My brief Hands-On with the upcoming Nintendo 3DS

[Sylon]

Execs from Nintendo of America were kind enough to pay us military folk a visit today, giving us the chance to meet the original voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, and to try out the new Nintendo 3DS.

The line for Mario himself was really long and closed when I finally made it there. However, the line for the 3DS was shorter, and I just barely made it in before they closed that one too. When it was my turn, one of the execs had me play one of the AR games it could do. He places a card with a big ? on it on the table in front of me and had me point the device at the card and an AR game popped out of the card and onto the 3D screen.

As for the device itself. Well, it has 3 cameras on it, 1 facing you and 2 facing out for 3D imagery. The device is a good size, a little thick when folded up though. There is a slider on the right side that allows you to adjust the level of 3D'ness on the top screen. The bottom screen is still the signature touch version, and doesnt support 3D.

As for the 3D'ness, its pretty good for a small screen. Its nothing really crazy, I mean, you can tell its 3D, but its not enough to blow your mind. I maybe had about 2-3 minutes to play with the thing, and couldnt do anything other than play that AR game. I didnt get the chance to try out the 3D camera with pictures or anything like that.


But I did take some crappy cell phone pics, haha.





The man himself, MARIO!



Across from him was this booth with the 3DS units and a tv showing the device's features.



And the unit itself. The Exec turned the 3D off for the picture, although it wouldn't have shown up in 3D in a pic anyways.



This event was just a meet-n-greet with Charles Martinet and to try out the 3DS. They were not selling the device or even taking pre-orders. It was just a try out as a token of their appreciation for the military.

[ScottK135]

Must have been pretty fun. Thanks for sharing

[serge_chez]

I think the price tag on the 3DS is ridiculous. A cool concept, but too expensive. People may think it's a Apple product with that $ tag.