NINTENDO 3DS

refined firmware as in gba virtual console and w/e else updates

i honestly will be shocked if you can walk in to any store anywhere and buy these for the next two months; "underperforming" is going to be on an interesting sliding scale

one thing that i've noticed is that films & photos have a preset level of 3D, you can't use the slider to alter them - games manage this cos the game engine is being processed in realtime. but one persons comfort level of 3D effect is different from the next eg. i have it at a very low level with the games so far - the nature film that comes with the first firmware upgrade in the EU has some scenes that look great to me but others that just do not work for my eyes, double images and eyestrain agogo, so there's no way i'm going to be able to watch a whole film on this thing.

based on my own anecdotal experiences today, i don't predict a rousing success for this system, at least immediately. i was able to walk into two stores that had plenty of stock of the system. Best Buy didn't even bother putting up a section with the games - they just threw them onto a wheeled cart with no signs or anything

i dunno, could very well be my own stinginess but i think Nintendo kinda shot themselves in the foot with the $250 pricing

My Nintendogs and Cats have arrived! Hooray, I can play a game! So far I have taken a 3d photo of my Pikachu slippers! Amazing. I can wait for some games I actually want to play to be released...

... for a while!

xpost

I agree; there was only one GameStop in LA which had enough preorders to do a midnight launch, and when I walked by around 7 PM there were only 2 or 3 people in line. I was there when the Wii launched and let me tell you, this was no Wii launch.

personally I think the launch software (both in terms of game availability and system functionality) did more to cripple interest than the price. rabid diehard fans will pay $250, but it's a much harder sell when you're asking that much for something you're pushing out early to make your quarterly earnings statement look robust. plus a lot of people pay for things like these by trading in their old systems, but anyone with any DSiWare basically has to hold on until May if they want to keep all the stuff they've bought.

the DS had a similar launch line up iirc. can't remember how well it sold initially but I don't think it printed money from launch. they need to get demo units in stores, the concept is neat but it's not till you see it in action do you appreciate actually how nifty it is

p.sure my launch game on DS was the yoshi balloon rubbish :/

i read somewhere that launch stock was 3 or 4 times that of DS or Wii. demand is not going to ramp up until they release some must-have software though - guess we'll have till xmas for that.
scanning QR codes is pretty neat!

scan my 68 Beatles, yo

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0028.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0029.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0030.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0031.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0018.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0019.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0020.jpghttp://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/jobhosle/HNI_0021.jpg

mine just showed up at the office! I just spent the last hour showing it off to some work folks, one of whom is going to Gamestop straight after work to get one, so I guess that's going to be this thing's viral trajectory rather than everyone going I WANT IT all at once.

fuccin AR shit is OUT OF THIS WORLD though. I was seriously not expecting it to be so impressive but the moment I realized you could walk around the target I damn near filled the cup. Face Raiders owns too; it is a monstrous amount of fun to run around shooting Jibjab-style floating versions of your own fat head. and they REALLY need to be working on an AR Pokemans Snap RIGHT NOW.

also the build is way more solid than the blue outer casing would have led me to believe; the analog pad in particular feels REALLY solid, like what I wish the PSP's felt like. loving the dashboard update too where you can actually go back to software (at least 3DS software, haven't tried a DS game yet) instead of hard-dropping out of whatever you're playing.

tl;dr: I was fully prepared to be a skeptic but as it turns out this thing owns immensely.

no Club Nintendo points for Ghost Recon tho :( I thought Nintendo was supposed to be going balls-out for third party publishers now?

Ridge Racer is butt ugly. Stay clear, Namco didn't get the memo that this can push more than PS1 polys. Disappointing because the 3D works well enough and it could've been a pretty and mindless arcade racer, perfect for launch. Gonna trade it back and wait for another racer to come along.

amazon just shipped mine!
they're doing $25 off one game and $35 off for two, which is basically buy one get one or get one for ten bucks.
Do i get pilotwings and sf4 for $40 or just sf4 for $10?

also, why did i buy the black?

Pilotwings and SF4. PW perfect between fighting sessions.

A walled garden only works when there is an actual garden within the walls.

The tv ads in the UK are soooo rubbish. "Numpty from Penge" sez "omg! it's like... 3d... and stuff..." and then gurns a bit? I know I know you can't really show the actual 3D really well, but unconvincing numpties in a white room looking a bit simple? I R not advert guru but...?!

I have taken about 100 pics of my Nintendog (Mrs Gale, she responds to Cathy!) and next is a fun game called 'figure out how to move them from 3ds to real world'.

The AR stuff is absolutely sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, face raiders is terrifyingly good and will work even better in the pub. A personal highlight was putting a Zelda hat on Mrs Gale but then again give me that option and it's not like I'm NOT going to fall over howling in glee, is it...

I got Ridge Racer and PES2010 with mine. I'm really enjoying PES2010 now I've started a Champions League campaign.
The augmented reality stuff is so good. The potential seems vast.

Yesterday I walked around town for a couple of hours and managed to streetpass ONE person! Hurrah! StreetQuest is pretty brill as well - must go hang out with more nerds. Hmm is that London DS group still meeting up I wonder...

(I er, diverted by Forbidden Planet and walked around JUST IN CASE, presuming, you know - geeks?be shopping? 3ds?)

I have no idea WHERE I might have passed the streetpass person though. He is called Jacky and his favourite game is Ridge Racer...

I've met 10 people on Streetpass, I think almost all were at Victoria/Waterloo/King's Cross stations going by the times. My mii is well on the way to having more of a social life than me.

should be getting mine today! excited!

a social life or a 3ds?

The latter. Social life due to begin in June.

sez you, that's when Devil Survivor Overclocked and OoT are supposed to come out! if Paper Mario 3DS comes out in June too I may have to get a feeding tube installed.

Ghost Recon is REALLY good.

damn this thing is messing up my eyes
i have opinions and wanna share but need time to process

just ordered Pilotwangs for $5, thanx Amazon

so if you play 3DS for like 2 hours and then stare at a plant or your hand will it look 3D?

it looks fucking blurry is what it looks like.

the wow factor here is, for the moment, what you're paying for but WHAT a wow factor.

yeh i still need to go easy on the 3D, max 30 mins. definitely getting easier though.

I'm hoping that the March release is for fanboys and there will be a $50 price drop for November.

I haven't played the 3DS yet but I'm not too impressed with the launch games. The highest scores on metacritic are 85 and 77 (Street Fighter and Ghost Recon). Also, I don't care at all about a remake of Ocarina - been there, done that. And what's up with some of the launch games being dumbed down? I thought 3DS was the capable of pushing dynamic street fighter backgrounds. I've read that Lego Star Wars 3 was completely dumbed down for the 3DS. I was hoping that 3DS would be a good system for me to finally play a Lego game after enjoying the same game at a PS3 kiosk in GameStop. And they cut out multiplayer for the Lego game. Pshaw!

rating be damned, if you like turn-based strategy games Ghost Recon is a winner winner chicken dinner. it's pretty obviously an DS game fancied up with some subtle-but-cool 3D effects but the gameplay is tremendous; it reminds me of epic GI Joe battles back from when I was but a wee bairn.

w/r/t the launch lineup I'm good w/ just Ghost Recon & Pilotwings and then just gameflying the rest (besides, I have Radiant Historia and Monster Tale to play through anyway). if the release calendar for June is accurate then we're supposed to be getting OoT 3DS, Devil Survivor Overclocked, and Cave Story 3DS then so I should at least be good until then (not that I expect the latter two to come through on that schedule).

and the AR stuff really is a winner. not a killer app on the level of Wii Sports or anything but it's definitely software which makes you run around loudly demanding that other people play with it.

otm there; everyone in my office has tried this thing now

playd one at bestbuyand gave me a headache /:

so apparently the 3D Galaga/tilt-controlled Pac-Man (BLORF) is going to include Pac-Man CE (not DX, sadly) and Galaga Dimensions on the cart too! someone please force them to include a wireless (or even netplayable!) Pac-Man Vs so I can buy this goddamn game for the last time ever.

Geez, Steel Diver isn't going to be out here until May - *snoozes*.

Is this what it's like being an early adopter? What a fule I am! Oh well - I still love my Nintendogs, and have now streetpassed TWO people (must have got one at Euston station yesterday).

London ILx0rs! I want to meet YOU! Tell me of your commuting habits and I will stalk you :)

STILL haven't gotten one kerfungled streetpass hit yet ;_;

ditto

http://killscreendaily.com/articles/how-play-3ds-home-screen
^kinda right on. i haven't even PLAYED all the AR games yet but it's still a wonderful toy to carry around. i just haven't built a relationship with it yet

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh. Passed NINE people this evening, but as I checked them, showed my friend, then carried on my way, turns out I have lost ALL those Miis as heroes for streetpass. You need to use them as heroes IMMEDIATELY apparently.
(http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/997614-3ds/58735134).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH THIS SUX. I didn't know this and now they're all gooooooone, ARGH.

*wailing*

" if you like turn-based strategy games Ghost Recon is a winner winner chicken dinner"

i don't like turn-based strategy games, but "winner winner chicken dinner" sounds fantastic.

what I now think of when I read Ghost Recon + 3D:

http://canvaspaint.org/dc06.png

Cave Story 3DS video footage released and in sharp contrast to the screenshots it doesn't look like a bag of smashed assholes (although of course the 2D pixel art will forever be the king)

Shop channel coming on 6/6/11 pretty much right in the middle of Sony's E3 keynote

also lol at this thread going dead for over a month like three weeks after the system launched

there's no fucking games!
i bought it, fucked around with it for a few days, got a lot of wow that's neat comments and it's been in the charger for maybe three weeks.
compared with my ipad which might as well be handcuffed to me; i woke up at four this morning with a jolt and realized i fell asleep with it next to me and had just knocked it off the bed

forks if you have ipad game recs, post em! I've been using mine like nuts for work stuff but haven't really gamed with it yet. (I know there's another thread for that, but here's the Batman rfi.)

an overgenerous grandmother got one of these for my son for his birthday, it's been a couple weeks and he plays his gameboy advance as much as this

it's fun but feels like you're staring at a magic eye after a while, doesn't lend itself to long sessions

my fave ipad game is stupid zombies

i have a weird eye thing and i can't totally do the 3d all the time, but the visual/sound/size upgrade over the 1st-gen ds i bought myself for CHRISTMAS 2004 is still worth it - i'm actually getting way more mileage out of the AR shit than i ever thought i would (viz. showing it to non-gamer coworkers, friends etc)

and friend codes? i'm 3179-6089-6783