Nintendo 3DS

[tegan]

I assume the two cameras are actually still there so that AR still works and they're just advertising the 3D photo thing so they'll have a stronger bullet point to put on the box.

 

Also, they'd have to add an extra "shelf" to the back of the unit to accommodate the shoulder buttons if they put the face buttons on the bottom. It's ugly as fuck as it is now, but by all accounts it's surprisingly comfy, sooooo...?

 

 

I wouldn't buy one normally, but with the discount price I'd consider importing a European one for region-locked stuff (or a Japanese one if it ever gets released there)

[JonCole]

I feel like a child myself because I honestly don't think it looks that horrendous. I'd buy one if I didn't already have a 3DS. I think the hinge is the most cheap-feeling part of the hardware and I really don't get anything out of the clamshell design because the thing is so hideously large that I would never think of putting it in my pocket. I never use 3D (only made an effort to use it in 3D Land because that's the only good use I've seen of it) and I'm not bothered by the screen sizes because they're virtually the same as the original 3DS.

 

To tell you the truth, I don't care how any consoles look. Nobody comes in my house and inspects my home theater setup for sleekness of big black and/or white boxes. If anybody judges me for the handheld system I'm playing, I really don't give a crap what they think. And when I want a sleekly designed piece of hardware, I look past gaming hardware and drool over laptops and smartphones. 

[syntheticgerbil]

There were three.

The Gameboy, the Gameboy Color, and the Gameboy Advance.

Some people would conflate the GB and the GBC, but those people are crazy.

You also have to include the Game Boy Pocket as a notable entry, plus the 4 models of the Gameboy Advance make it confusing as well as the DS, DS Lite, DSi, DSi XL, 3DS, 3DS XL, and now 2DS. The amount of time elapsed between Game Boy versions was at least 5 years, outside of the 2 years between Pocket and Color, so they were somewhat less confusing. Plus you have to keep in mind the games labeled Super Game Boy were not always clear on what was different with their Color counterparts (Super Game Boy would always display less colors but it sometimes had things like digital sound effects added).

 

The worst one is how all Wiis manufactured now no longer play Game Cube games. SNES had S-Video removed on all second models and NES lost the A/V output on NES 2. I feel like out of all Nintendo hardware releases, only Game Cube and 64 were spared any kind of major hardware tweaks in any department. This kind of stuff is exactly why SEGA fucked everything up in their hardware department between the release of the Genesis and the Saturn, thus hurting the Saturn in the end.

 

I don't know, I'm with Thrik on this one, to figure out the models of the Nintendo systems and what features each one does and does not have is a headache and helps diminish the importance of their brand iterations. If they are going to release simple hardware tweaks with one name and then brand a major hardware revamp with the same name, it causes confusion for those who don't know which it is and can't decipher it without hopping on Wikipedia. This is bad if it is a parent in the store trying to figure out what the hell they are supposed to buy for their kids.

[Sno]

The GB, GBC, and GBA all had their own unique libraries of games.

The GB Pocket just played GB games.

It was the Gameboy's DS lite.
 

 

In addition to the cameras, the DSi has more RAM and a faster CPU, and there were DSi-exclusive cartridge games (there weren't many of them; they were recognized by their white cartridges). If you count all the stuff on the DSiware store, it had loads of exclusive games. That's not much different from the Gameboy Color, which had more RAM and a faster processor plus an infrared port and colour screen but was otherwise identical to the GB.

Yeeeaaaaaah. I suppose. The DSi is a weird thing.

[Sno]

Also, wtf is this idiocy?

“It even has the 3DS' twin camera on its rear so you can take 3D photos. These are displayed in 2D, naturally, but can be swapped over to 3DS via SD card to be viewed in three dimensions.”

That's just completely bizarre; I'm sure keeping the second camera wasn't expensive, but the process of viewing 2DS-taken photos in actual 3D is pointlessly overwrought. Almost no-one is going to waste time doing this—particularly for a nagging <7 year old constantly pestering their older sibling. (And have you seen the average photo a young child takes..?)

My immediate reaction would be to wonder if it has something to do with the augmented reality, requiring its cameras to have depth perception for that stuff to work. (Or perhaps not wanting to break compatibility with existing AR games.)

[Wrestlevania]

My immediate reaction would be to wonder if it has something to do with the augmented reality, requiring its cameras to have depth perception for that stuff to work. (Or perhaps not wanting to break compatibility with existing AR games.)

 

Good point. I hadn't considered the Augmented Reality features, as I'd only played with the AR cards and Face Raiders the first hour after I unpacked the console.

 

Do many games support actually support AR though? I assumed it would be a killer app for 3DS, but haven't seen anything use it in the (admittedly few) big-name titles we have.

 

Regardless, credit to Nintendo for not breaking compatibility. And it'd be nice to see more of it; my kids love it.

[Sno]

Good point. I hadn't considered the Augmented Reality features, as I'd only played with the AR cards and Face Raiders the first hour after I unpacked the console.

 

Do many games support actually support AR though? I assumed it would be a killer app for 3DS, but haven't seen anything use it in the (admittedly few) big-name titles we have.

There's enough of it that it behooves Nintendo to not break it, there's a lot of incidental uses in big games. (Kid Icarus Uprising, for example.) Off the top of my head i could name maybe ten games that use it, and i think there's probably a few dozen total uses of AR on the 3DS. It shows up in a lot of weird places.

Of the actual, dedicated AR games/mini-games i've played, they've all been really experimental little things that range from merely neat to completely broken, so it doesn't build confidence in the 3DS's AR future. The games that are built around tracking objects on a table generally work pretty well, but the ones that rely on the 3DS's motion sensor for tracking are just about completely fucked. (Except for that built in game, Face Raiders, which has you flailing around so wildly that you don't even notice when the sensor loses track of you, or perhaps the exaggerated motions it requires you to make are making it easier for the game to track you.)

There are plenty of interesting possibilities with augmented reality, but i don't think the hardware is enough there that it warrants anything especially involved.

[Roderick]

Isn't that the issue with so many of the wonderful toys Nintendo builds? Out of every insane feature the DS/3DS has, which of them has spawned truly novel ways of gaming? Only the touch screen has added tremendously to the experience, the rest has been but marginally put to (good) use. Things like the microphone, the cameras, the gyroscope - we could lose them and hardly notice. The same goes for other inventions like the Wii Remote, linking GBA and Gamecube, etc.

Note that I like that these features are there, this is more a complaint that so few games put them to any use at all.

[dartmonkey]

The more I look at this the more I like it. I won't buy it, but I've gone from WTF to 'that's genius' in the space of an hour.

 

This Moffitt interview (http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-08-28-nintendo-we-dont-want-to-walk-away-from-3d-gaming) is pretty coherent and buzzwordless and it clearly states their intentions for the console. I disagree that it causes confusion for parents. It says exactly what it does on the box. It plays EVERYTHING, and in 2D. It's cheap(er). It's sturdy. After the mixed, bungled Wii U messaging it's strange to see something so razor sharp with its marketing aim.

 

The only disappointment kind of links with Rodi's point about novelties. This signals the end of 3D as a potential gameplay mechanic. It has never been used as such (those 3D block rooms in 3D Land were the closest and could be circumvented by changing the camera angle) so as not to alienate people playing in 2D, but I assume we'll never see a game (or even minigame) that relies on 3D now. Which is a shame.

[Sno]

Even prior to this, i've noticed more and more games with incredibly flimsy implementation of 3D. A hud element or two hovering out in front, with the actual game running completely in 2D, but just kind of oddly sunk into the depth of the screen like it's hoping you might not even notice it's cheating you out of a nicer image. You know, and there were certainly a number of other games that would show just massive performance problems when the 3D was enabled. Nintendo was obviously losing ground not just with players, but with developers too.

So the games with the best 3D have been, not surprisingly, Nintendo's games. Super Mario 3D Land is the big shiny paragon there, an example of how it can positively benefit the gameplay, but it's certainly also had some less tangible benefits for other games.

Back on Fire Emblem Awakening, that game's environments can look a little bland when it's played in 2D, but then you flip on the 3D and it brings out these subtle rolling hills and other details, it looks really great.

 

You know, but if they want to make a cheaper 3DS, that fancy autostereoscopic screen was the one thing they were able to pull out without breaking a ton of games. It might make some games harder to play, but it won't make anything unplayable.

Having thought on it, the 2DS probably makes sense, but it's definitely not for me. I've actually grown to like the 3D, so if i ever replace my launch 3DS, it'll be with an XL.

[Thrik]

The problem is that developers can never really go all-in with the 3D as long as people like me exist. That is, people who have one dominant eye and one weaker eye. There are an awful lot of us, and it renders the ability to perceive 3D from a scale of 'little' to 'not at all'. That's not to say that I don't have depth perception, because I do. But because my brain gives one eye priority, anything that tries to make depth out of a flat surface just doesn't work.

 

On top of that, you've got people who simply don't like 3D. I don't know about you guys, but the vast majority of my social circle is indifferent about 3D films and games at best. So you've got a combination of people who can't perceive 3D properly (which can sometimes result in a horrible blurry mess of a picture depending on the technology), and people who just don't want it. It's easy to see why this niche isn't taking off and developers are loosely implementing it in the same way that they once did with things like PhysX.

 

I'm holding out hope that the Oculus Rift will finally make it possible to both experience and enjoy 3D far more than is currently attainable, as it's a much more authentic 'you're actually there' simulation rather than the weirdly in-between and unnatural thing that is giving a single 2D screen elements of 3D.

[Wrestlevania]

So the games with the best 3D have been, not surprisingly, Nintendo's games. Super Mario 3D Land is the big shiny paragon there, an example of how it can positively benefit the gameplay, but it's certainly also had some less tangible benefits for other games.

 

Whilst it often doesn't add much to the mechanics of play, it can still add significantly to the experience of play. I played dozens of hours of Animal Crossing on my old DS, but New Leaf with the 3D turned on is that bit more wonderful—it's incredibly beautiful to see.

 

Yes, you can still play it with the 3D off. No, 3D doesn't help you achieve anything extra. But the vibrancy of the game and how much more it draws you in makes 3D a worthwhile addition to the experience. Same goes for the rebuilt Ocarina of Time in my opinion.

 

NB: Apologies, Thrik, I'm no trying to troll you.   

[tegan]

I actually found that OoT is what made things like stereoscopic visuals and gyroscopic controls work for me, because I've always had trouble using the analog stick to aim ranged weapons.

[dibs]

I can't leave the 3D in for any amount of time. I have ye greatest trouble holding my DS in The right position for any amount of time.

Also, just got OoT. Never played it before so I'm rather excited!

Also, hardware question: the DS was region free, but the 3ds is regioned. For DS games is there ever compatibility issues because if this? If I manage to find my old DS games from the us can I still play them? Moo.

[Sno]

Also, hardware question: the DS was region free, but the 3ds is regioned. For DS games is there ever compatibility issues because if this? If I manage to find my old DS games from the us can I still play them? Moo.

 

It's been a while since i checked, but i'm pretty sure i've got my facts straight: As long as it's not a DSi cart, there's no region code for the 3DS to identify and potentially block, and original DS carts can be identified by the NTR prefix on the product code. (Very few games with DSi features were ever released, so it's exceedingly unlikely that you own any. If you do have any DSi carts, they'll still run in original DS's. Those games will just hide any DSi features in that circumstance, and since the pre-DSi hardware doesn't check for any region codes, no worry of region locks.)

[syntheticgerbil]

The GB, GBC, and GBA all had their own unique libraries of games.

The GB Pocket just played GB games.

It was the Gameboy's DS lite.

 

That's kind of what I meant, not everyone realizes all of that.

[Wrestlevania]

Had another thought earlier today as to why Nintendo crated the 2DS: people on older DS(i)'s now have a simpler and - critically - cheaper upgrade path, so there's less reason not to.

 

I reckon a significant number of existing DS users have held off upgrading either because of cost, or because they saw no real value in the 3D gimmick to warrant spending that much on very similar hardware. But now that Nintendo's software production for the older machines has dried up, and the 3DS has a burgeoning catalogue of exclusive quality games, the 2DS could be perceived as cheap enough to go for.

 

In that regard at least, I think the 2DS is brilliant.

[Thrik]

I wonder what it actually feels like. Its Fisher Price aesthetic certainly hints that it's built like a tank, making it a great choice for kids over the other relatively thin and snappable DS models.

It definitely seems aimed at kids by FAR over any other possible angle. Cheap, sturdy to the point of looking shit, and extremely simple to interact with — even a baby could handle it.

[tegan]

Unboxing. I have no idea what language this is.

 

 

[Roderick]

That would be Italian.

 

 

I'm slowly warming up to this device. I'll never, for the record, get one, but it has a certain goofy charm.

[Ucantalas]

Wow, it's actually smaller than I expected.


I've come to accept that I am not the target for this device.

[tegan]

That would be Italian.

 

What's Italian for "where did you buy your Lupin III shirt?"

[Roderick]

Papalapoopee? Poopeelapapi Lupin III shirt.

[Gormongous]

What's Italian for "where did you buy your Lupin III shirt?"

 

"Dove hai comprato la maglietta di Lupin III?"

 

Though that's probably super stiff or formal because I'm just taking an internet course...

[miffy495]

Papalapoopee? Poopeelapapi Lupin III shirt.

I have also been playing Mario and Luigi 4.