Nintendo Announces 3D Successor of Nintendo DS 232
An anonymous reader writes "Nintendo has posted a press release (PDF) titled 'Launch of New Portable Game Machine,' promoting a new, upcoming handheld game console temporarily named the 'Nintendo 3DS,' which will feature 3D graphics without the need for any sort of special glasses. It will be backward-compatible with DS and DSi games."
An article at Kotaku speculates on how the 3D tech will work. The launch window is vague — sometime between April 2010 and March 2011. More details will be revealed at E3 in June.
Re:Virtual Boy (Score:4, Insightful)
Virtual Boy anyone? I thought they did this before :P
The VirtualBoy should never have left the prototype stage. To play it you had to sit in an awkward position and the "3D" was pretty much just a gimmick. E.g. in Wario the blocks swing in and out of the screen instead of up and down like in Mario games. I recall wondering what Nintendo was thinking when they released a product even the ardent Ninentdo fanboys back then had trouble praising.
Re:Virtual Boy (Score:2, Insightful)
Agreed. There were a couple of fun games for it, but the thing really was pretty much a waste of money.
Re:Virtual Boy 2? (Score:5, Insightful)
But unlike the other companies in the industry, when it rehashes titles, Nintendo usually creates games you haven't played before.
Actually, they're sort of the exception to the rule that game companies abuse their trademarks to basically do nothing of any value. Nintendo uses their trademarks to make good games sell even better.
Betting against Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)
I thought the GameCube would be Nintendo's last console, but they survived through the worst sales they ever had with a console.
I thought the DS' twin screen gimmick would never stand against the PSP, but the DS went on to become the best selling portable of all time.
I thought the Revolution controller was a gimmick, but it touched a nerve with gamers when it was publicly playable at E3.
I thought the name of the Wii would prevent it from ever being taken seriously, but people got over it.
I thought the inferior graphical capabilities of the Wii would sink it, but the sales numbers showed the market didn't care.
I thought the Wii was just a fad when it first came out, but the sales stayed high and continued to break records three years later.
I thought Wii Fit wouldn't take off, but then it went on to exceed the PS3's entire fanbase.
I thought the 3D graphics of the 3DS would add nothing substantial to games, but by then, I learned to stop betting against Nintendo.
Re:Betting against Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)
We could go further back in history, you know:
When the Famicom came out, people thought video gaming was dead because Atari and its competitors completely imploded under the collapsing home video gaming bubble they created. It sparked a new and viable market that continues to this day.
When the PlayStation crushed the competition, people thought Sony would never look back and that Nintendo was finished in the living room. Two generations later, Nintendo is back on top.
Could this new 3DS be a flop? Maybe, but with Iwata at the helm and Miyamoto still cranking out great stuff, I doubt it-- Iwata learned several key lessons from Nintendo's failures, and Miyamoto is a gaming genius.