Two fighting games, some sports, a little Bub, a little Bob, and hey, how about some dogs and cats, while we're at it?
Nintendo is currently allowing the Japanese public to get its hands on the Nintendo 3DS at an event called Nintendo World. In addition to the stage presentations and demo stations, the company has also posted a release list for Spring and Summer, including eight games that are scheduled to be available alongside the 3DS when it launches in Japan on February 26.
Some stats about the 3DS hardware and what you'll get in the box have also been posted and translated by andriasang.com. The bit that stuck out at me is that the system will take three-and-a-half hours to charge, and battery life when playing 3DS games is rated at three to five hours. That's... not a very long time. The number goes up a bit when playing DS games, allowing five to eight hours of play.
A 2GB SD card will be packed in with the system, and two games appear to be on the list of pre-installed software: AR Games and Face Shooting, which sounds like it's at least superficially similar to the Face Ace tech demo that was being shown back at E3.
Well, I'm not going to play Layton until it's in English, and I can only really get excited about Super Street Fighter IV in a tech demo sort of way... is it weird that the only game on that list that jumps out at me as something I actually want to play is Ridge Racer 3D? Even that comes with some caveats, though, as Namco's already stated that it'll contain some old tracks and cars. At this point, does anyone consider anything affiliated with Ridge Racer--with the possible exception of the track from the very first game--to be "classic" enough to warrant revisiting? Oh well, you have to admire the way Namco at least sticks to its whole "every meaningful platform gets a Ridge Racer at launch" plan.
This is a very disappointing launch. People are excited about Layton, and I am too, but that game won't make it to the American launch. The Layton games have taken at least two years to come over. Also, I'm not interested in SSFIV, I just don't like fighting games.
Reminds me of why I am not interested in the 3DS. It will take some solid RPGs, action/adventures, and a price drop before I really want it again. No big deal, though, it lets me save money for console and PC games :)
And the light bill, because that's important I guess.
Never had an N64 or played Ocarina of Time, so finally having a chance to check it out on a spiffy new handheld from Nintendo... I'm probably a bit more excited about that rerelease than most hehe.
i wonder if the US launch titles are going to be similar? because i have to say, that's a pretty mediocre lineup of titles, and like jeff, the only one i'd really care about playing might be ridge racer. how weird is that? i would have hoped for some resident evil (at least the mercenaries game) or doa or metal gear or hell even kid icarus, even though i don't think it looks that great. the above games still make me stand by my pre-order but that lineup is not looking too great. and that battery life is the most pitiful thing i've ever heard
Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is the most exciting on this list, and that is saying something, come on guys they couldn't do Ocarina of Time for launch!?!?
I feel like a Ridge Racer game always shows up when you don't really know what to launch your new console with. Like Namco just always has one coded and ready to go.
I'm with Gerstmann. Not one title on this list strikes me as something I would buy other than being the only games available. I'd probably like the Layton games, but I haven't played any of the DS ones, so it's not like this one is any more exciting to me.
It's just as well, since the better version of the 3DS that we all know is coming won't be out until later anyway, as per Nintendo's established devious business model of deliberately fucking up the original version to some extent. (Battery life. *cough*)
" I'm with Gerstmann. Not one title on this list strikes me as something I would buy other than being the only games available. I'd probably like the Layton games, but I haven't played any of the DS ones, so it's not like this one is any more exciting to me. It's just as well, since the better version of the 3DS that we all know is coming won't be out until later anyway, as per Nintendo's established devious business model of deliberately fucking up the original version to some extent. (Battery life. *cough*) "
Take the tin foil hat off. There's no reason that they'd deliberately "fuck up" the battery life for the sake of selling more units of a revised version that costs R&D dollars to develop.
" I'm with Gerstmann. Not one title on this list strikes me as something I would buy other than being the only games available. I'd probably like the Layton games, but I haven't played any of the DS ones, so it's not like this one is any more exciting to me. It's just as well, since the better version of the 3DS that we all know is coming won't be out until later anyway, as per Nintendo's established devious business model of deliberately fucking up the original version to some extent. (Battery life. *cough*) "
Take the tin foil hat off. There's no reason that they'd deliberately "fuck up" the battery life for the sake of selling more units of a revised version that costs R&D dollars to develop. "
Hey, you're right. It makes perfect sense that it has less battery life for DS games than the DS Lite, and I'm sure they totally don't already have a better model planned with a better battery life. I'll take my tinfoil hat over the fanboy hat.
The fact that they pulled a variation of the same thing on the DS that they did with the GBA (screen brightness) is kind of hilarious, really.
At the opposite end of the spectrum they also released the DSi when they knew they would be launching a new system rather shortly. Then of course they made a bigger version after that just to see how many true suckers there were. Nintendo loves to milk their handheld sales to death. It should be plainly obvious by now.
@Forum_User: Sounds like you don't know how basic electronics work. The power consumption of the 3DS is greater than the DS Lite for a number of reasons, including the larger top screen, the 3D effect, the more intense graphics processor use, and so on. It also doesn't help if the handheld's wireless function is always active.
In other words the 3DS is not the DS Lite. It would be foolish to expect them to have the same battery life just because they both happen to be different generations of DS hardware.
" @Forum_User: Sounds like you don't know how basic electronics work. The power consumption of the 3DS is greater than the DS Lite for a number of reasons, including the larger top screen, the 3D effect, the more intense graphics processor use, and so on. It also doesn't help if the handheld's wireless function is always active. In other words the 3DS is not the DS Lite. It would be foolish to expect them to have the same battery life just because they both happen to be different generations of DS hardware. "
Yeah, sure, just cherry-pick the one thing I said that you thought was easy to argue with.
Anyway, apparently you missed the part where I said "for DS games." Unless it's running a software emulator of the DS hardware, which seems unlikely, that doesn't make much sense. They said it will play DS games for 5-8 hours and 3DS games for up to 5. I'm not talking about the 3DS games. I'm talking about the DS games. The DS Lite can range from like 5 hours to 19 depending on the brightness setting. The lower end of the range on the DS Lite is the same while the upper range is far higher, whatever sense that even makes. (I suppose the DSi is a more fitting comparison though. That gets up to 14 hours.) I just won't be surprised at all when a device comes out about a year later that nearly doubles it, and I'll be damned if I ever see such great improvements in battery life in other products in such a short time. (I wouldn't be too surprised if something like that happened with iPods or something since Apple does basically the same type of bullshit. Oh my God, a separate volume button. How fucking clever. How come nobody else thought of that before? Oh wait, everyone else did.)
Oh, and one more rant: They actually removed the headphone jack on the GBA SP so that people had to buy their stupid headphone accessory to use headphones. How can someone make a portable gaming device with no headphone jack? What kind of crackhead design decision is that? They removed a feature they already had in order to sell an accessory. Ha ha. Fuck you, Nintendo. Seriously. (Not you, Shigs. You're the man.)
@Forum_User: Once again, you don't know how electronics work. It doesn't matter if you're using DS games. It still has to run through the same components.
@Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't.
I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least.
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games.
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games. "
So you're saying they are emulating it, or you're saying that the 3DS architecture is fundamentally similar to DS architecture such that the part of the 3DS hardware that runs 3DS games can properly execute DS machine code?
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games. "
So you're saying they are emulating it, or you're saying that the 3DS architecture is fundamentally similar to DS architecture such that the part of the 3DS hardware that runs 3DS games can properly execute DS machine code? "
Talking with you is impossible. You're nothing more than obtuse.
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games. "
So you're saying they are emulating it, or you're saying that the 3DS architecture is fundamentally similar to DS architecture such that the part of the 3DS hardware that runs 3DS games can properly execute DS machine code? "
Talking with you is impossible. You're nothing more than obtuse. "
In other words you can't keep up the charade of pretending to know more than you do.
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games. "
So you're saying they are emulating it, or you're saying that the 3DS architecture is fundamentally similar to DS architecture such that the part of the 3DS hardware that runs 3DS games can properly execute DS machine code? "
Talking with you is impossible. You're nothing more than obtuse. "
In other words you can't keep up the charade of pretending to know more than you do. "
This, coming from an armchair expert that has yet to provide any solid evidence of his own other than statistics that for all we know Nintendo lowballed with all of the system's features turned on and at maximum settings.
" @Hailinel: Not if they are running separate hardware for DS games, it doesn't. I see you apparently don't dispute that they will have a system with much longer battery life in a rather short time (and God-only-knows-what other improvements), at least. "
They aren't running separate hardware for DS games. "
So you're saying they are emulating it, or you're saying that the 3DS architecture is fundamentally similar to DS architecture such that the part of the 3DS hardware that runs 3DS games can properly execute DS machine code? "
Talking with you is impossible. You're nothing more than obtuse. "
In other words you can't keep up the charade of pretending to know more than you do. "
This, coming from an armchair expert that has yet to provide any solid evidence of his own other than statistics that for all we know Nintendo lowballed with all of the system's features turned on and at maximum settings. "
I'm sorry I used Nintendo's statistics. Next time I'll just make shit up like you. You're the electronics expert, after all.
You think that Nintendo would lowball their statistics. My God, you really are a supreme fanboy.
@Forum_User: Never said I was an expert. But I know enough to understand that one set of numbers doesn't mean anything until a wider range of public data becomes available. You're the one running around with the tin foil hat as though the values are absolute.
I'm always a sucker for a new Ridge Race, but I do have to say the pictures that are posted on GB don't give it the graphics I was expecting. It just looks like the PSP game (which is probably what it is with 3d effect!). But yea I love me some new Ridge Racer!!!
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