WordsFinest proudly presents this editorial from recurring guest writer Keri.
I have always been a fan of Nintendo’s hand-held gaming machines. Between my brother and myself, we have a box in the basement with many of the GameBoy line: the Pocket, the Color, and the original Advance. The latest entry in my Nintendo collection is my polar white DS Lite, which continues to get a workout with games such as Spirit Tracks, Ghost Trick, and soon, Okamiden. I was never interested in the later iterations in the DS series as the DSi’s camera looked like a gimmick and the DSi XL appeared to be made so that grandma could play Brain Age with her grandchildren. When the 3DS was announced, however, I perked up. 3D on a hand-held? No glasses required? The ability to adjust the depth of the 3D? Wow, Nintendo, looks like you’ve done it again!
I have always been a fan of Nintendo’s hand-held gaming machines. Between my brother and myself, we have a box in the basement with many of the GameBoy line: the Pocket, the Color, and the original Advance. The latest entry in my Nintendo collection is my polar white DS Lite, which continues to get a workout with games such as Spirit Tracks, Ghost Trick, and soon, Okamiden. I was never interested in the later iterations in the DS series as the DSi’s camera looked like a gimmick and the DSi XL appeared to be made so that grandma could play Brain Age with her grandchildren. When the 3DS was announced, however, I perked up. 3D on a hand-held? No glasses required? The ability to adjust the depth of the 3D? Wow, Nintendo, looks like you’ve done it again!
The big question is, will I buy a 3DS at launch? Will I stand in line with the other Nintendo fans to get one of the first 3DS consoles before they sell out?
No.
First and foremost, I have always enjoyed Nintendo’s hand-helds as a less expensive way to play video games. (Also, there was Pokemon – I mean, who didn’t play one of the first few generations of that franchise?) My brother and I grew up with a SNES because our neighbor gave it to us. We never bought an N64, GameCube, Xbox, or PS2 because they were too expensive. As I grew older, there was no way I could shell out for the current generation of consoles. At this point the DS Lite was out (and sold out for Christmas) so I managed to pick one up in January of 2007. At $130, this little gadget was fairly priced and has gotten tons of use. The 3DS on the other hand has a launch price of $250. I am not going to purchase a hand-held for the same price that I could have gotten a Wii at its launch, even if it does 3D.
Second, the battery life for the 3DS is terrible compared to, well, all other items in the DS line. Engadget reviews the Japanese 3DS here and states “The biggest 3DS disappointment is absolutely the battery life. The 1,300mAh battery is 30 percent larger than the one in the DS Lite but simply cannot deliver the same sort of longevity we’ve come to expect from previous Nintendo consoles, topping out for us at three hours and fifteen minutes with WiFi enabled. Compare that to the 15 hours the DS Lite could manage and you can see why we’re disappointed. Disabling WiFi added about another half hour.” Wow, that’s just terrible. Granted my PSP doesn’t get great battery life, but that is one of the many reasons that I don’t use it all that much (I also only have two games for it). I don’t like having to rummage around for the AC adapter if the battery is dying and I want to keep playing. Yeah, I have to do this now and again with the DS Lite, but I don’t want to have to do this on a regular basis. Again, it really comes down to price: I’m not going to pay $250 for something with the battery life of maybe 4 hours.
The 3DS has a lot of features that are still in the works, including more downloadable content and possible Netflix support. There are also some pretty cool games coming out for the 3DS (read: Ocarina of Time), but I am just going to have to wait for it to drop in price (which may take years) or win the lottery. I’m sure I’ll eventually get one, but it may take a while if it is as efficient as printing money for Nintendo as the DS Lite was.
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