According to Nintendo at a press event today in New York, the Nintendo 3DS handheld, will hit stores on March 27, and will cost The glasses-free 3D device will come in two shades at launch: "Cosmo Black" or "Aqua Blue," and will launch with these first-party games: Pilot Wings Resort, Nintendogs + Cats, Steel Diver, Zelda Ocarina of Time 3D and Kid Icarus Uprising.
The 3DS will come with a game called Face Raiders installed, in which you take images of your face and add them to a shooting gallery.
The $249.99 price is a bit cheaper than I had thought, and the launch line-up of games is pretty impressive -- who doesn't want to play 3D Pilot Wings? -- so I'm pretty impressed. What about you? Are you going to be lining up to purchase a 3DS?
Its pricer than what we're used to with handhelds, but given the tech, I think its fair. The only thing that's really stoping me from buying it there and then is knowing how Nintendo likes to do multiple iterations with their handhelds, I'll wait. Hopefully they got it right with the online this time.
Agreed - while the tech is impressive, and I'm jealous of early adopters for having the new hotness. The viewing angle on the 3D, as I understand it, is quite small (though this does not diminish the awesome). I'm excited for it, and I'll probably be first in line for the 3DS lite.
My DS Lite is getting pretty long in the tooth as it is, so I might just wind up picking one of these up. Though it'll have to be a few weeks after the release date. I'm just glad it wasn't in the $300+ range like I was fearing.
"It's you Americans. There's something about nipples you hate. If this were Germany, we'd be romping around naked on the stage here."
General Zod wrote:My DS Lite is getting pretty long in the tooth as it is, so I might just wind up picking one of these up.
I still have an original DS, an original DS bought on the very day of the UK release in fact. So the same might be getting true for me
I’ve avoided the DS Lite, the DSi and the Nintendo DSi XL but I might well get the 3DS. It looks really interested, but I’ll probably wait until I see if there are any good games coming out for it.
General Zod wrote:My DS Lite is getting pretty long in the tooth as it is, so I might just wind up picking one of these up.
I still have an original DS, an original DS bought on the very day of the UK release in fact. So the same might be getting true for me
I’ve avoided the DS Lite, the DSi and the Nintendo DSi XL but I might well get the 3DS. It looks really interested, but I’ll probably wait until I see if there are any good games coming out for it.
The Nintendo 3DS will have friend codes similar to the friend codes used for the Wii. Before you freak out and relive the nightmare that is Wii friend codes, Nintendo has made some changes that make using the 3DS friend codes easy and convenient. You will still have to type in the numbers unless you're on the same local wireless network, if that's the case you can simply click a button to swap codes. Keep reading for more details.
First off there will only be a single code per handheld console, not a new code for each game like we've seen with the Wii and DS. You will only need to exchange codes once in order to play together with all online enabled games. Another feature I appreciate is a hub that will show you which friends are online and the games they are playing, promoting a sense of community Nintendo was previously lacking.
So now that Nintendo is only a decade behind, we're happy?
I don't get why they're so obsessed with friend codes anyway. Let people link their console to a meaningful string of some kind (call it a 'name') and it's still just as secure so long as you don't make it searchable, but giving someone your 'friend code' isn't a massively tiresome exercise in suck.
Stark wrote:I don't get why they're so obsessed with friend codes anyway.
Because Nintendo doesn't want to get sued by parents.
There was a lawsuit back in the late 80s or early 90s and since then Nintendo has been extremely paranoid about getting sued, which is why they have warnings about everything everywhere. Like when they said not to let young kids play the 3DS because it might damage their developing vision, and then eye doctors were like "I don't think that would happen".
Mayabird is my girlfriend
Justice League:BotM:MM:SDnet City Watch:Cybertron's Finest "Well then, science is bullshit. "
-revprez, with yet another brilliant rebuttal.
Yeah I can understand not having the identities be searchable, but using a string of numbers or a word is really no different except from a usability standpoint.
You only need to exchange friend codes if you're doing it with somebody online, if you're playing with someone on Local Wifi they confirmed during both EU and US events that you can simply hit "add friend" and it will include them. Since you give nicknames to the people you add, the system is reasonably painless and functional. It's not like you need to add someone as a friend to play with anonymous people online.
What is actually the worst thing about this isn't the friend codes, it's the tied-to-system instead of tied-to-account nature of it, i.e. you can't log into your account on someone else's 3DS because there is no account. DSi was similar, and you can get transferred from an old DSi to a new DSi, but I'm not sure how it works and wehther you have to have both physical units with you or not. It sucks to be you if your system gets lost or damaged I guess.
The other news to come out was that the US gets 30 "Launch Window games" (Launch window defined as 6 weeks post launch according to the Nintendo Reps), and Europe gets 25. They didn't give out an MSRP for Europe, they said "Retailers will be setting the price", which is code for "you're gonna get bent over, suck it Europe!" Some stores have tentatively put up 249.99 Euros, and some UK stores have put up 229.99 Pounds, some 219.99, and one put up 189.99. Price confusion, ho!
Nothing announced for Australia yet. In the EU event they said they were aiming for a worldwide launch before March 31st, but didn't specify if they were going to meet it in all regions or not. They just said "we're pleased to announce we will be meeting that in Europe". As for price, if you import from the US it will be ~250 AU + shipping, but I have a feeling it will be 349 - 399 AU.
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
adam_grif wrote:You only need to exchange friend codes if you're doing it with somebody online, if you're playing with someone on Local Wifi they confirmed during both EU and US events that you can simply hit "add friend" and it will include them. Since you give nicknames to the people you add, the system is reasonably painless and functional. It's not like you need to add someone as a friend to play with anonymous people online.
Yeah, but when I have to add someone's code to the Wii to get the basic "friend" stuff, then do it again to get the WiiSpeak stuff, then do it again in each game (often with an ADDITIONAL in-game friend code to boot) then it's just fucking stupid.
It is in fact, literally, layers upon layers of stupid.
I'm not sure if you're just casually bashing the Wii, unrelated to the discussion in this thread, or whether you missed the part of this thread where it was established that there is a single, unified friend code for the system, which all games and applications are linked to. So there is only one code per person, not per game.
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
adam_grif wrote:I'm not sure if you're just casually bashing the Wii, unrelated to the discussion in this thread, or whether you missed the part of this thread where it was established that there is a single, unified friend code for the system, which all games and applications are linked to. So there is only one code per person, not per game.
You mean just like there was going to be for the Wii?
Even the 360 for all it's networking goodness isn't immune from this. Look at all the issues that EA Online accounts and other similar ventures cause when there are multiple layers of logon/authent involved.
The Wii was designed from day one to work the way it does. If you're going to argue that developers will ignore their unified online system and insist on using their own friend codes, I'm not sure what anybody in the world could possibly do to allay your fears. Reggie and the NoE boss both went on stage to explicitly state that the system would not make use of individual friend codes for games.
EA will be EA, but that's hardly a dig against the system or Nintendo.
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
weemadando wrote:You mean just like there was going to be for the Wii?
I don't think Nintendo ever promised that for the Wii, did they? IIRC it's actually the DSi that can use a friend code solely generated by the console as opposed to one generated by the console and the game cartridge, but so far there hasn't been a single game outside of DSiWare that uses that feature.
Some other stuff I haven't seen mentioned that is awesome is that the Operating System runs a bunch of stuff in the background while you're gaming, accessible by pressing the "Home" button on the system. This drops singleplayer games into a suspend state, and while you're in this menu you can use a web browser, open your friend list, look at the spot pass / street pass activity log and use a notepad application to jot down notes with the touch screen. You switch back and forth with a press of the home button. The notepad and web browser functions are awesome in particular. Gamefaqs, ho!
A scientist once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the Earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the centre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy.
At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.
The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the tortoise standing on?'
'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
Nintendo 3DS won’t be able to download games or access the Web when it launches, Nintendo said Wednesday.
Although the company has plans to add a digital games store, Internet browser and other functionality to its $250 3-D gaming handheld, these key features won’t be online when 3DS ships in the U.S. on March 27, Nintendo said in a statement following a press briefing in New York City.
Other functions that won’t be ready for launch include software that allows users to transfer their downloaded Nintendo DSiWare titles from DS to 3DS and the ability to play 3-D movies.
Nintendo did not say when the “eShop” would go online, although it did reiterate that standard DSiWare, new games for 3DS and Virtual Console games from Game Boy and Game Boy Color would be included in the shop when it does.
This is disappointing, to say the least — it’s a temporary problem, but it sends the message that Nintendo really isn’t as serious about downloadable games as it should be at this point. This should have been ready to roll at launch and installed on every single DSi user’s machine. Instead, it’s incumbent upon users to get online and download the update before they can start giving Nintendo (and importantly, indie game developers) money.
