NINTENDO 3DS

Well yes, I was a bit confused! Oh well, I'd best go and pre-order Nintendogs then :) Oh but I can't decide which one! Possibly Toy Poodle for the pomeranian. Argh! I'm going to have to decide what to name my pups too!

So much pressure!

i think a gamefly subscription is a better idea than buying a bunch of games as the first run of stuff will likely include three good games and a slew of shitty half hour playtime gimmick runs

OTM; this is what I'm doing (except for Ghost Recon, which I will be buying even though it's basically just a DS game). Devil Survivor and OoT 3DS are supposedly aiming for June release dates, though, so it shouldn't be TOO long before there's a bunch of stuff I covet. plus it's not like I don't have 43843546843413547311327 DS games to work through in the meantime.

Ok, spent about an hour with one of these this morning. The 3d sweet spot is a lot less restrictive than I'd feared it'd be, you can actually move left to right a good couple of inches before it blurs. The 3D effect seems to work best with the slider at 30-40%, beyond that it gets hard to focus (for me). The analogue slider control is fantastic. 3D camera is a bit wow too. Pilotwings is really lovely, but that island feels pretty small, not sure how long it'll keep being fun to fly round. AR and Face Raiders are fun for about 3 minutes each, but pretty pointless really (the face recognition in face raiders decided I was a baby boy, despite the beard).

my big question: it's a ds with a bunch of new gimmicks? or it feels like the hardware/graphix/sound/console feel is much improved?

Hard to say, but it feels like the former so far. If it is more powerful than a DSi, pilotwings definitely doesn't seem to be take advantage of it. Maybe other launch games will.

definitely a big step up from DS graphically, whether 3D is your thing or not is another matter

http://i51.tinypic.com/fz9b7q.gif

is that a bullshot

charging up!

It's definitely a big step up, also disregarding the 3DS. You're going from Playstation 1 graphics to Wii graphics (the Conduit guys ported their engine w/all assets directly to the 3DS to test). Some things even look better than on the Wii, like the lighting (see Resident Evil gif above).

And that's much more important to me than the 3D, to have a Nintendo handheld capable of delivering beautiful 3D games, something the DS never could do.

disregarding the 3D effect*

and the analogue stick

You're going from Playstation 1 graphics to Wii graphics

It doesn't look like that though, because the increase in screen resolution really isn't that noticeable.

PS1 was 320 x 240 (76.8k pixels)
Wii is 853 x 480 (409.4k pixels, so about a 5x improvement)

DS was 256 x 192 (49.1k pixels)
3DS is 400 x 240 (96.0k pixels, so less than a 2x improvemet)

I mean sure, it can throw round more polygons and better textures...but I expect the majority of games on here are going to be flat-textured primary colour nintendo titles, and I think getting those to look better really just comes down to rendering them in higher resolutions.

yeh it can push a lot more polys & has modern shaders etc. whether developers take advantage of this or not well who knows? Capcom seem to be making some effort though.
3DS is 800 x 240 on the top screen btw

xp That's not true at all. The horrible texture capabilities, lighting and blocky polygons of the original DS ruined every 3D game's aesthetic appeal. Not sure you remember how DS games look, but Pilotwings (which, despite your remarks that it doesn't take advantage of the hardware, looks exactly like Wii Sports Resort and uses its assets) and especially Street Fighter 4 definitely look generations removed, not to mention the upcoming high-polish games like Resident Evil.

http://www.aussie-nintendo.com/up/news/kingkongspewfactoryds.jpg

You never wanted to see a 3D game on DS. They were all butt-ugly.

Compare Resident Evil gif above to the DS equivalent

http://irishgothichorrorjournal.homestead.com/Composicion_Resident_Evil_DS01.jpg

3DS is 800 x 240 on the top screen btw

Yeah, but you only see 400x240 with each eye, so that doesn't really count for anything.

You never wanted to see a 3D game on DS. They were all butt-ugly.

Oh I dunno, not all of them. Just the ones that overstretched. There were plenty that looked fine.

The point though is that 3D games were very much in the minority, maybe because the machine was underpowered, but more (I think) because nintendo core audience doesn't care about fancy graphical abilities anyway. I mean, what proportion of wii games really take advantage of its increased power over, say, an N64? So I'm not saying the 3DS isn't capable of more powerful stuff than older machines, I'm saying that it having those capabilities doesn't mean people will bother to make use of them.

(c/w iphone gaming at the moment - it's capable of infinity blade, but 99% of the titles on there look like angry birds, cos that's what portable and/or casual gamers seem to want more of, plus they're a shitload cheaper to develop).

... are you saying most Wii games look like N64 games????
have you played either recently, or are you just going by memory? cos N64 is not how you remember.

No no, I'm saying these aren't platforms where people give a shit about the abilities of the hardware.

Hey, maybe I'll be wrong and in a year's time we'll see hundreds of beautiful polygonal 3DS games. I won't complain if it happens! Just not holding my breath.

probably a mix of both. anyway my 3DS has finished charging. here we go!

I mean, what proportion of wii games really take advantage of its increased power over, say, an N64?

All the 3D games I'd say. Mario Galaxy is a graphically fancy game that's pushing the hardware, and that's a big part of the reason it's good and popular. If anything, a game like Metroid Prime 3 demands a more powerful hardware.

Also, while the 3DS launch software selection is so-so like launches often are, none of the games are Angry Birds-like and Nintendo made a whole speech at GDC rejecting the micro-priced model. The iphone example won't fit, that's why they put visuals to the forefront with this system. That's why they're putting out a 3D epic as the first Mario game, and not another 2D throwback.

And 3D games are in the vast majority for this launch (14 out of 15), and will remain so through the system's lifetime, so already we're seeing why the new hardware makes a difference.

Nintendo made a whole speech at GDC rejecting the micro-priced model

Micro price isn't actually their problem though, it's the £15-£20 price point that their huge mainstream audience expect to pay for wii or DS games. I don't think devs can afford to make complex fancy-looking games unless they're going to be able to pump them out at £40 each. And I'm sure they'll try doing that with 3DS to begin with, but I don't know whether nintendo handheld owners are going to accept those prices, at least in big enough numbers for that model to stay viable. It just feels more likely to me that, as happened with DS, the vast majority of 3rd party releases will end up aiming at mid-price while ignoring most of the hardware's potential. Just seems naive to me to believe that developers are going to go into development thinking "what's the prettiest game we can make?" rather than "what's the most profitable?" (First party stuff is different obviously, because then it's in their interests to sell the hardware too).

I'm fighting a corner I don't actually want to be in, here. I'd much rather see 3DS succeed as a proper current-gen console with proper current-gen games. It's just a while now since Nintendo have managed that, and meanwhile they're making a LOT of money out of not even trying to. So why change?

first impressions - i like it, but i have my doubts that its the world beater that Nintendo hopes it is.
hardware is a little bit ugly, what were they thinking with that top lid? - AR games are charming but a little janky - 3D takes a little bit to get used to but works great, the 'sweet spot' has a lot of latitude moving back & forward, not much left to right - 3D slider is more of a focusing thing than a strength thing - battery takes far too long to charge - analog stick is awesome there should be two #lefthanded - Pilotwings looks like Wii Sports Resort, including the jaggies - upscaled DS games look kinda blurry, you can force 1 to 1 mode but that looks kinda small.

xp I'm not sure I follow your DS analogy. The DS is generally praised for its amount of 'traditional'/meaty hardcore games in genres like RPG and strategy, even getting main series exclusive releases like Dragon Quest IX.

There's a lot of cheap shit on Wii and maybe we'll see the same on the 3DS. I wasn't really speaking of how well 3rd party developers will do. All I can speak of so far is what we've seen, and what we've seen makes me really happy the 3DS is a much more capable piece of hardware. That was the outset of this discussion, our own impression of the graphics. Imagining a SSFIV port on the DS makes me ill. Actually, outside of Ubisoft, the 3rd party developers seem to embrace the meatier hardware nicely so far. It's the games themselves that haven't been particularly exciting and mostly ports.

My kids are getting one on Saturday, against my advice tbh but hell they were too excited to wait and have saved up by themselves so. Will be interested to check this out but I can't see any release games that make me wanna drop cash for them.

Ha, just played a bit of Pro Evo and now I'm ready to take back everything, cos it looks amazing. Definitely feels closer to PSP than DS.

ok Streetpass Quest is genius, and will guarantee i carry the thing around for the next few weeks

Got my unit. Man I love the Pilotwings series.

amazong offering a 25 buck discount on one game when you order a ds; do i get sf4, pilotwings or... um... i don't think there are any other launch games?

Pilotwings is wonderful, IF you like that sort of thing. Chill-out music in game form, with added high score-honing gameplay.

SF4 is by all acounts the best portable fighter so far, but I'm not into the genre and can't vouch for that.

Aaaah! It's here! It's here! I wasn't expecting it until Monday and as such I have no games!

Er, to Game, or CEX, or Game Focus, or...!

if it makes you feel any better my copy of Ghost Recon shows up today but Amazon says I won't get my 3DS until like Tuesday

btw this year I finally get to go to E3 where I will be Streetpassing like a boss

kids have got theirs but no game yet, seem happy with whatever little gizmos are pre-installed on it, wandering round the house playing the augmented reality thing

soooo sooo undecided on this

waiting for the 2nd iteration: nicer design, better battery, refined firmware

Refined firmware? It's already updated the firmware once, you don't need a new unit for that.

parts costs estimated at $100
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-03-24-why-the-nintendo-3ds-costs-GBP230-article

company in huge markup shocker! unlocked iphone 4 £505, parts cost £125 btw.

Yeah coz nobody does the research or prototyping ot design or development or testing or etc etc.

those are sunk costs. (but the price is based on maximizing profits so i know the manufacturing costs aren't very important either.)

to me it just means the price will go down once they get some competition (oh hai psp2)

i'm skeptical about that - especially comparing the last several DS hardware releases vs. the last several PSP releases. the DS prices keep going up, sadly

i'm PSP2 will be a nice system, but I'm not sure what Sony can do differently in terms of marketing strategy to fight Nintendo, they don't seem to be able to fight Nintendo on one side nor Apple on the other

of course, there's always the possibility that 3DS will underperform due to the price, but maybe that's why they released it in march instead of november...

refined firmware as in gba virtual console and w/e else updates

i honestly will be shocked if you can walk in to any store anywhere and buy these for the next two months; "underperforming" is going to be on an interesting sliding scale

one thing that i've noticed is that films & photos have a preset level of 3D, you can't use the slider to alter them - games manage this cos the game engine is being processed in realtime. but one persons comfort level of 3D effect is different from the next eg. i have it at a very low level with the games so far - the nature film that comes with the first firmware upgrade in the EU has some scenes that look great to me but others that just do not work for my eyes, double images and eyestrain agogo, so there's no way i'm going to be able to watch a whole film on this thing.

based on my own anecdotal experiences today, i don't predict a rousing success for this system, at least immediately. i was able to walk into two stores that had plenty of stock of the system. Best Buy didn't even bother putting up a section with the games - they just threw them onto a wheeled cart with no signs or anything

i dunno, could very well be my own stinginess but i think Nintendo kinda shot themselves in the foot with the $250 pricing

My Nintendogs and Cats have arrived! Hooray, I can play a game! So far I have taken a 3d photo of my Pikachu slippers! Amazing. I can wait for some games I actually want to play to be released...

... for a while!

xpost

I agree; there was only one GameStop in LA which had enough preorders to do a midnight launch, and when I walked by around 7 PM there were only 2 or 3 people in line. I was there when the Wii launched and let me tell you, this was no Wii launch.

personally I think the launch software (both in terms of game availability and system functionality) did more to cripple interest than the price. rabid diehard fans will pay $250, but it's a much harder sell when you're asking that much for something you're pushing out early to make your quarterly earnings statement look robust. plus a lot of people pay for things like these by trading in their old systems, but anyone with any DSiWare basically has to hold on until May if they want to keep all the stuff they've bought.

the DS had a similar launch line up iirc. can't remember how well it sold initially but I don't think it printed money from launch. they need to get demo units in stores, the concept is neat but it's not till you see it in action do you appreciate actually how nifty it is