Thoughts on Nintendo's 3DS

Nintendo showed off a lot of stuff at E3 this year. The cream of the crop? A new Zelda, a Goldeneye remake, a killer Mickey Mouse game, Donkey Kong, and the most bitchin' Kirby game I've seen. There's so much I could write about, but the topic most worthy of discussion was the unveiling of Nintendo's new handheld: the 3DS.

Take Nintendo's incredibly successful DS handheld (above). Give it a better GPU. Swap out the top screen with a cutting-edge widescreen display capable of showing 3D illusions without the use of those tacky 3D glasses. For good measure, give it a joystick and some motion sensors. On paper, it doesn't sound that bad. And then I saw it...

Look familiar? Now I know, the DS was a great handheld. But it's a handheld that came out back in 2004. In 2006, they put it on a diet and gave it better lighting - we got the DS Lite. That's fine, the DS needed a better form factor and a decent back-light. Couple years after that, they gave it a camera and an SD card slot, and they called it the DSi. Okay, it seemed like overkill, but it was cool to finally have expandable memory for all those downloadable DS games Nintendo is putting out...oh wait. Last year, Nintendo's "new DS" was just a really big DSi - the DSi XL.

And so here we are, gearing up for another new handheld to launch in 2011. But really, Nintendo? We're still just gonna do another DS? I get it; it's got a better processor and people will no doubt gush when they see that bright, 3D display in action. And now we can finally waggle - because if there's one thing my Wii proved, it's that I like it when my games have to randomly guess at whether I'm trying to perform simple button actions with suggestive wrist motions.

But that's not the problem. The problem is the idea of the 3DS. It shows the arrogance of a company that thinks they can just rehash what they did in 2004. It's not enough to just put out a more powerful DS with a few more gimmicks tossed in. The landscape of portable devices has changed dramatically since the birth of the original DS. Back then, we were happy stuffing our pockets with our twenty-gig iPods, chunky Nokia cell phones, disposable wind-up cameras, and the occasional PDA. Now, it's become commonplace to carry just one or two devices in your pocket that have all of that functionality - plus the gargantuan utility of the internet. The phone has aggressively invaded the functionality of every other portable electronic device. So for me to carry something extra in my pocket, it has to justify its existence. I still carry my car keys and my wallet because those are items which my phone doesn't really replace yet. But if I'm going to carry a dedicated gaming device that has no other utility but to play games, it damn well better offer me a gaming experience I need and can't get from my phone.

The 3DS doesn't quite do that. Graphically, it's better than the old DS, but seemed underwhelming considering this is a platform Nintendo intends to support for at least five years. The fact that Nintendo is porting popular N64 titles to the 3DS (Ocarina of Time and Star Fox 64) is slightly troubling. Kid Icarus looks great, but I have a hard time believing a smart phone wouldn't be capable of those graphics a year from now.

But forget graphics. Let's talk about the logistics of this "portable" game device. One of the great things about playing games on your phone or iPod is the sheer ease of acquiring and carrying games. I'm stuck somewhere and have a half hour to kill...good thing Plants VS Zombies is on sale, I'll just download that. Today, it's become weird not to buy mobile software (apps) through direct-download, but Nintendo is intent on keeping those plastic game cartridges. 

I'm sorry, but that's stupid - the very idea of a cutting-edge handheld that can only carry one game at a time is absurd. We no longer tolerate music players that can only hold one album at a time. The Kindle and the iPad are even persuading us not to settle for carrying just one book at any given time. To justify its place in your active life, a mobile device should be able to provide adaptable experiences for multiple situations. It's why you probably carry more than one genre of music on your iPod or phone - because you just never know when a Taylor Swift moment will hit you. If I'm in a situation where I could use just a five-minute diversion, I'm probably not gonna be happy about that 20-hour Final Fantasy game sitting in my 3DS. 

And that's assuming I'm even bringing the 3DS around with me. It's one thing that Nintendo wants me to carry around a device that is solely dedicated to games - that's okay, I enjoy games enough to be willing to do that. But considering how old the DS 'family' is, it's remarkable that each DS iteration is STILL the same basic size: too big. Hell, the last one got bigger. The 3DS has the same portability problems every other DS has: it fits ugly in the pocket. It's thicker and has a bigger footprint than just about any other portable device you'd consider carrying with you.

And for it's size, it's not even taking advantage of all that space. Look at that ridiculously thick bezel around the top screen - I'd rather see a regular 5" LCD making use of that space than a 3.5" screen with some 3D illusions. And why are the two screens so different? It's bad enough that they aren't the same size - but they aren't even the same aspect ratio! The top one is doing widescreen 16:9 while the bottom is doing regular 4:3. What's worse is that Nintendo completely ignored one of the biggest requests people had of the original DS hardware: the desire for two touch screens. Nintendo wanted to do something unique by giving us that 3D screen, but they could've given us the first mainstream portable device with two multi-touch screens. That would be unique and provide new game experiences.

There are so many other misguided decisions Nintendo made that I want to get into, but the point is simple: the 3DS will be an undoubtedly cool handheld that I might even purchase...but it's a device I have no desire to carry with me. And that's a pretty epic fail for any "mobile" device that runs on a battery. 

I truly love Nintendo and I will never stop buying Mario games. But I'm not the type of fanboy that thinks Nintendo is infallible. They recently had the audacity to say they were setting their sights on Apple's iPhone as a competitor. If Nintendo had come out with a system that is so fundamentally game-oriented that it doesn't even really compete with a phone, I'd be supporting them. But the 3DS does pick that fight with the phone, and it doesn't win. Like the iPhone, it wants to do music, movies, and browse the web. But for different reasons, you wouldn't want to do any of those things on your 3DS. At the same time, the 3DS falls short of being the true dedicated gaming device that could peacefully co-exist with your phone. Nintendo wants you to use the touchscreen, microphone, camera, and motion sensor to distinguish your game experience from the competition. But the phone you have likely has a better microphone, camera, and/or touchscreen than the 3DS. 

Nintendo could have tried to differentiate by making a truly sophisticated social gaming network - I'm really shocked they didn't even mention this. They practically invented casual gaming; they could have easily implemented something that combined the economies of Xbox Live with the casual-social games on Facebook (A more casual Pokemon would kick FarmVille's ass). Instead, they want you to pay $30-$40 for a cartridge-based game that probably won't take advantage of the 3DS's WiFi. What are you left with that really stands out? The 3D screen? Fundamentally, a 3D screen doesn't provide new game experiences  - it's only a way of visually enhancing the same Nintendo games we're already playing.

And that's the bottom line: All of us who end up buying the 3DS won't necessarily be doing it because it's a good - or even innovative - handheld gaming system. We'll buy it because we're willing to play Mario Kart on whatever Nintendo puts it on.

-Aaron