I'm glad that Nintendo's putting a big focus on AR, and the automatic photo->Mii converter is a nice touch.  We probably would have seen more of that on the DSi, but it's just too low-powered to do that kind of real-time processing.

any sort of confirmation on leaked specs for the 3DS?

Am I the only one excited for the AR Trading Cards?  Whoo!

you think they'll start packing them in with games as a sort of bonus to retail purchasers?

insert the game into your 3DS and it installs it for you and now the card you have becomes interactive.
Or do you think they will sell them separately and you install them with a wifi connection?
or maybe they can hide the game code in the QRcode like configuration(return of the card reader)?

Is this the equivalent of WiiSports or PictoChat?

You wouldn't be able to pack enough data into such a barcode and still have it readable by the camera.

I'm confused about the SDcard. Why not just include 2gigs in the system itself (what does it have now) doesn't paying for each sdcard more expensive than just installing it into the hardware? What exactly can you do with the SDcard that requires it. Any word yet if you could use the SDcard just like in the Wii and play Virtual Handheld games off it? Or is it just for pictures

I agree, but SD card Flash is typically slower, and thus cheaper than internal Flash.

It would allow them to "upgrade" the system later, without actually releasing a new unit.

Nintendo 3DS - Now with 4 times the memory included!

They could still do that without the SD card included.  Maybe one of the SD manufacturers had an excess of 2GB stock that they needed to dump (they are only a few bucks retail, after all, and below the price/capacity sweet spot).  It's like when my camera came with a 16MB SD card.

So the 3DS has NO internal Flash mem?

or is the 2GB card that's included in addition to the 2GB onboard flash that the user has access to 1.5GB of?

The official specs make no mention of the internal storage either way.

The SD card is probably for shoveling data from a PC to the 3DS. Those pack in games better be fucking amazing for that price though. I don't see AR games being useful in a portable system.

The AR games seem to be just tech demos to show what the system can do, hence why they are being bundled with the system.

can nintendo somehow force "special SD cards" to work on 3DS or is that not possible and any SD card should be fine and dandy?


Is it safe to assume virtual handheld games can be stored on SDcard and played just like Wii ?

Any SD card should work or it would probably be a violation of the SD card license agreement.

I was hoping that Nintendo would include pre-installed demos of some of the titles for the 3DS. For example, buy the 3DS and you will find that there are demos of Star Fox, Dive Bomber, and Pilot Wings. Nintendo could use these demos to advertise the underdogs of the launch titles. Essesntially titles that might need a little more publicity to get notice from the consumer.

I also have this feeling that Nintendo is going to bundle Kid Icarus with the 3DS.

THat seems like a great idea, and wouldn't cost much to get done and make tons of profit for nintendo as people want to buy these games. Maybe gamestop, toyrus, etc have 3DS with specific demos pre-installed . Those are the default basic demos everyone gets but gamestop exclusive includes pilotwings, star fox and toyrus has Ocarina of Time and Dive Bomber....

SD is a brand name and a standard, you cannot modify the standard and still use the brand name.

So we're assuming High-capacity SD is also supported?

SDHC is a separate standard.

Since the DSi/DSiXL supports SDHC, I would only assume the 3DS would support it.

I doubt it'll support SDXC though...

Couldn't they add that in firmware like they added SDHC with the Wii?