is "similiar, but better than 3DS", but as they didn't provide any technical details and as I've never seen a 3DS in person, I'm unable to judge the validity of that comment. But the results were in my opinion better than with 3D movies, it wasn't as "layered", on some clips that is. Naturally they wanted me to judge whether a clip was layered, blocky, if the movement was smooth and so on; seeing the same clip with different setting for the umpteenth time was a bit tiresome, but it was an interesting experience nevertheless. And I much more prefer such a display to 3D movies, as I already wear glasses I find the 3D ones uncomfortable.

But I suppose it'll take a while for such displays to find their ways to handsets, and I'm not certain what the application would be. Games, sure, but I'm not convinced 3D video is worth it, and 3D GUI might actually be a bit confusing if it is to be operated via touch - elements might appear to be in front of the screen, but you'd still have to physically touch "behind" the elements to register your action.

Re:3DS screen on cell phone?

[DrXym]

I expect it will not be long before smart phones get 3D displays. Sharp has been touting them recently at smaller sizes which suggests they're after that market. I have no issue with the concept of a 3D display as long as it toggles back to a decent 2D display and doesn't affect the screen in high sunlight and so on. A phone which expects users to exactly hold it in the horizontal at a fixed distance to see the effect is going to suck unless it has a decent display for the 99% of other times when 3D is not required.

3D is still a gimmick. I expect sooner or later someone will produce a decent 3D display that works from a wide viewing angle from any orientation. Until that time, devices that hype 3D should really be treated with a grain of salt.

Re:gonna be pricey to

[darthdavid]

BRITISH, FEMALEPARENTCOPULATOR... DO YOU SAY INFORMATIONTECHNOLOGY?

"300$ that is being possible?" What does that level average?

ftfy

ftfy^2

re: Gimmick

[Rydia]

In response to the multitude of comments referring to 3D as a gimmick, maybe you should take a step back and realize that pretty much everything about a video game is a "gimmick." Nothing about a video game serves a useful purpose. 3D presentation? gimmick, 2D worked fine. HD graphics? Gimmick, plenty of game showed that SD could give us pretty games.

Everything about video games is a gimmick. I think what you're aiming for is "I'm not interested in this." That's fine, but not a basis for a value judgment.