Nintendo on Tuesday announced that it has sold 4.5 million 3DS units in the handset’s first year of U.S. availability. Sales thus far have outpaced Nintendo’s original DS, which sold 2.3 million units in the U.S. during its first 12 months. Since launching last March, the 3DS has reached over 100 titles with over 9 million games sold, accounting for over $1.2 billion in total sales. “Nintendo 3DS closes its first year with a lengthy list of accomplishments but we’re still just scratching the surface,” said Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime. “With a massive lineup of first- and third-party games and more on the way, a budding library of entertainment options and an engaged and growing installed base, Nintendo 3DS has an incredibly bright future. We’re just getting started but this platform is built for the long haul.” Read on for Nintendo’s press release.

Nintendo 3DS Sells 4.5 Million Units in Its First Year in the U.S.

Platform Sells Nearly Twice as Many Units as Nintendo DS Sold in its First Year

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The era of glasses-free 3D gaming is turning one this month as Nintendo 3DS prepares to celebrate its first birthday. On March 27, 2011, video games and portable entertainment jumped into a new dimension in the U.S. and that story got richer throughout the year with record-breaking software titles such as Super Mario 3D Land and Mario Kart 7 and entertainment options such as Netflix, Nintendo Video and the ability to record 3D movies. The platform enters its second year with a massive lineup of games, including the recently launched Resident Evil Revelations from CAPCOM, Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games published by SEGA, TEKKEN 3D Prime Edition from NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., METAL GEAR SOLID Snake Eater 3D from Konami Digital Entertainment and the upcoming Kid Icarus: Uprising and Spirit Camera: The Cursed Memoir from Nintendo.

“Nintendo 3DS closes its first year with a lengthy list of accomplishments but we’re still just scratching the surface,” said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “With a massive lineup of first- and third-party games and more on the way, a budding library of entertainment options and an engaged and growing installed base, Nintendo 3DS has an incredibly bright future. We’re just getting started but this platform is built for the long haul.”

Some of the milestones achieved by Nintendo 3DS in its first year include:

• March 27, 2011: Nintendo 3DS ushers in a new era of gaming with glasses-free 3D. Launch-day sales are the strongest in Nintendo’s history.
• June 2011: The Nintendo eShop launches The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D, letting users preview, try and buy new and classic games, download applications and watch 3D movie trailers.
• June 2011: Link makes his first appearance in 3D with , which is still the best-reviewed game for Nintendo 3DS.
• Summer 2011: Nintendo 3DS adds two video services:
  • Netflix unlimited streaming members can instantly watch thousands of TV episodes and movies.
  • Nintendo Video automatically delivers hand-picked 3D content from leading sites and artists.
• October 2011: After only eight months, Nintendo 3DS surpasses first-year sales of Nintendo DS, the best-selling video game system in history.
• Fall 2011: Mario jumps into 3D with two new games, each becoming the fastest-selling titles in their franchises’ history:
  • Nov. 13, 2011: Super Mario 3D Land – 1.75 million copies sold to date
  • Dec. 4, 2011: Mario Kart 7 – 1.45 million copies sold to date
• December 2011: Users can now record up to 10 minutes of 3D video and stop-motion animation.
• December 2011: Nintendo 3DS crosses 4 million units sold, passing the record pace set by the Wii.
• Feb. 22, 2012: Dillon’s Rolling Western launches for the Nintendo eShop, joining hot titles Pushmo and Freakyforms: Your Creations, Alive!
• March 23, 2012: Nintendo 3DS closes its first year with the launch of Kid Icarus: Uprising, the first original entrant in the series in more than 20 years.

Nintendo 3DS is inexorably linked with its predecessor the Nintendo DS, the best-selling gaming system in U.S. history with more than 51 million units sold. A side-by-side comparison shows that Nintendo 3DS had a stronger first year across the board.

				Nintendo DS*				Nintendo 3DS**
Launch date				Nov. 21, 2004				March 27, 2011
Total HW units sold in first 12 months				2.3 million				4.5 million
Total number of SW titles released in first 12 months				58				100+
Total units of software sold in first 12 months				5 million				9 million+
Total $ sales (HW, SW and accessory) in first 12 months				$540 million				$1.2 billion+

*Source: NPD **Source: Nintendo of America ***All Figures are U.S. Only

Nintendo announced Wednesday that it will launch a “flame red” version of its Nintendo 3DS on September 9th. The portable gaming system will launch in tandem with the new Star Fox 64 3D game and will be available for the new $169.99 price, which goes into effect on August 12th. “With major upcoming releases in the Star Fox, Pokémon and Mario series, in addition to downloadable offerings from Nintendo eShop, Nintendo Video and Netflix, the system offers new and fun experiences to owners on a daily basis,” Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime said. Nintendo has sold 830,000 3DS units in the U.S. since its March 27th launch. Super Mario Land 3D is expected to hit store shelves in November and Mario Kart 7 will be available in December. Read on for the full press release.

ADDING MULTIMEDIA Nintendo Gets Fired up for the Holidays with New Flame Red Nintendo 3DS

New Color, New Price and Great Games Make Nintendo 3DS a Must-Have

REDMOND, Wash.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Nintendo is making sure the holidays are hot this year with a new Flame Red version of its portable Nintendo 3DS^™ system. The new color launches Sept. 9 alongside the new Star Fox 64^™ 3D game, and comes on the heels of a new $169.99 suggested retail price, which goes into effect Aug. 12 in the United States. Flame Red joins Cosmo Black and Aqua Blue, so now shoppers have three distinct and fashionable colors to choose from.

“With a solid back-half game lineup, the Nintendo 3DS price drop is well timed to drive consumer interest and purchases through the holiday season.”

“Nintendo 3DS is poised to be on fire for the holidays, with its new suggested retail price, great games and our new Flame Red color,” said Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime. “With major upcoming releases in the Star Fox, Pokémon and Mario series, in addition to downloadable offerings from Nintendo eShop, Nintendo Video and Netflix, the system offers new and fun experiences to owners on a daily basis.”

On the software side, third-party developers have lined up to deliver great new experiences that make use of the unique features of Nintendo 3DS.

“Nintendo 3DS is an amazing piece of technology that offers players incredible 3D games without the need for special glasses. Beyond that, it’s an affordable dedicated gaming machine. Simply put, Nintendo 3DS is a fabulous device,” said Laurent Detoc, President, North America, Ubisoft. “Ubisoft has been a big supporter of Nintendo 3DS since the beginning with eight Nintendo 3DS games released to date and another eight games coming out before the end of calendar year 2011.”

Retailers are also anticipating a strong showing from Nintendo 3DS this holiday season.

“The new, lower Nintendo 3DS price combined with a hot new color and big-name games will entice even more Target guests to get their hands on this first-of-its-kind 3D gaming experience,” said Nik Nayar, vice president of Merchandising, Target.

“GameStop customers were excited about the Nintendo 3DS launch, and this lower price point should spark additional demand,” said GameStop President Tony Bartel. “With a solid back-half game lineup, the Nintendo 3DS price drop is well timed to drive consumer interest and purchases through the holiday season.”

Nintendo is planning the release of two upcoming games starring its famous hero, Mario^™, this holiday season. Super Mario^™ 3D Land will launch in November, while Mario Kart^™ 7 becomes available in December. Super Mario 3D Land is a new platforming game that takes full advantage of 3D graphics to deliver new puzzles, more precise jumping action and a remarkable new visual perspective on the Mushroom Kingdom. The game also marks the return of Mario’s fan-favorite Tanooki Suit, which allows him to strike enemies with his tail and slowly descend after jumping. Mario Kart 7 is a new racing game that includes multiple characters from the Mushroom Kingdom, Kart customization and intense multiplayer action. Players can now race on land, sea and air, sail through the sky with the new hang glider feature and drive underwater in some stages. Both games are completely new and are designed specifically for the Nintendo 3DS system.

Since Nintendo 3DS launched in the United States on March 27, more than 830,000 units have been sold in the U.S. alone. Nintendo 3DS owners represent some of Nintendo’s most loyal customers, and Nintendo is rewarding them for getting in on the action early with 20 free downloadable games from the Nintendo eShop.

These free games are available to anyone who owns a Nintendo 3DS system and uses a wireless broadband Internet signal to connect to the Nintendo eShop at least once or performs a system update before 11:59 p.m. Eastern time on Aug. 11. These users will automatically be registered in the Nintendo 3DS Ambassador program. The program contains two elements:

1. Starting Sept. 1, Nintendo 3DS Ambassadors will be able to download 10 NES^™ Virtual Console^™ games at no charge and before they are available in the Nintendo eShop to the general public. These games, including Super Mario Bros.^™, Donkey Kong Jr.^™, Balloon Fight^™, Ice Climber^™ and The Legend of Zelda^™, are slated to become paid downloadable games, but Ambassadors get them early for free. Once the paid versions of the games are posted to the Nintendo eShop later in the year, the updated versions will be available to Ambassadors for download at no cost.

By the end of 2011, Nintendo will provide Ambassadors with 10 Game Boy^™ Advance Virtual Console games. These include games like Yoshi’s Island^™: Super Mario^™ Advance 3, Mario Kart^™: Super Circuit, Metroid^™ Fusion, WarioWare^™, Inc.: Mega Microgame$ and Mario vs. Donkey Kong^™. These games will be available exclusively to Ambassadors, and Nintendo currently has no plans to make these 10 games available to the general public on the Nintendo 3DS in the future.

Amazon has stopped directly selling the Nintendo 3DS citing customer complaints as the cause of its decision. The portable gaming console currently has 359 reviews and an average of 4/5 stars on Amazon’s website, which suggests customers are happy with the unit itself, but the online retailer has posted a note that states:

While this item is available from other marketplace sellers on this page, it is not currently offered by Amazon.com because customers have told us there may be something wrong with our inventory of the item, the way we are shipping it, or the way it’s described here. (Thanks for the tip!)

We’re working to fix the problem as quickly as possible.

It remains unclear but Amazon could have stopped selling the 3DS because of a mistake in its original listing or due to customer complaints on how the product arrived. Techland is speculating that cause could be the “rubber feet” on the top lid. These feet are supposedly not adequate enough to prevent the screen from rubbing against the keypad while the console is closed. Gamers can still purchase the Nintendo 3DS from third-party retailers on Amazon.com however, and from a number of additional retailers across the country.

[Via Techland]

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Will Microsoft enter the portable gaming market to compete with Nintendo, Sony, and Apple? According to its chief operating officer, Dennis Durkin, not yet. In an interview with Industry Gamers, Durkin explained that the portable gaming market is too crowded right now and that there’s too much change happening. “I’m not sure I would want to be launching a dedicated portable device right now into that market,” Durkin said. “I think the DS – if you look at the 3DS, certainly versus people’s expectation’s it’s not been as successful as people would have thought. So that’s a very crowded market and a very, very red ocean right now with a lot of change happening. So I’m not sure it’s [a good idea] … You only have a certain number of bets you can make as a company and you have to decide what you want to put your wood behind and I’m just not sure that that’s a place that I would put mine.” Durkin said he sees strength in Microsoft’s Xbox 360 system and is excited about the future of the firm’s future plans for Kinect and Xbox Live. We also imagine Microsoft has its hands full right now with the company’s next-generation Xbox console, which is set to debut at E3 next year.

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We’re here at E3 2011 in Los Angeles and we just got our hands on Sony’s brand new PlayStation Vita — its next-generation portable gaming console — and we’re impressed with what we’ve seen so far. Games were crystal clear in HD and the device was light, but large enough to feel like we were getting a great immersive gaming experience. It’s probably a bit too big for most pockets, but it will be perfect in a backpack. Also, you’ll probably note the fingerprints in some images — the device is definitely a grease magnet. The controls all felt snappy and they didn’t depart too much from the previous-generation PSP, which is a good thing. Unfortunately, the demo units we played with were locked in game-only mode, which meant we couldn’t back out to check out the other pre-installed applications, the default user interface, or the web browser, so we’ll definitely want to revisit that in the future. The Vita will land for $249.99 but there will also be a 3G version available from AT&T for $50 more. Sadly, we still don’t know when it will launch, but the good news is the gaming already feels top notch. Be sure to check out our hands-on photo gallery below!

Speaking during an investor briefing on Tuesday, Nintendo’s president Satoru Iwata said that sales of his firms new 3DS portable gaming system failed to meet expectations. “Sales of the 3DS have been weaker than expected since the second week of launch in the US and Europe,” Iwata said while discussing the device’s launches in Europe, the United States, and in Japan. Nintendo had expected to sell 4 million units last quarter, but sales fell short at 3.61 million units. Iwata said that he hopes sales will increase as much as 40% during the next year, AFP reported. We reviewed the 3DS earlier this month and argue that the gaming system doesn’t offer enough features to justify its $250 price point.

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Sony has officially dropped the suggested retail price of the PSP in Europe to €129.99 ($187.29). This follows the company’s February 25th announcement that it was slashing the price of its gaming system to $129.99 in the United States. Sony also said that — beginning on April 14th — PSP owners will be able to access an unlimited cloud-based music service called Music Unlimited. Powered by Qriocity, Music Unlimited will allow PSP owners to listen to customized music channels or sync up with tunes stored on their PlayStation 3, PC, or other Sony devices. “The price cut is aimed at increasing adoption of the player in Europe,” said Sony spokesperson Satoshi Fukuoka. The move may also be tied to the recent launch of the Nintendo 3DS, which we reviewed earlier this month.

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The 3DS, Nintendo’s latest portable gaming platform and the first with a 3D display, made its U.S. debut on March 27th. Nintendo moved 400,000 units on launch day in Japan, and Amazon U.K. said the device broke console pre-order records as well. So, being the subway riding gamer that I am, I knew I had to find out what all this hype was about. I took it for a spin over the last week, staying up late trying to beat games and carrying it in my backpack to rock on the subway. And now, after a week of 3D gaming, it’s time to drop the hammer and see if the 3DS really is worthy of all that hype.

In the box

The Nintendo 3DS comes packed with everything you need to get started right out of the box. In the box you’ll find the console itself, a charging cradle that you can easily drop the 3DS into on your desk, a 2GB SD card, an AC adapter, a stylus, and some augmented-reality playing cards that you can use to start gaming right away. It’s actually pretty neat — when the camera on the 3DS sees one of the cards, it launches one of a few mini games that are stored internally on the unit.

It might have been nice if Nintendo finally dumped its proprietary charger and instead opted for a standard microUSB port so I could carry one less adapter in my bag, but that’s definitely not a deal-breaker.

Hardware

Is the Nintendo 3DS portable? Yes, if you’re 10 and wear baggy sweatpants. But mobile gaming isn’t just for kids and a $199 iPod touch offers both cheaper games and a far more portable form factor. Measuring in at 2.9 inches x 5.3 inches x 0.8 inches, the 3DS is a pocket hog. Seriously, good luck getting anything else in your pocket if you’re planning to carry the 3DS around everywhere with you. I chose to carry the 3DS in a backpack all week because of its size, and if you plan to do the same, you’ll be fine. Even still, however, I see no reason for a gaming system to measure any fatter than a deck of cards — and even that seems too thick at times.

Given its size though, it feels relatively light at about 8 ounces. While the hinge feels sturdy and like it will last a few years, the device itself felt cheap and like a toy, not a $250 gadget. Nintendo: please use better build materials and make your devices more portable. This isn’t 1989 and nobody wants a Game Boy.

The top of the 3DS is home to two cameras capable of snapping 3D photos at a 640 x 480 resolution. That resolution is pretty pathetic and the photos weren’t anything to write home about, but as a novelty or a way to keep your kids from nagging you during the NBA finals, the 3DS’ camera functions are perfect. Most phones pack a 3 to 5-megapixel camera these days, though, so I see no excuse for Nintendo to include such low-quality sensors in an expensive flagship gaming product.

You can’t email images from the device unfortunately, nor can you share them with any social networks. That’s pretty mind boggling in 2011 when any device with a Wi-Fi connection should include those features. The volume toggle button and SD card slot are on the left side of the 3DS, and the SD card is protected by a plastic hatch that was easy to remove. A wireless toggle button is on the right side of the system, and there are two power indicator lights and a 3.5mm headphone jack on the bottom front. As usual, game cartridges are inserted in the top back of the 3DS and that slot is flanked by left/right shoulder buttons, a charging port, and the stylus.

3D Display

The 3DS is equipped with two displays: The top 3D display measures 3.53 inches and has an 800 x 240 pixel resolution. Nintendo says that 400 pixels are allocated to each eye, which allows for the 3D effect. The secondary, lower display is a bit smaller — it measures 3.02 inches — and has a lower 320 x 240 pixel resolution.

I found the 3D display to be a bar trick at best; I was usually able to play games better with 3D turned off (there’s a toggle switch directly to the right of the display), and the viewing angles were so bad I felt like I was looking at a hologram from a Crackerjack box. Again, for a younger demographic the novelty will definitely be enjoyed, but teens and above into casual gaming will likely turn 3D off most of the time. Also, I would recommend using the 3D feature in short bursts rather than for hours at a time since it really seemed to strain the eyes after a while. Beyond that, however, the screen gets bright enough for gaming in most conditions, though I did find myself squinting while playing under direct sunlight on a park bench.

Gaming Controls

The 3DS also sports a new circle pad that allows for 360-degree analog input, which I loved. It slides around well and it made navigating with my characters in Pilot Wings much easier. I generally preferred it to the cross pad, which is still an option as well. To the right of the lower display, there are the standard A/B/X/Y buttons, and there are Select, Start, and Home buttons directly below the screen.

It’s strange that none of the buttons were backlit, though, and I think the Select, Home, and Start buttons could use a bit more travel. They also feel cheap.

Software and User Interface

Nintendo spiced up the original and boring user interface on the DS. It’s definitely more exciting now with 3D effects and animated icons, and it’s dead easy to use — but that’s all it has going for it. The UI is slow to execute almost any command; it takes 5 seconds just for the 3DS to back out of the camera application, for example.

There are 11 default icons to choose from on the main menu, including your current game cartridge, Health & Safety Info, Nintendo 3DS Sounds, the camera, Mii Maker, StreetPass Mii Plaza, AR (augmented reality) games, Face Raiders, Download Play, Activity Log, and System Settings. At the top of the screen there’s also a notepad for taking notes on games, a message alert icon, a Web browser icon (the Web browser will be activated in a future update), and a friend list manager. As you select each option, the top screen displays more information in 3D. I found myself turning off the 3D regularly, but especially while navigating around the home screen.

The Health & Safety application warns that the 3D feature should only be used by children aged 7 and older, as it could cause eye damage in children 6 and under. If you’re worried, the 3DS reminds you from time to time to take a break. The Nintendo 3DS Sounds application is cool in theory, but it’s pretty useless unless you’re a little kid. If I wanted to record myself making weird noises, and then loop them back as some sort of music, I could, but I think this feature will generally be used to drive parents mad. You can also use this application — and I’m using the term “application” loosely — to play MP3s loaded on an SD card, but it doesn’t display album art and you have to dig through folders to find songs, which definitely isn’t user friendly for young children.

The settings menu was easy to navigate for applying a system update, as well as for finding and connecting to a protected wireless network. Face Raiders and AR Games are two augmented reality style applications that allow you to game with the 3DS right out of the box. I booted up Face Raiders, which prompted me to take a photo of myself, and then proceeded to move around my room shooting little flying balls with my face plastered on them.

AR Games takes advantage of a small pack of playing cards that come with the system. Simply place a card on a wall-lit desk and point the camera at it, and it suddenly comes to life. On one, my desk spawned a large monster that I needed to defeat by firing dozens of arrows. It’s a pretty fascinating feature, and it was fun seeing inanimate objects pop to life.

Also, if you’ve ever used a Wii than you’ll be right at home with the Mii Maker, which is basically just used to create a custom avatar of yourself. You can automatically create a Mii by taking a photo of yourself, but I thought mine was pretty inaccurate.

Lastly, there’s an Activity application that monitors how many steps you take while traveling with your Nintendo 3DS. As you walk, you can earn up to 30 “Play Coins” per day, which can be spent inside the StreetPass Mii Plaza on mini games. At the time this review was published, I had walked 18,684 steps with the Nintendo 3DS and earned 38 Play Coins. Don’t pretend you’re not impressed.

Nintendo included a Web browser on the 3DS but it doesn’t currently function. While it is coming in a future update, I have a hard time believing it’s going to offer a top-notch browsing experience. Flash support? That will never happen. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, though. Why hasn’t Nintendo jumped on board with app providers like Netflix to add support for streaming video? Why isn’t there an App Store? And why include a forward facing camera if I can’t use it for video chats? The 3DS feels so bare boned that it’s angering. Casual adult gamers could get much more use out of the device if Nintendo focused on these areas, but instead it’s rendered more of a child’s toy.

StreetPass

Nintendo’s StreetPass feature allows you to leave the 3DS idle as you walk around. If you pass within 150 feet of someone else with the StreetPass feature active, you can opt to have it automatically add that person to your Mii Plaza Community. I picked up six different people walking around New York City during two days, but I don’t really understand the purpose of this feature. I have no desire to see what other people’s 3DS Mii characters look like, and as far as I can tell, the only thing you can do with it is exchange puzzle pieces to complete a 3D puzzle. Does Nintendo really think people want to go walking around cities to meet people in an effort to complete an imaginary puzzle picture?

Games

The biggest problem Nintendo is going to face with the 3DS is the price of the games. At launch there were 18 games available, and the BGR team bought three games for my 3DS review: Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, Pilotwings Resort, and Ridge Racer 3D — each costing roughly $40. That’s $120 for three games on top of the $250 you’ll have to drop on the 3DS itself. How can Nintendo possibly think that this system will compete with the iPod touch (or Android personal media players, even), where games cost just a few bucks and still offer hours of game play? Street Fighter IV for iOS costs just $4.99, for example.

Worse yet, I found the 3D display actually inhibited my ability to play games well. In Pilotwings I was required to fly through loops and land accurately on floating targets. My scores were better every single time when I completed a course with the 3D off. Similarly, I crashed in Ridge Racer 3D so much due to the poor viewing angles that I put the game back in its package and never want to see it again. Admittedly, I enjoyed the 3D effects in Super Street Fighter, but it’s still not worth the premium to me.

Battery

The battery life of the Nintendo 3DS is pretty awful. With 3D on I was lucky to get about 3 hours of battery life on a single charge. I need a personal gaming system that can get me through a long flight, and that’s not even getting my halfway there. To be fair, Nintendo does admit that battery life should fall between 3-5 hours for 3D games and 5-8 hours with Nintendo DS titles.

Wrap Up

Sure, you’ll have a fun time gaming on the Nintendo 3DS because there are a number of attractive titles out there, but I’d think long and hard about buying a game when they cost upwards of $40. I can’t think of any reason I’d buy the 3DS over an iPod touch, for example, which costs $50 less. Had I done that in the first place, I’d have spent $200 and had another $170 left over for buying iOS games, many of which are cheap or even free.

The 3DS falls short in so many ways. It doesn’t (yet) have a Web browser, the battery life is terrible, there’s not an app store for installing more apps, the camera isn’t great, it’s not comfortable in the pocket, it’s bulky, and the 3D display’s viewing angles are so bad that it’s hard to game properly. While the device does offer some features that very young gamers will potentially have a lot of fun with, older casual gamers and even teens are going to be put off by the missing features and the sub par quality of some key elements.

Nintendo needs to realize that the old portable gaming console market is dead. It needs to adapt to an app store formula, and it needs to create well rounded devices with decent cameras, email clients, and more. As it stands, the 3DS seems like a half baked product that should have hit the market 5 years ago.

Now that you know what I think about the 3DS, check out the video below to see how a few other New Yorkers felt after handing the 3DS for the first time.

If Amazon U.K.’s pre-orders are any indication of what’s to come, the Nintendo 3DS could be as big of a hit as it was in Japan when it launched in February of 2010. On its Twitter account Thursday, Amazon UK said that the Nintendo DS has become the most pre-ordered console ever. U.K. residents interested in buying the device can purchase it for £187 ($381 USD). The Nintendo 3DS will launch in the United States on March 27th for $249.99. As its name suggests, the 3DS offers a 3D display, and games are backward-compatible with previous Nintendo DS and DSi titles.

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Nintendo confirmed on Thursday that it is holding an event to announce the details of a new product on September 29th. This centerpiece product for this upcoming event is most likely the Nintendo 3DS, a 3-D portable gaming device unveiled by Nintendo earlier this year. If this supposition pans out, then we can expect Nintendo to announce the official launch date,launch markets, and pricing for this novel gaming device. Folks trying to adjust their budget to accommodate a purchase of the 3DS would be wise to consider the words of James Honeywell, Nintendo’s marketing manager, who hinted to Electric Pig that the 3DS will fall somewhere within the current DS pricing architecture. With the DSi available for £129.99 ($203 USD) and the larger DSi XL for £159.99 ($249 USD), we would expect the 3DS to hit that sweet spot between $200 and $250. Anyone looking to score a 3DS when it becomes available later this year?

[Via Kotaku]

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Everyone here at BGR HQ is pretty grumpy this morning as a string of late night press releases issued by Samsung got us too worked up to sleep. Celebrating the sixth Samsung Mobile Solutions Forum in Taipei, Samsung gave a show of force that highlights exactly why the company is a worldwide chipset and components leader for mobile devices. To kick things off, two new 1GHz processors with 512KB L2 cache were announced. Not only do they consume significantly less power versus other processors on the market, but they are also capable of graphically intense 3D gaming and support 1080p output at 30fps using the HDMI 1.3 standard. Couple these with the OneDRAM memory chipset that clocks in at 166MHz and transfers data at speeds of up to 1.3GBps and a 512MB PRAM chip, and you have the potential for one seriously powerful mobile gaming platform.

So now we have the beginnings of the next generation in unstoppable high end handsets, but what else do they need? A screen and a camera, of course. Samsung’s new display technology integrates all of the controls for capacitive touchscreens into the display driver itself. Then with regards to cameras, Samsung combined a 5 megapixel CMOS image sensor with an image signal processor on a single chip, thus creating a system-on-chip (SoC) camera module that is capable of recording 1080p video at 30fps. Those of you who did not already kill your computers from excessive drooling will be pleased to note that all this tech isn’t too far away from the hands of consumers — most of these components are already under limited production and should enter into mass production effective Q1 2010. We can hardly wait.

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We’ve heard some rumors about an upcoming PSP refresh in the past — ok, a whole lot of rumors — but new information is casting doubt upon the details of previous information. 1UP is reporting that the new PSP will be christened the PSP Go! and will finally do away with that awful UMD system while taking on a slider form. In place of UMDs, it is said the PSP Go! will come in 8GB and 16GB models meaning a green light for game downloads. As for games, Sony is reportedly planning to have around 100 old and new games ready for launch time. Sadly those of you who were looking for a bit of dual-joystick action will be disappointed to note that according to this new rumor, a second analog stick will not be added to the right-hand side. Such is life, we suppose. Word is Sony will make the PSP Go! official at E3 next month and have it hit the streets in Japan in September with a US launch in either late October or early November — ensuring its inclusion in plenty of letters to Santa. And yes, the image above is a mock up.

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Gamers get your plane tickets now. The new PSP-3000 will be available On October 16th in Japan. Retailing at 19,800 yen ($184), the new PSP system will debut in three basic colors of “Piano Black,” “Pearl White” and “Mystic Silver”. For gamers with a flair for fashion (admit it, you’re out there), additional colors are expected soon. The PSP will come bundled with a 4GB Memory Stick Pro Duo, a pouch, hand strap, and a wipe cloth for all those inevitable and annoying greasy fingerprints. Some new peripherals and accessory packs will also be available on release. No further details on release dates in other countries though it is still expected for the upcoming holiday season. Some cool new online services are also set to be launched this fall in conjunction with the release of this new device. PSP users will now be able to connect directly to the PlayStation Store and download entertainment and game content without piggybacking through a computer or PS3. Available for download on the launch date will be a PSP version of the Japanese PS3 game, Mainichi Issyo. Own a previous version of the PSP and feeling a bit left out? Rejoice as an update will extend this service to you too! Another online service will launch that “enables users to play PSP software titles featuring ad-hoc mode over the Internet through PS3 with other online players. PSP software titles such as “MONSTER HUNTER PORTABLE 2nd G” from CAPCOM Co., Ltd. will be compatible with this new online service.” A footnote says “Titles and the detailed information of the service will be announced in due course.” Hmm, not really sure what that means (PSP vs PS3 online games?) but it sounds interesting.

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