Let the games begin. Nintendo’s next-generation portable handheld gaming device, the 3DS, is predictably big in Japan, where it premiered Saturday, with reports saying 400,000 of the glasses-free three-dimensional devices sold in the first few days.
Nintendo now has time to build up hype before the 3DS hits Europe on March 25 and North America on March 27. It will sell in U.S. stores for $249.99. Nintendo hopes to ship four million of the devices, which will compete not only with rival Sony’s PlayStation Portable but with an array of smartphones that can be loaded with cheap or free games.
Microsoft, for instance, has announced it will focus on enhancing the connectivity of its Windows Phone 7 system with Xbox Live rather than develop a portable version of its hit Xbox gaming console.
One Of A Kind
Nintendo was the first company to develop a touchscreen gaming device in 2004 and two years later debuted motion-controlled gaming with its Wii home console. Now the Kyoto, Japan-based company is betting big on 3D as its next differentiator.
“Nintendo 3DS is a category of one — the experience simply doesn’t exist anywhere else,” Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said last month in announcing the device. “You have to see Nintendo 3DS to believe it. And it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before.”
The dual-screen 3DS — with a 5.3-inch gaming screen — is backward-compatible to play earlier Nintendo DSi games and has three cameras, two on the outside and one facing the player, to allow 3D photography to be added to some game features, as well as an accelerometer and gyroscope for realistic motion sensing. A Wi-Fi Street Pass system allows users to collect each other’s avatars for interactive play, and a sliding lever allows control of the depth of the 3D effect, including shutting it…