Nintendo Announces New Portable Hardware – The Nintendo 3DS

Megaton! Didn’t this come out of the blue? The rumours were true! Nintendo have officially announced the successor to the 125 million-selling DS – The Nintendo 3DS. Rumours are also rife that the console will be released at the end of this year. Crazy.

So, as the name suggests the Nintendo 3DS will allow full 3D gaming without the need of wearing glasses (Virtual Boy anyone?). This is a brand new hardware series and is designed to succeed the DS line, however all past Nintendo DS games will be compatible with the new console. Furthermore there is talk that the console will have a control stick rather than D-Pad, rumble, accelerometer (similar to iPhone), better wifi range and improved battery life. Also it will be playable at this years E3 in a few months.

Head inside for more information, now!

Over to Nintendo:

Nintendo Co., Ltd.(Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch “Nintendo 3D S”(temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011, on which games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses.

“Nintendo 3DS”(temp) is going to be the new portable game machine to succeed “Nintendo DS series”, whose cumulative consolidated sales from Nintendo amounted to 125million units as of the end of December 2009, and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for Nintendo DSi, can also be enjoyed.

We are planning to announce additional details at E3 show, which is scheduled to be held from June 15, 2010 at Los Angeles in the U.S.

More details of what we can (possibly) expect from the Nintendo 3DS:

Japanese newspaper Nikkei reports new details about the 3DS. While still unconfirmed by Nintendo, the system will apparently use a “3-D joystick” and will feature a “force feedback mechanism that will let players feel the collisions of a game character.” An accelerometer to allow tilt functionality is also still under consideration.

The paper also says the 3DS will have “significant improvements in wireless communications speed and battery life,” and notes the dual screens will not be larger than 4 inches each.

From Nikkei:

- control stick instead of dpad
- rumble
- improved wireless speed and battery life
- screen that is smaller than 4 inches
- timing on the announcement could be related to decreased software releases
- Nikkei expects release in second half of 2010

Yomiuri Shimbun:

- “it is believed that the system will use a Sharp 3D LCD panel.”
- this 3d tech is acheived by placing a small film on the screen, which is separated by a small space. The slight differences in the image creates the 3d effect

Mainichi Shimbun:

- software developers have been briefed on the system
- third party software at launch

Thanks here & Kotaku