Man I need this thing bad. Have been looking around the last week or two at DS's to see if I should either pay the $80 to have my mic and touch screen fixed (touch screen not accurate even after calibration it shoots off sometimes like you moved the stylus when you didn't and the mic just flat out ceased to work.) Or, buy the DSi or DSi XL which have many nice features but I have always thought they were just not as big an upgrade as they could've been. Or buy another DS Lite off ebay or something. Then out of the blue I started getting emails from ebGames/GameStop Amazon, Nintendo of America all about pre-order Nintendo 3DS. I was like huh? Hadn't even heard about it. My first thought was the "3". I was all like hmmm it's not the 3rd DS. There was the original fat DS that everyone hated, then the DS Lite, then DSi and DSi XL. I'm like this is 4th or 5th depending on how you look at it.
Well, I read up about it already. WOW. First off, it plays games in 3D. Not Nintendo 64 type of 3D but actual jump out of the screen looking into a window type 3D. WITHOUT GLASSES! I wasn't even aware such technology existed! You can adjust the depth of the 3D too from 2D to very 3D just by moving a slider up and down. All the 3D games can be played in 2D. So at this point I was already like wow, I want this thing. Then I read on...
Unlike my DS Lite it has the motion sensor pack, extra ram pack, web browser all built in. It also has 3 cameras. Yes THREE. One faces inward at you while you play to take your own pic. The other 2 are stereoscopic lenses on the outside. Yes, it takes 3D PICTURES! DUDE! Like O M G. The DSi I was always like bleh cameras I have a better digital camera if I need. Same with my cel phone, cause they didn't offer me any advantage over my higher resolution much better actual camera. But, 3D! Now THAT's something I don't have! A camera that takes AND displays pictures in 3D! At this point I was more than sold I was giddy with anticipation lol.
Further more, it has a new analog controller on the left above the classic control pad for full 3D control! And it still has a built in mic, built in stereo speakers that can, and I never figured out how this works, simulate surround sound with 2 speakers. It plays all the old DS games plus the new 3DS games obviously. It has a larger top screen than previous DS's with a much brighter clearer and higher resolution screen. It also has the SD card slot that the DSi offered but was not in my DS Lite. And of course WiFi. And it now has a "home" button that will pause your game and take you to the main home screen like a small laptop where you can access software, apps, web browser, music, movies, online shop to download classic old Nintendo games from previous systems, all that organizer stuff, clock, calendar, address book, to do list, date book, yatta yatta. It has the Wii feature called Mii where you make avatars of yourself from pics of yourself that you take with the DS. The new stylus that comes with it is larger than the previous DS styluses, and has a metal shaft that expands with plastic tip on the end (that sounds so ... yeah nvm lol.) It also has this new charging base not like the old AC adapters. It's a charging station you just plot the DS on it and it can stay on in sleep mode indefinitely now.
New standby features are involved to explain. There's normal off and on. Then there's street pass mode which is like even in sleep mode as long as it's on whenever you pass someone else with an NDS it gets their gamer info and sends yours then you can see there Mii toon and play against them and challenge their scores later. It's weird. Then there's some other mode I also didn't quite understand. Cool stuff.
And there's something called AR Games which at least one of them is built into the system. It stands for Altered Reality Game I think. I didn't quite understand this either. The description basically says you get AR cards that are real life physical cards not something on the DS. You place them around you like on a table or whatever and then point the camera at them and the DS scans them and generates game levels based on the real world or something. It was a weird description. They made it sound like you used the real world as the game level and then the toons you play pop out of the DS on the card or something in 3D. I don't know, that makes no sense to me but it sounds cool!
Not sure what else to say about it. I'm super hyped now I want it badly. I'm going to not get the dress and socks and stuff I was gonna buy next month and I'm not gonna get some of the games I wanted and I'm gonna cancel 2 or 3 game accounts for a few months and whatever else it takes to be able to afford this. It's expensive as hell. More than most home consoles now. $250. And of course will need new screen protectors and case. Everything else I have from my DS Lite though is fully compatible so that's a plus. Headset, emergency charger and all extra stuff I bought. Free shipping most places so that makes up for screen protectors and shit. Big issue will be that my SuperCard DSONE Flash Cart will almost certainly not work. I know the DS one was not compatible with DS Lite and the one I have for DS Lite not compatible with DSi so I figure there's no way this will be compatible. But, they always make a new one within a month or two. That'll be another $50ish though. Luckily I have like 500 downloaded .nds game files so I have basically every good game ever made for DS from release in 2005ish through early 2010. And game saves should be compatible.
Well, it comes out March 27th so I have awhile. I'm going to be freaking out by then!
