In a surprise move Nintendo announced its new 3DS today. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t see it coming. Silly of course, because the 3DS has been on the market for 3,5 years now, and in this electronics market, where companies like Apple introduce their newest device at least every year, I could have seen it coming.
First, what’s new? It has a second circle pad (a tiny mini one), has ZL and ZR shoulder buttons. The CPU has been improved, with elements such as downloading and Miiverse running faster than on a standard 3DS console. The battery will be better, and it will use a Micro SD card instead of an SD card. There will be better 3D view-ability. NFC, needed to interact with the Amiibo figurines that will be on the market soon, will be incorporated. And you can buy cool interchangeable sleeves for it, with lots of very nice choices. It will be released in Japan first, this October.
A gaming friend of mine from Israel asked me what I thought about this move from Nintendo. And to be honest, I’m not sure how I feel. Somewhere this little voice in my head is taunting me that now I’ll have three old model 3DS’s. And that voice demands of me that I’ll have to replace at least one of them for a new model. But the voice of reason is asking me to stop and consider…why would I for the time being?
The main reason to upgrade for me would be if there are games to be released in future that can’t be played on the old model, due to the better CPU and the use of the extra buttons. Like for instance Xenoblade Chronicles will be released for the new 3DS only. But I don’t see such exclusivity happening soon with the kind of games that I love. Not being able to use the Amiibo without buying an extra gadget to connect to my 3DS is no problem for me, I doubt I’ll use the figurines much anyway. I hardly ever use 3D vision, almost always play my games in 2D, so a better quality of 3D isn’t important to me.
So I think I’ll just wait for a while and see what happens. Release in the West will be somewhere in 2015 anyway, so I’m good for now…..I think….quiet, you little taunting voice!!
I’m all for the change of the volume slide location and it’s good enough reason for me to get a new model, because the issue has been bothering me forever. This will finally let me use headphones without hurting my eardrums by accident 🙂 Improved CPU and the second analog pad, oh yesssss!
Great Miho, and you wont even have to wait for very long for it’s release in October! I have some more time to think, luckily. I wonder if they will release a lot of games that can be played on the new 3DS only!
I am envious of your friend above.
Lol, same here, Michael!