3DS My Two Cents

With all the hype of the new 3DS, I thought I'd actually dig out my old DS from its Nintendo "house" under a pile of mess.

Since my world has become iPhonic, I really neglected it for a long time. It's still quite a bit of fun! I love the old Rhythm Tengoku, and Elite Beat Agents (wasn't there meant to be a number 2?).

Before getting to work I saw that they had some demo 3DS models for us to try out at Sofmap in Yokohama (7th floor of Atre).

I tried Asphalt, Street Fighter, Samurai Warrior Chronicles and Professor Leyton.

Overall the 3D effect is pretty trippy. It kind of reminded me of a pop-up book. It gave some nice depth to a 2D Street Fighter. With the faster motion of Asphalt, it didn't take long for me to get a bit of a headache though.

Should you get one of these?

If you take away the 3D effect (which you can do), the games don't look any better than a standard DS. It would've been great to see them up the resolution. The analog circle pad felt nice.

The region locking is a big letdown, especially for us foreigners here in Japan. Although I SHOULD be learning more Japanese, I appreciate some games in English. What if I want to buy a game in Australia? Too bad I guess.

Nintendo must've been annoyed about the flash cart "problem", but I see it as more sales of hardware. One of my favourite homebrew games is Still Alive DS, quite a cool 2D version of Portal. (If only they'd bring the real version to the iPhone).

With these restrictions I wouldn't be surprised if the hacking community race to break it wide open.

I think they have priced it too high here. Sure, the 3D is its dangling carrot, but is it really worth almost double a DS? They will retail here for 25,000 yen ($298 AU) without a game. In Australia, Dick Smith Electronics had a more reasonable pre-sale deal of $298 with a free game.

So for me it's a definitely maybe, at least when they'll inevitably bring the price down to a more practical level, and here's crossing my fingers to getting rid of that region locking.