Nintendo 3DS - First Hands On
Finally at the New York press event, Nintendo displayed all its 3DS hardware. They declared that it is in their final stage. Press people were quite happy to find out that the 3D effect was quite good even for the short distance. Of there some issues like camera resolution of the handheld, playtime and battery life are yet to be cleared by them.
Without talking about the actual battery life, their official spokesperson claimed that anybody can play around 3 to 5 hours on 3DS with normal 3DS software but in case you want to use it for 5 to 8 hours then you need use Nintendo DS software. According to them playing 5 hours 3D games may not be manageable by the people but they did not conclude anything.
They allowed press people to play and check the front and back of the camera which is 640*480 pixels. The quality is as good as any of the cell phone. There are two cameras on the back to make the picture 3D. You can view 3D pictures only if it is 3DS.
They have not mentioned anything about the operating system which they will be using but the system was looking similar to the Wii where you could see big and easily scrollable buttons. The buttons were easy to navigate.
The buttons work as per the usual Nintendo games where home button takes you out of the game and bring back the main menu while playing any of the game. Many people were interested to know how much time 3D games can be played on it but most of the available games were in demo mode and were running for the short amount of time. After every 5 minutes thank you screen used to pop up and the game used to be closed. This made play time a real mystery.
As far as the angle of the 3D goes then the straight angle was the most preferable one. Few games needed the console to move and at that time 3D angle was not proper otherwise it was ok. When the consol was straight 3D effect was there for quite some time and even if you change the game, the effect remained same.
Overall it was a good display with lots of demo from Nintendo. It has given some of the great 3D gaming experience to the press.
Image Credit: nintendotsu.com
