As we and others have made abundantly clear, Nintendo essentially stole the show at E3 with the 3DS unveiling. The excitement and industry buzz surrounding the new handheld has been a huge lift for Nintendo, and now people want to know exactly how much the device will cost and when it will launch. The thing is, Nintendo may not have actually shown us its final 3DS model at E3.
In a lengthy sit-down interview to be published soon on IndustryGamers, Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime acknowledged that Nintendo was seeking feedback from attendees and may still tweak the design of the 3DS.
"You know typically, at an E3, our engineers are looking for feedback. You know, we have an army of Nintendo representatives out on our show floor talking to attendees, getting reactions to everything in the device: the depth slider, the buttons, the sliding pad that is, essentially, an analog-type stick. These are things that we’re looking to get reaction to, including the overall button placement. When we get all that feedback, then we’ll finalize the design," he told us.
We followed up and asked Reggie if that's why Nintendo held back on a launch date and pricing scheme as well. He then proceeded to guarantee that 3DS will make it out in all major territories before Nintendo's fiscal year ends.
"Well, the reason we haven’t announced a launch date or pricing is that, first, we wanted to get reaction here. Secondly, we’ll be making individual market decisions in terms of what’s happening in Japan, what’s happening in the Americas, what’s happening in Europe. The one thing, for sure, is that we will launch in all of our major markets by March 31, 2011," he stated.
We'll have much more from our interview shortly. Stay tuned!
3 Comments
June 21, 2010
It's looking great to me apart from one very important thing that is also missing from all iterations of the PSP - another analog stick/thumb slider. Another thumb slider will fit between the 4 buttons on the right hand side of the 3DS and the power switch. This is ESSENTIAL, I'm a PSP owner and have been screaming for a dual nubbed PSP for years!
June 22, 2010
You guys can reach Nintendo. And the 3DS isn't yet finalized. Please please contact nintendo and let them know these are the changes to the 3DS that gamers most desperately want to see. Remember this is the handheld we will be stuck playing for the next six-seven years. Even if you're happy with it now, you might not feel the same way a couple of years from now if these features aren't implemented.
1. Since the new 3DS can finally replicate console fpss and action games, include Dual Analog Sticks on the 3DS. This was the main compliant about the PSP everyone had, and anyone who's used the PSP to play action games and fps realize how seamless and engrossing the experience would be if you just add the second stick. It lets you move your character so fluidly without having to spare even a moment to aim. Without them, it can't replicate the smooth gameplay that games like Halo and Call of Duty offer and players will be stuck with very clunky controls for shooters and other action games for the next six years. Perhaps most importantly of all, it would be handy for left handed gamers. With the current set up of the analog stick, left handed gamers don't even have the option to play first person shooters and other action games, which is a crying shame. It would also give game designers more options for control schemes.
2. For the top screen, please use a 4.3 inch screen (it's a standard size used in lots of cellphones and the Sony PSP) and a screen resolution of 512 x 384 rather than the current resolution of a meager 400 x 240 resolution.
The biggest reason for this is because this would allow for pitch perfect backward compatibilty to the DS screen. It would contain exactly double the resolution of the DS, and thus each DS pixel could be represented with four pixels. This is what Apple did with the iPhone 4. They exactly double the resolution of the old phone, to 960x640, in order to create pitch perfect reproductions of all apps that were designed for the old resolution of 480 x 320.
Currently, with the odd resolution that Nintendo is using (as well as the tiny screen rather than a nice 4.3 inch screen), old DS games will not look good. They will either rather to streched out and thus blurry, rather than be pixel by pixel reproductions, or they would have to have giant black bars all around and thus not make for a great experience. Also with that screen size and resolution, watching 3D movies on the 3DS (or even browsing the web or reading ebooks) would be a treat. While we are at it, it wouldn't kill Nintendo to put slighly higher megapixel cameras than the .3 megapixel cameras they are currently using. .3 megapixel cameras are a stone age technology from 1998. Nowadays, companies can cheaply buy up to 8 megapixel cameras. So nintendo should be able to use 1 megapixel cameras for mere pennies per console.
3. Don't skimp on the ram. Nintendo is notorious for using too little ram on their systems. This was the main bottleneck for the N64, Gamecube and the Wii. The Gamecube used a meager 40mbs of ram. I hope the 3DS uses atleast 128 mbs. This shouldn't be difficult considering virtually every smartphone on the market is using 4x as much ram, 512 mbs of ram to be exact. Every single generation of consoles is bottle necked by the ram more than any other component. Game makers always find innovative to squeeze better performance of the GPU, but they always run into a brick wall in terms of the number of textures and other in game assets they can squeeze into the systems ram a few years into the generation. This happens every single generation, with every single console, without fail. Lets hope Nintendo minimizes this with the 3DS.
4. Use the 2008 PICA200 GPU instead of the 2006 PICA200 GPU. It's still up in the air which GPU Nintendo is opting to use. Both are made by the same company and work similarly. But the 2008 version is a far more capable one with four times as many pipelines. Both GPU are incredibly power efficient and cheap (they've both been out for years), but the 2008 is a far better performer than the 2006 model. I hope that's what Nintendo is going with, as this is the GPU we will be stuck with for 6-7 years. But Nintendo has a history of using outdated components.
5. Please please offer antialiasing. It's not that difficult. Even the original Nintendo DS offered antialiasing. But from every single one of the tech demos at E3, the games lacked antialiasing. This was the reason for all the zaggies in otherwise masterful looking games like Resident Evil and Metal Gear Solid. If Nintendo does this one thing, games would look fantastic, especially in 3D.
June 23, 2010
A few things to bear in mind, wikoogle:
The 3DS shown at E3 was not actually a finished product, nor was the software shown with it--which is why it's coming out sometime in the next year as opposed to right now like the Xbox 360 S. I would bet dollars to donuts the final 3DS will indeed have antialiasing.
I've heard a lot of people begging for a second stick, but I don't think the 3DS needs it. Shooters existed even on the normal DS, such as Metroid Prime Hunters, the CoD series, and Moon, and it wasn't the controls that held them back--even without a single analogue stick. The touchscreen really worked quite well, with greatly increased accuracy making up for having to 'mouse back' with the stylus for longer turns. It would be nice for left-handed gamers to have a second stick, but it would also be very cramped, especially considering there's already a near-useless d-pad cluttering up the other side. The best thing would be to move it to the right side to give the southpaws something at least, but I don't see that happening.
As to screen size Nintendo has a history of never upgrading their handhelds to be pitch-perfect. the GBA gave you a native/stretch option for GB/C games, and the DS Lite did the same with GBA games. I don't think the black bars look bad at all, and while double the res would look nice, the 3ds would have some particular problems with that. For one neither screen is same size as the older DS' and the top screen has a different ratio altogether. The top screen also needs twice the horizontal pixels for the 3D effect anyway. Not impossible, just tricky, and maybe more expensive than it seems.
On that note, keep in mind that nintendo also has a history of releasing lower tech, affordable systems. The main reason the ds got off to such a head start against the psp was not that it had everything gamers at the time wanted in it, but was rather that it was around $100 cheaper at launch. The tech in the 3DS has already greatly surpassed what I thought it would be
Also keep in mind that this is not the system we'll be playing for the next 6-7 years, this is only the *first version* of that system. I can easily see Nintendo spinning out a 3DS-XL in the next 3 years, and that might give them the real-estate for a second slider pad and other upgrades. Nintendo has already shown they aren't afraid of massively upgrading future iterations in similar ways: they put out the DSi with entirely new camera and online functionality to the point that some were questioning whether it was even a comparable system to the DS Lite.