Nintendo's 3DS Revealed. A Closer Look at This Incredible Device

                Hand held 3D devises, I found myself shaking my head today thinking about my dad bringing home the pong console with the tethered controllers and being amazed as a child on how you could control objects on the TV with a remote with a wheel on it, my son will actually have 3D technology in his hand without the need for any kind of those silly glasses that the Imax guys give you (Thank goodness the lights are down in there *Sheesh*).

Unless you were hiding in your fallout shelter waiting for the Mayan calendar to end, you either saw or hear that Nintendo made history after announcing the handheld gaming device aptly named Nintendo 3DS. That’s right smaller than any scanner Spock ever used to analyze a new planet and you will not only be able to rock some really interesting  games but Nintendo is also demoing the 3DS on the E3 showroom floor with, get this, 3D movies like Dreamworks “How to Train Your Dragon”!

So, what are we looking at as far as specs go? Well they weren’t easy to come by but thanks to our friends at www.develop-online.net we were able to get a closer look at the actual tech specs of this cutting edge handheld system.

Top Screen

• 3.53-inch widescreen LCD display, enabling 3D view without the need for special glasses

• 800x240 pixel resolution (400 pixels are allocated for each eye to enable 3D viewing)

Touch Screen

• 3.02-inch LCD with 320x240 pixel resolution with a touch screen

Cameras

• One inner camera and two outer cameras with 640x480 (0.3 Mega) pixel resolution

Pre-Installed Software

• TBA

Nintendo 3DS Game Card

• 2 GB maximum at launch

Wireless Communication

• Can communicate in the 2.4 GHz band

• Multiple Nintendo 3DS systems can connect via a local wireless connection to let users communicate or enjoy competitive game play. Systems also can connect to LAN access points to access the Internet and allow people to enjoy games with others

• Will support IEEE 802.11 with enhanced security (WPA/WPA2)

• Nintendo 3DS hardware is designed so that even when not in use, it can automatically exchange data with other Nintendo 3DS systems or receive  data via the Internet while in sleep mode

Game Controls

• Touch screen, embedded microphone, A/B/X/Y face buttons, + Control Pad, L/R buttons, Start and Select buttons, 'Slide Pad' that allows 360-degree analog input, one inner camera, two outer cameras, motion sensor and a gyro sensor (These additions like the analog input, the cameras, and motion sensor there should be no lack of really innovative new games and some interesting new looks of some of the older game properties)

 Other Input Controls

• 3D Depth Slider to adjust level of 3D effect (can be scaled back or turned off completely depending on the preference of the user), Home button to call system function, Wireless switch to turn off wireless communications (even during game play), Power button. • The telescoping stylus is approximately 4 inches when fully extended.

Size

• Approximately 5.3 inches wide, 2.9 inches long, 0.8 inches tall

Weight

• Approximately 8 ounces.

There were two questions I had immediately after the announcement was made today at the conference, the first was “Does this really work?” and the second was, “ Yeah and how many titles do you guys actually have coming to the platform that aren’t 1^st party games?” and both were answered immediately after the questions crossed my mind.

Nintendo was quick to put up the games that were already confirmed on http://e3.nintendo.com/3ds/ , and when I say “quick” I mean almost immediately after the announcement. We could pretty much call which titles Nintendo had picked for their 1^st party games from the other games announced for the Wii and DS, and let me tell you I would buy the device based on these titles alone:  Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Paper Mario, Pilot Wings, and Star Fox. Not too shabby.

But what about the 3^rd party game, well that’s where it just gets crazy! You start it off with Harmonix’s DJ Hero, SquareEnix and Kingdom Hearts and Codename: Chocobo Racing, Capcom has Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, and last but not least Ubisoft with Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Chaos Theory (yes this is an updated version for the 3DS but are you seriously going to tell me that you wouldn’t play it again with it being portable as well as 3 freaking D) and Ghost Recon (which looks more like the old Rainbow Six games when they were almost RTS rather than FPS but still looks great).

But the house nearly came down when they showed the video that showed the titles that will sell more reservations for GameStop and Amazon than anything I have seen yet at E3: Resident Evil Revelations, Nintendogs + Cats, and the two that set the roof of the convention center on fire, Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater 3D and the return of one of Nintendo’s greatest heroes, KID ICARUS!

There has been no price point on the games, the device, or the peripherals as of yet and they haven’t given a launch date but we can almost certainly expect to see at least Amazon.com and GameStop putting this groundbreaking device for presale as soon as Nintendo gives them their 1^st run allocations. Until then you can count on Nintendo announcing new games and features at each of the huge gaming expos coming up this summer as well as the game developers revealing the 3D aspects as well as a ton of game play footage and I am stoked! So make sure you subscribe to our RS feed so that you don’t miss a thing, because we are going to be covering as much of these history making events as possible.

So, until then I hope you can suffer through playing your non 3D devices.  

Justin “Phantom” Hurst