In case you weren't aware, this morning Nintendo of America and Nintendo Europe jointly announced a few details about the soon to be released portable gaming platform the 3DS. Are you ready? No really, are you ready for the details because I have them courtesy of [IGN] and [Gizmodo] for you here in this one convenient post. Here we go.
- Price: $249.99. That's right, this baby will cost you as much as a Wii did back in the day, or as much as an Xbox 360 these days, or as much as a PSP cost once upon a time, or something else that will cost you $250.
- Date: March 27. That's a Sunday folks so no skipping work for this one.
- Launch Titles: No specific dates since these are within the "launch window" but Nintendo will be launching Kid Icarus Uprising, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D (can I get a booyeah!), Nintendogs + cats, and Pilotwings Resort. From third parties we'll be getting Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Ridge Racer 3D, Dead or Alive Dimensions, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Pro Evolution Soccer 2011 3D, Asphalt 3D, and Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars.
- Friend Codes: Yes, there will be one solitary friend code for the hardware, but none required for different software, so that's not too shabby.
- 3D-ness: If you weren't already aware, there are no glasses required to play this system. You can change the depth of the third dimension by a slider on the right-hand side of the upper screen. This will allow you to change from 3D to 2D for any game.
- Controls: ABXY buttons on the right, a somewhat flattened analog stick and d-pad on the left. Plus the traditional L and R on the shoulders. Select and Start as per usual, but they've added a Home button which will act almost like pressing the Home button on the Wii or the PS button for the PS3. In game this will take you to the Home screen where you can navigate and easily drop back into your game without any interference. Nifty.
- Cameras: That's right, this time around you will have access to 3 cameras instead of 2. Why 3? Because of 3D of course. One camera will be on the inside so that you can take pictures of yourself, while the other two will be on the outside and use to take 3D pictures.
- Mii's: There will be a Mii creation menu and a way to transfer Mii's to other 3DS systems. Also, you can set your 3DS to Street Pass mode which will allow you to connect with other owners, even while in sleep mode, to compete with other Mii's, transfer data, and other such things all from your pocket and without having to do anything.
- Downloads: The Nintendo e-shop will be back and theoretically you will be able to download Gameboy and Gameboy Color games (no word as of yet on GBA) to your system, for a fee of course. There will be required updates as well as some unique content only available by download, very similar to the Wii Shop Channel.
There were a few more miscellaneous details, such as an Activity Log that will keep track of what you play as well as has the ability to help you keep track of your movement, a longer stylus, SD card slot, and 3D video playback. Where these 3D videos come from didn't seem to be mentioned but could we be looking at the ability to download movies onto the 3DS such as Avatar or Despicable Me? No word on that yet. And here's a little something to give you an idea of how the 3DS looks while playing a game, a look at what Inside the Deku Tree from Ocarina of Time 3D looks like and plays.
The only thing I'm worried about is Navi in 3D. I don't need to see that. But the gyro controls for the slingshot and the camera look excellent. I'm excited, as you should be. Also, word is that Sega is already prepping a 3D Sonic game for the system. No surprise there as Sega has been doing it's best to keep the blue hedgehog snuggled up to the Nintendo brand for awhile. Stay tuned for more 3DS updates in the future as we rapidly roll towards March 27. I can tell you that I'll be getting mine that Sunday, will you?
Dream on.
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