While we'd already seen some tech demos of PlayStation Move and Kinect (formerly Natal) at previous industry events, nothing prepared us for what we were going to see with Nintendo's new 3DS. Other than some sparse information months ago when Nintendo first announced the device, very little was known about the new platform, what it would look like, what kinds of games we'd see and, most importantly, how well the 3D functionality would work on a tiny portable screen.
The novelty of seeing the 3DS for the first time certainly helps, but that quickly fades away if the 3DS can't live up to the hype. Luckily for Nintendo, the 3DS has been blowing people away. Just about every person we've talked with (whether colleagues or industry professionals on the show floor) has come away thoroughly impressed by the 3DS. We, too, got a good 25-30 minutes of hands-on time to check out some tech demos, trailers, concepts and 3D movie trailers, and having witnessed it all in convincing 3D, we're confident to say that Nintendo stole this year's E3.
We played some Pilotwings, Nintendogs, Samurai Warrior, Ridge Racer, and watched interactive videos of Metal Gear Solid Snake Eater, Resident Evil, a movie trailer of How to Train Your Dragon, and even a series of old NES titles like Zelda, Super Mario Bros, Punch-Out and Excitebike converted into 3D. They all looked quite good in 3D, although seeing old classics like the original Zelda in 3D feels very strange and isn't the best use of the technology. Some games certainly benefit from 3D far more than others. The most impressive perhaps was Metal Gear Solid, which showcased an incredibly vivid jungle landscape all in 3D.
The DreamWorks Dragon trailer also looked terrific, and we're very curious to see what kind of movie studio support the 3DS ultimately receives. And since hardware specifications haven't been revealed, it's not clear how these movies would be delivered - over the web to a hard drive or big SD card, we guess (selling movies on cartridges seems unlikely and would probably demonstrate terrible artifacts from video compression).
Although we came away very impressed with the 3DS and its richer graphics (on par with Wii or better), the 3D visuals really do require a very straight-on viewing angle. If you move your head or tilt the portable even slightly one way or another, things get blurry quickly. This also can be a problem if you move the 3DS around a bit while furiously tapping buttons. That said, the developer support already seems quite strong and the wide variety of games for the device is very encouraging. We'd imagine/hope that developers will be able to create better looking 3D games on the device that have much less blurriness or "ghosting" as time goes on and they get more familiar with the hardware and the 3D tech in general.
We'd expect the 3DS to retail for at least $200 or more and easily sell a boatload of units at that price. While Nintendo may be feeling some pressure in the motion controls department from Kinect and Move, the company has shown once again that they're far and away at the top of the portable heap. Sony had an opportunity to strike back during E3 with a new PSP model, and instead all we got were some game announcements and a new marketing kid to join Kevin Butler. Many had expected the rumored PSP2 to be announced, but Sony almost seems to be conceding defeat on the portable side. If they want to regain any momentum with the PSP, they'll need to counter the 3DS very soon, and even then it'll be hugely difficult to overcome the Nintendo handheld juggernaut.
Kinect, Move and 3D gaming on PS3 are all interesting in their own right, but make no bones about it: E3 2010 was 3DS' time to shine.
1 Comments
June 18, 2010
Great Article! Thats some good information about the 3ds now I know I will have to get the 3DS!