An October launch pre-dates that expiry date by a full six months - and gives Nintendo a three-month run-up to Christmas.
One very senior publishing source told CVG: "It's a surprise - we were expecting it much closer to Christmas. But I suppose it gives Nintendo the opportunity to get it front and centre in people's minds nice and early.
"In my experience, you don't launch a product that early to Christmas unless you're confident in it - and going to spend a lot of money on it. We're reassured that Nintendo is going to give it some decent backing in Q4."
The 3DS allows gamers to enjoy software with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses - but will also play regular DS titles.
Presumably this is going to cost more than the DSi XL seeing as they like to differentiate new hardware with a higher price, or do we reckon the DSi and DSi XL will be lowered in price for Xmas so the entry point can still be Ł149 for the new one.
Personally I'm getting a little bit frustrated that Nintendo keep announcing and releasing new kit so soon after releasing a new model.
Do you think people will buy the 3DS or in the back of their minds be thinking "they've not announced it yet but is it worth waiting 6 months to see if they announce a 3DS XL"
I think Nintendo are making a massive mistake releasing this around the same time as the next Pokemon game is released on the previous system, I think it will hurt sales as Black and White would have made amazing launch titles for the 3DS and Japan would just eat them up
I think Nintendo are making a massive mistake releasing this around the same time as the next Pokemon game is released on the previous system, I think it will hurt sales as Black and White would have made amazing launch titles for the 3DS and Japan would just eat them up
I agree, though I think that Nintendo (so far) are omitting certain truths about Pokémon's fifth generation. I'm half expecting cross compatibility, in a similar way to the original Gold and Silver's CB/GBC compatibility.
I really hope i'm proved wrong, but i'd put hard-earned money on it being not far removed, in terms of graphical oomph, to the DS. - As much as i'd like to see it packed with the GameCube's processing power, i'm preparing for intense disappointment.
The 3DS is built on some variation on Nvidias Tegra 2 chipset. Which in theory is massively more powerful than the Gamecube, (like at least 6 times as powerful) but no-one knows what Nintendo have done to it.
It could be that to keep costs down its a cut back version, but whatever they do to it it will mean the 3DS will be easily the most powerful handheld console ever.
Tegra 2 has two ARM processors running at upto 1GHZ each and 6 additional lower clocked processors to handle graphics, audio, video decoding etc etc.
Tegra 2 is about 4 times faster than the original Tegra, and the original Tegra was happily running Quake 3 at 720p with 4xAA at 40 frames per second.
I don't think power's going to be a problem, it'll be unbelievably fast at the low resolution of a handheld however much Nintendo cut costs.
The new 3DS can arguably be called "negative 3D" since the 3D effect runs into the screen. I first read about it on the NDS-Gear blog (check out the video of the 3DS in action) and it certainly looks like it can generate new gaming concepts much like the Wii did.
For example, look at how the player's tilting the screen to find the letters in the video. Something console gamers never had to do before...very much a refreshing idea, much like the Wii. Looks like Nintendo has hit the nail on the head again.
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