At E3, Nintendo will be announcing new hardware, the Nintendo 3DS.
Nintendo describes the portable as allowing games to be "enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses". According to Nintendo, the product will go on sale between April 2010 (should be april 2011 methinks) and March 2011.
The Nintendo 3DS will succeeded the Nintendo DS series and will have backward compatibility for Nintendo DS and DSi games.
In early January, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata gave an interview with Japan's second largest newspaper The Asahi Shimbun in which he apparently said the Nintendo DS successor will have "highly detailed graphics, and it will be necessary to have a sensor with the ability to read the movements of people playing".
Nintendo of America later told Kotaku that the Asahi Shimbun had "misinterpreted" Iwata's remarks. "Mr. Iwata did not make any comments regarding the functions of Nintendo's future hardware systems," Charlie Scibetta, Nintendo of America's senior director of corporate communications told Kotaku. "The answer to the reporter's question was misinterpreted."
The Asahi Shimbun stands by its reporting and issued a statement to Kotaku Japan that read: "The article quoted Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's comment accurately." The actual quote in the article is a fragment of a longer sentence.
At a Nintendo quarterly Q&A, the exec addressed the issue with the Asahi Shimbun, asserting that the reporter stated, "The graphics for the next DS will be highly detailed and it will contain a motion sensor, right?" Iwata claims he then replied, "Those things are naturally being required. But do you think it would sell with just that?" Iwata emphasized that this last part was left completely out.
It appears that the extra element Nintendo believed was necessary to really sell the DS successor is 3D.
Regarding 3D, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has previously stated that Nintendo would need to look into the "possible health effects" of playing video games in 3D for prolonged periods of time.
I would dismiss it entirely if it's touch-only. That would put it in direct competition with the iPhone and its ilk, and Nintendo then will surely not dominate like it does now with the DS. In fact I think Nintendo will have to compete aggressively with mobile phone gaming.
Reasonable demands NOT to anticipate Nintendo delivering upon
-More reasonable pricing for games.
-Better handling of DLC and license transfer
-First iteration to include as many important features as possible
Nintendo will fail if they take on the iPhone directly. The iPhone has it beat on software pricing, and somehow I don't think Nintendo will be selling their games for less than £5...
Considering that you can get Chinatown Wars (a game that is superior to the DS version, and arguably better than the PSP version since the graphics are similar and it has the benefits of the touch mini-games) for about £3 on iPhone, it's the full game as well. Nintendo simply have no choice but to compete with their pricing, and given Nintendo's past reputation on this kind of thing they won't give in.
Yesterday I bought a sandwich at the Moscone Center and it had an accelerometer in it.
Haha!
I never even thought any company that is involved in the true video game market would attempt to take on the iPhone. Completely absurd and annoying. The iPhone is not a gaming machine. It is a phone with the capability to run applications and games to pass time or allow limited productivity in the absence of a real machine designed for those things. Like if there is not a computer around, I can send an email on my iPhone in a pinch. If I forgot my DS, I can play some crappy iPhone game to pass the time. I have played a lot of iPhone games and they have not compared in anyway (in terms of controls, graphics, etc) to a dedicated handheld system. I have the 2nd gen iPhone so maybe leaps and bounds have been made between the 2nd and 3rd gen that I am not aware of. All this being said, I am not mad at my iPhone because I don't expect my iPhone to compare to a DS or PSP or anything else. Does this mean there will be an app store for the DS2 with 100s of flashlight, fart machine, and other throwaway programs that cost 9.99 each?
