No, the Nintendo 3DS itself has not been redesigned. It still creates 3-D images and plays video games in 3-D with the use of a slider and not with glasses. This article is more about the recent attachment that Nintendo has unveiled, an additional second analog stick. Not only is this second analog stick built into a cradle like device, it does not take from the 3DS’s power source. While this 3DS circle pad attachment gets released in Japan on Dec.10, as reported by joystiq.com, it’s also being sold at 1,500 yen ($19.50). While this second analog stick may have seemed like a good idea months after the handheld’s launch, it makes me think that once Nintendo announced a device that could play 3-D games without glasses, they wanted to get it out to the consumers as quickly as possible. This caused a price drop (see previous blog) and now this second analog attachment.
The first thing that occurred to me was how closely this second analog stick mirrored Sony’s next handheld device, The PlayStation Vita. One of the biggest features of the PlayStation Vita is its capability to play games at a higher graphical ability than the Nintendo 3DS and a second analog stick. However it was announced this week that the Vita will require memory cards and a battery life that will only last five hours at maximum but I digress. It feels like Nintendo thought about the 3DS for about three minutes in the design phase and gave a resounding “good enough.” Nintendo’s competition with Sony in the “Handheld Wars” has become detrimental to Nintendo’s own success. Plenty of devices in the gaming industry undergo a redesign: the Xbox 360’s d-pad is actually usable, the PlayStation controller got a rumble feature in 2008 and the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 got slimmer but these changes were not made in the same year as when they were launched. How does Nintendo expect their loyal fan base to trust them when Nintendo releases another new handheld or even the successor to the Wii?
During my research of the Nintendo 3DS, I came across an article from kotaku.com and written by Brian Ashcraft, about the missteps in the Nintendo 3DS. He lists about 13 mistakes that Nintendo has made in the release and continuation of the 3DS. “Mistake 13: The new add-on 3DS thumbstick looks tacked-on, and it makes the 3DS seem like it wasn't thought-out. It also doesn't exactly inspire confidence in the current model. Why buy one now when an inevitable redesign seems right around the corner?” His final thoughts were summed up with, “Nintendo's rollout for the 3DS is one of the sloppiest product launches in recent memory. Nintendo, a company that prides itself on polish and perfection, seems to have bungled the 3DS.”
I was fortunate enough, by learning from Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launch, to learn to wait for a hardware update. It’s been about seven months and the 3DS has dropped in price by $80 and added an additional analog attachment. To say that Nintendo botched this latest portable is an understatement. However, in the future, several high profile games: “Resident Evil: Revelations,” “Kid Icarus: Uprising,” “Luigi’s Mansion 2,” “Mario Kart 7” and many more, are on the horizon. Sound off in the comments with your opinions on the Nintendo 3DS.
Do you think that it’s not acceptable for Nintendo to keep adding attachments within the same year as the 3DS’s launch or is this just business as usual for Nintendo?
