After a long wait in line that wrapped around the Nintendo booth it was time to preview the next generation of the Nintedo DS. The Nintendo 3DS is small, it’s sleek, it’s very portable, and incredibly amazing. Though there were several games that I would have liked to have a playable demo for, most of it was just previews for the major games to come out for the portable console and there were several games available to play.
According to wiki, The Nintendo 3DS is an upcoming portable game console by Nintendo, which can produce “3D effects without the need for any special glasses.” Which is absolutely true!! The small 3DS screen allows the naked eyes to view the images in 3D. Which is a plus in my book. The hand-held featured a 3D screen control that allowed you to toggle between the intensity of the 3D-ness, you can turn it all the way up to get the full effect of the 3DS’ power, or you can turn it all the way down and view it in 2D. If you turn the 3D all the way up and it gets too much for you, you can scroll down to a lower intensity so that your eyes are able to adjust and you won’t get so cross-eyed or get a headache. This was a really cool feature to the 3DS.
The Nintendo 3DS has two screens; the top screen is a 3.53-inch 3D screen with a resolution of 800×240 pixels (400×240 pixels per eye) that is able to produce a stereoscopic three-dimensional effect without 3D glasses, while the bottom screen is a 3.02-inch non-3D touch panel with a resolution of 320×240 pixels. The 3DS weighs approximately 8 oz. and, when closed, is 5.3 inches wide, 2.9 inches long, and 0.8 inches tall.
The system features several additions to the design of the original DS, including a slider on the side of the device that adjusts the intensity of the 3D effect, a round nub analog input called the “Slide Pad”, an accelerometer, and a gyroscope. In addition, there is an infra-red communicator port situated on the top of the unit.
The demo area allowed those who waited in line (or VIPed in) to get a chance to play several games and feel the controls. Ridge Racer and several other games were playable. The hand-held console is very portable as it fit snug in between my two hands. The controls weren’t small or close together which made for very easy movement around the buttons. Other areas included sneak peaks, pre-programmed movie demos that featured the 3D effects on the game if you were to play them. Here we were able to view Resident Evil, Kid Icarus Uprising, Mario Kart 3DS, and the amazing look of Metal Gear Solid 3D.
I was completely sold at how easy everything was to use in the hand-held, on top of how well the 3D graphics worked with the screen. I liked how you are able to control how intense the 3D effects are on the screen, and with the different types of games on the console there will be a lot of fun features to play with. I was already sold, but if that wasn’t enough they just had to put an extra-icing on the cake layer.
Before exiting the demo area, there were several people standing around waiting to take your pictures. The 3DS has two cameras on the outside of the device, capable of taking 3D photos, as well as a camera positioned above the top screen that faces the player; both cameras have a resolution of 640×480 pixels (0.3 Megapixel). The system will also have a “Movie Record Mode”, and will have the ability to play 3D video content.
According to CEO Satoru Iwata confirms that the 3DS will expand towards 3D movies as well. The 3DS also features Wi-fi capabilities allowing searches for the Wi-Fi hotspots and other 3DSs while even on sleep mode. The games are backwards backwards compatible as the old games from the DS and DSi are compatible and playable on the 3DS.
In the line waiting, we were able to see the different colors the hand-held will be available in: black & blue, black & red, and black & grey, black & purple and black & gold.
The Nintendo 3DS was announced at E3 to have a release date of March 2011. I’ll be there, will you?
