NINTENDO 3DS

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

p.sure my launch game on DS was the yoshi balloon rubbish :/

i read somewhere that launch stock was 3 or 4 times that of DS or Wii. demand is not going to ramp up until they release some must-have software though - guess we'll have till xmas for that.
scanning QR codes is pretty neat!

scan my 68 Beatles, yo

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0028.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0029.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0030.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0031.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0018.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0019.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0020.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0021.jpg

mine just showed up at the office! I just spent the last hour showing it off to some work folks, one of whom is going to Gamestop straight after work to get one, so I guess that's going to be this thing's viral trajectory rather than everyone going I WANT IT all at once.

fuccin AR shit is OUT OF THIS WORLD though. I was seriously not expecting it to be so impressive but the moment I realized you could walk around the target I damn near filled the cup. Face Raiders owns too; it is a monstrous amount of fun to run around shooting Jibjab-style floating versions of your own fat head. and they REALLY need to be working on an AR Pokemans Snap RIGHT NOW.

also the build is way more solid than the blue outer casing would have led me to believe; the analog pad in particular feels REALLY solid, like what I wish the PSP's felt like. loving the dashboard update too where you can actually go back to software (at least 3DS software, haven't tried a DS game yet) instead of hard-dropping out of whatever you're playing.

tl;dr: I was fully prepared to be a skeptic but as it turns out this thing owns immensely.

no Club Nintendo points for Ghost Recon tho :( I thought Nintendo was supposed to be going balls-out for third party publishers now?

Ridge Racer is butt ugly. Stay clear, Namco didn't get the memo that this can push more than PS1 polys. Disappointing because the 3D works well enough and it could've been a pretty and mindless arcade racer, perfect for launch. Gonna trade it back and wait for another racer to come along.

amazon just shipped mine!
they're doing $25 off one game and $35 off for two, which is basically buy one get one or get one for ten bucks.
Do i get pilotwings and sf4 for $40 or just sf4 for $10?

also, why did i buy the black?

Pilotwings and SF4. PW perfect between fighting sessions.

A walled garden only works when there is an actual garden within the walls.

The tv ads in the UK are soooo rubbish. "Numpty from Penge" sez "omg! it's like... 3d... and stuff..." and then gurns a bit? I know I know you can't really show the actual 3D really well, but unconvincing numpties in a white room looking a bit simple? I R not advert guru but...?!

I have taken about 100 pics of my Nintendog (Mrs Gale, she responds to Cathy!) and next is a fun game called 'figure out how to move them from 3ds to real world'.

The AR stuff is absolutely sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, face raiders is terrifyingly good and will work even better in the pub. A personal highlight was putting a Zelda hat on Mrs Gale but then again give me that option and it's not like I'm NOT going to fall over howling in glee, is it...

I got Ridge Racer and PES2010 with mine. I'm really enjoying PES2010 now I've started a Champions League campaign.
The augmented reality stuff is so good. The potential seems vast.

Yesterday I walked around town for a couple of hours and managed to streetpass ONE person! Hurrah! StreetQuest is pretty brill as well - must go hang out with more nerds. Hmm is that London DS group still meeting up I wonder...

(I er, diverted by Forbidden Planet and walked around JUST IN CASE, presuming, you know - geeks?be shopping? 3ds?)

I have no idea WHERE I might have passed the streetpass person though. He is called Jacky and his favourite game is Ridge Racer...

I've met 10 people on Streetpass, I think almost all were at Victoria/Waterloo/King's Cross stations going by the times. My mii is well on the way to having more of a social life than me.

should be getting mine today! excited!

a social life or a 3ds?

The latter. Social life due to begin in June.