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Nintendo 3DS: The story so far

What we do know and don’t know and will know and won’t know

Nintendo 3DS: The story so far
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3DS

The Nintendo 3DS always seems a little magical and mysterious. A video game console that can pump out three-dimensional visuals... without the silly black specs? What kind of black sorcery are they using to achieve this feat?

That air of mysticism goes hand in hand with the fact that just a few months before the console hits store shelves, we’re still left with so many unanswered questions.

How much will it cost? When is it coming out? What games will be available on launch date?

But that all comes to an end tonight, as Jonathan Ross and his pals at Nintendo reveal the all important system specs and (hopefully) leave no stone unturned. A few hours ahead of the console’s grand debut, we’ve sifted through all the stories and rumours to round up exactly what we do know, and precisely what we don’t know.

When and how much?

They’re the questions on everyone’s lips. When will the new console grace store shelves, and how many shiny pennies do I need to hand over to own one?

In Japan, the system will hit on February 26th for ¥25,000, and be available in snazzy Aqua Blue and Cosmo Black paint jobs. But for the rest of the world, Nintendo offers little more than a vague “March” date in way of information.

Some retailers have hinted at more specific dates and a potential price. UK retailer Gamestation printed March 1st on a poster, while The Hut group had its entire bevvy of shops slap a March 25th release date on the system.

The Hut also offered up a price: the princely sum of £300. That’s a whole lot more than the UK conversion of the Japanese price (about £190), and far more expensive than any Nintendo DS. The £159.99 DSi XL is almost half the cost of that reported price.

Either way, we’d wait for Nintendo’s exact information tonight before drawing out your money and booking a week off work.

Launch line-up

We know the exact handful of games that will be available to buy on the same day as the Nintendo 3DS. In Japan, that is.

The complete list is Nintendogs + Cats, Winning Eleven Soccer 3D, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Samurai Warriors Chronicle, Puzzle Bobble 3D, Ridge Racer 3D, Battle of the Giants: Dinosaurs 3D and Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracles.

But with the international release just weeks or even days away from Japan’s launch, there shouldn’t be too many changes for our launch. Super Monkey Ball 3D, slated to arrive in Japan on March 3rd, could join those titles and be ready for the US and UK release party.

We also know the highly anticipated games that will sadly miss the Japanese launch. Top titles like Ocarina of Time and Pilotwings will join in the spring, Kid Icarus and Starfox 64 will be seen in the summer, while Mario kart, Animal Crossing and Paper Mario 3DS have been lumbered with vague “TBA” launches.

The 3DS will be region locked

If Japan is getting the 3DS weeks before us, why not just pay some dodgy import shop or enterprising eBay seller to chuck a foreign system on a plane and get it to me early? Clever idea, smarty pants. If the 3DS wasn’t region locked, that is.

For rather lame reasons, Nintendo will be locking the 3DS to the region you bought it from. That means your Japanese 3DS will seem awesome at first, but not so hot when your store-bought UK games (or some of them at least) fail to run.

What we don’t know is whether the backwards compatible support is also region locked. Will our American and Japanese import DS games work on the console, or are they knackered too? We probably won’t find this out until UK and US gamers and bloggers get the device in hand this March.

Exercises means prizes

The 3DS features a built-in pedometer that measures the amount of walking you do each day. Couch potatoes aren’t exactly reprimanded, but fitness freaks are rewarded with points, which can unlock exclusive in-game content.

What we don’t know is which games support such a feature, and the sort of content we should expect to see. Because I’d run a marathon for more Mario levels, but I’m not moving a step for a novelty Nintendog hat.

Virtual console

Like the Wii, the 3DS features a collection of classic Nintendo games for you to play (and buy) all over again. We know that the handheld virtual console will offer up Game Boy, Game Boy Colour and some “classic” games retrofitted with 3D effects.

But what else? If the Wii’s history channel emulated a console as recent as the N64, then surely we could expect Game Boy Advance titles on the 3DS?

And with the Wii’s VC featuring non-Nintendo consoles like the Megadrive and TurboGrafx-16, can we expect the likes of Neo Geo Pocket Colour, Game Gear and Atari Lynx? We can only hope.

3D mode takes a hit on your framerate

The creator of Dead or Alive: Dimensions admitted to press that the fighting game will see its framerate halved when the 3D effect is turned on. Played in bog standard 2D, the brawling title runs at a silky smooth 60 frames per second. But pop that baby into James Cameron’s favourite number of dimensions, and the game grinds to a 30 FPS halt.

Can we expect this with every game? Because that’s going to be an uncomfortable choice to make, and we certainly don’t want to interrupt our gaming as we constantly swap between 2D and 3D, as we transition from cutscenes to gameplay.

Battered battery

The 3DS’s battery life is looking very grim. No sooner have you booted up and system and got stuck into a serious gaming session, the three to five hour battery is dead. Even with the 3D effects turned off, the outlook isn’t much brighter: just eight hours.

Well what about original DS games, and Virtual Console? The original DS Lite had a monster 15-19 hour battery life, so it would suck to be lumbered with a tiny single digit figure, even when playing older games.

Answer us Nintendo - we’re all ears.

Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer