Purported Nintendo 3DS Photo Leaked

@18:53 13/06/2010

I've seen a few games that realised they didn't need the second screen, so left it turned off to save power. What you're describing is just the marketing dept. yelling 'Hey, you need to use this' so they've got something they can show on the packaging.

That said, there's a lot of good games that really did take advantage of it, so while it may have seemed odd at the time, it's not something I'd like them to take back in hindsight.

Even with games that didn't use it well, having the choice between the screens helped. I'm thinking 'Elite Beat Agents' and 'Trauma Center' versus 'Metroid Hunters' - all old games, so people who don't really play should get what I'm talking about.

In EBA and TC, the touchscreen was used for both control and display of the game. For those kinds of game, you needed to be hitting specific points on the screen, so it worked in the games favour to have the controls 'overlayed'.

In MPH, you didn't need specific points, but just tracking the direction the stylus was moving. On top of that, having the controls on the same screen as the action would have meant you'd be blocking your own viewpoint - a gamebreaker for a first person shooter.

If there had only been one active display, one of these two types of game would have been impossible. If the only display was the touchscreen, then hunters wouldn't have happened - you can't get enough control with just a D-pad or two. If the layout had been preserved, but the touchscreen was 'dark', like the touchpad on a laptop computer, then EBA and TC wouldn't have worked - you simply wouldn't have the accuracy that you'd have needed.

So yeah, it's a decision than in hindsight was very effective.

i know about these from last ces. back in 2002 it was nothing much more than intreasting, but now its gotten a shit load better.

2002? Old news is old.

"I'm sure there will be a (3D) notebook product and an LCD monitor as well" toward the end of 2003"

LOL

They didn't chase 1080p last generation because they figured (and were apparently correct) that it wasn't affordable at the time. Look at the cost, and the hardware problems the PS3 and 360 have both had for indications why.

That said, we're getting on for six years later now and the cost of the GPU's capable of 1080 has fallen quite a bit. The tech's matured and some of the revised chips need much less cooling. It wouldn't surprise me if the next console from Nintendo does have a 1080 capability - if it only adds ten or twenty dollars to the cost of a console. Even if developers don't use it for straight graphics, they can turn that processing power onto things like physics or simple AI (think shooters with swarming opponents).

I'm more interested to see if Sony and Microsoft have learned their lesson - selling the consoles as loss leaders has hurt both of them big time. If they've learned the lesson, I'd expect the current generation consoles to be current for another 5 or 6 years at least. They're just about reaching the stage that they're able to break even on the consoles themselves, so if they can extend the life of the current consoles (I suspect Kinect and Move are intended to do this) they'd be in a better position financially than if they tried to start a new round of console wars.

ah i see, i despise those kind of buttons.

no tactical response, and high fail rates, i actually would rather have screen based buttons than those, for reasons i dont want to explain.

either way it would be a failure to make screen based or non button buttons.

Same here, I like my touch screen, but I would prefer buttons over it any day.

Well, he didnt say that it comes without Buttons.
What he means is , that the Buttons will be Touch sensitive, which means that they're not on the Touchscreen and it's a different Technology.

Would look like this
http://dvice.com/pics/samsungluce-thumb-575x418.jpg

again, that's not a touchscreen, rather a field with touch sensitive spots. My old Cell had Buttons like this on the Bottom
(http://www.oled.at/images/handy/samsung-s5050.jpg) and I'd say that it works pretty well. Can't imagine playing Games with that though. Could be shitty, cos there's no feedback when you press the Buttons and you would end up pressing Buttons accidently. It would look cool though. lol

The Nvidia Tegra chipset could offer good 3d, HD decoding etc with very good battery life.

Also offer full 2 SDHC slots,firefox as a browser, and an expansion port for add ons or just bring back the GBA slot.

But a general purpose expansion port could allow a third party vendor to handle GBA games or add things like a pico projector etc.

I can care less about how the DSi is 4mm thinner the DS's dimensions were perfectly adequate.

its possible, i believe the low end nvidia chips that dont need shit loads of cooling are capable of it, but are they hand held worthy? than again if its 3d in a needs to render 2 things at once, and its 2 screened, it would be rendering 4 things at once, so it needs significantly more power. however handheld wise, it should be possible to double the psp visuals on current batteries, and 4x that if you dont care about battery power.

This one is pretty Bad-ass.

http://img1.sankakustatic.com/wp-content/gallery/safe-misc-vi/nintendo-3ds-008.jpg