That is the first thing I thought when I read the following:
Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch “Nintendo 3DS”(temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011, on which games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses.
“Nintendo 3DS”(temp) is going to be the new portable game machine to succeed “Nintendo DS series”, whose cumulative consolidated sales from Nintendo amounted to 125 million units as of the end of December 2009, and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for Nintendo DSi, can also be enjoyed.
We are planning to announce additional details at E3 show, which is scheduled to be held from June 15, 2010 at Los Angeles in the U.S.
Nintendo would only make such an announcement, and not have it for the E3 show, only to pre-empt a competitor. For example, Nintendo did this with Motion Plus before Microsoft’s Press Conference in E3 2008.
You should also remember that due to competitors, Nintendo never fully unveils everything. So the real feature of 3DS is not yet revealed. I suspect Nintendo might be trying to take a play from its own history when it announced the DS had ‘two screens’ while leaving out the touchscreen.
“Why is there two screens?” Analysts did respond that the DS and its two screens was the Crazy Ivan response to the PSP.
The 3D is only the visual output. We still do not know about the input. And since 3DS is the temp name, I suspect the full name talks about whatever is the true unique nature of the 3DS.
If it is not about pre-empting a competitor such as Sony about to unveil their own PSP 2 type plans, I have another theory of why Nintendo is doing this.
I believe Nintendo is intentionally creating a mirage that 3d visuals are going to be totally what the DS 2 is going to be in hoping its competitors will take the bait and ‘compete’ by making a huge 3d handheld. I KNOW that Nintendo isn’t revealing the true coolness of the device because they wouldn’t want competitors to steal it.
Nintendo is volunteering information of their new system well a year away. Now, why would they do this? It is because the information they are putting out is probably not for us. It is for their competitors. It feels like I am watching business poker being played, and Nintendo is putting up some intentionally misleading moves.
Will Nintendo’s competitors fall for it? Probably. Look at how eagerly they copied the Wii-mote and the Miis.