By Winda Benedetti
The Nintendo 3DS portable game machine has just launched in Japan and stores have already sold out of their initial supply. And as Nintendo gears up to release the gadget in North America, the question is: Will the same thing happen here?
Will western consumers decide that playing 3-d games without the 3-d glasses is worth $ 250? Are we willing to drop the kind of cash we'd pay for a home game console on a handheld game machine? (You can purchase a Wii or an Xbox 360 for $ 50 less.) Is the 3DS so amazing that we should start lining up in front of electronics stores right now?
Nintendo 3DS will launch its game machine March 27th here in North America for $ 249.95. According to reports from Japan, retailers there — swamped by enormous lines during this past weekend's launch — quickly sold out of their first shipments, going through some 400,000 units.
Are you planning to buy a Nintendo 3DS?Absolutely! I can't wait to play 3-d games without those blades 3-D glasses.I'm tempted. But I'm still trying to decide.
$ 250 is too much. My trusty DS Lite/DSi will do the job just fine.
Forget the 3DS. The portable game gadgets I'm waiting for is. .. (tell us in the comments below)
What's this three dee everyone keeps going on about?
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I recently had a chance to spend some time with to 3DS and I can say it's a compelling and wow-inducing machine with lots of bells, whistles and features that make that $ 250 price tag seem fair. But is it a must have game machine? As in, is it something you must have as soon as it arrives in stores?
I'll save my final verdict for our full review but I can say that, as of right now, I'm a bit torn.
The 3DS is a sleek, stylish gadget, about the same size as the best-selling Nintendo DS Lite and DSi. It's got that smart Nintendo DS clamshell design with the top screen being the one that shows off the 3-d images and the bottom screen being the touch screen. The top screen is larger than the older-model Nintendo DS Lite or DSi screens at 2.77 inches and the bottom screen is 3.02 inches.
The 3DS also has three cameras — two of which are designed to let you take your own 3-d pictures. And it has a Circle Pad, which is a much-appreciated analog stick for game control.
Meanwhile, seeing games in 3-d right there in your hands without any glasses is certainly the kind of thing that drops jaws.
The 3DS ' screens look great with their 800 × 240 pixels (top) and 320 × 240 pixels resolution display (bottom). Playing to 3DS launch game like Nintendogs + Cats "makes you feel like you could reach out and actually touch your virtual pet. Meanwhile "Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition" simply jumps right off the screen in all its butt-kicking glory.
3-D + "Nintendogs + Cats" = seriously petable virtual pets.
And playing the augmented reality challenges in "AR Games" (a title that comes pre loaded on all 3DS devices) is a mind-boggling, surreal blast. In this game you use the 3DS ' cameras and motion sensors to look around your own real-world environment and interact with virtual creatures and items super imposed there.
But I have to say, after that wow factor wore off, I did find myself wanting to turn the 3-D off at times and just go back to good ol' 2-D gaming. Of course, the nice thing about the 3DS is that you can do just that — the 3-d slider allows you to easily adjust the intensity of the 3-d visuals as well turn off the 3-D completely while you're playing.
I don't believe that extended 3-d gaming on the 3DS would make me hurl (as 3-d viewing does to some people), but I can say that my eyes felt more strained as I played. More importantly, there's one question that nags at me — how good will the 3-d viewing really be when we're playing games that ask us to move our bodies around?
The 3DS comes with both a motion sensor gyro sensor and embedded. And several of the 3DS games I had a chance to test drive — "Steel Diver," "AR Games" and "Face" Raiders "(another pre-loaded title) — all task players with moving about during the game.
"Steel Diver," for example, is a game that has, at times, you turn your body right and left to search for enemy ships to gun down. It's as if you're in a submarine looking around through a periscope. The 3DS's motion sensors detect your movement and adjust the on-screen view as you turn your body, looking for enemy targets.
But the thing is, to see the 3-d imagery correctly, you have to keep your head directly in front of your 3DS. There's only a small window for wiggle room. Moving your body around and keeping your head aligned with the gadget at the same time isn't horribly difficult. But it does require some extra attention and, if you move your eyes too far out of alignment, the visuals go wonky.
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