The 3DS: The flaws that bring it, and us, down

Folks, in a few days, Nintendo could be announcing the price and the release date of the Nintendo 3DS for North America. Folks, nothing can go wrong for Nintendo. Nothing at all. I feel so excited I'm setting myself up for disappointment.

Nintendo has now updated its Japanese 3DS website to include a hardware page describing the different components of the system. Here’s the important bits about the battery:

* 3DS charging time: 3 hours 30 minutes
* Battery life playing 3DS games: 3-5 hours
* Battery life playing DS games: 5-8 hours


....

I just been disappointed.

The 3DS battery life is about as long as the PSP's battery life. That means I gotta constantly charge my system up. Nevermind the fact that battery life isn't around the original Game Boy's battery. Heck, nevermind the fact that many devices don't last that long.

But at least I, myself, won't have to worry as they have at least my favorite feature of the 3DS.

As Tiny Cartridge points out, the DSi and DSi XL both include a form of region locking in that DSi systems can only access their own region's DSi Shop, and DSi-enhanced releases (read: games that use the camera, among other things) are locked to the region in which they're released. The 3DS's region locking sounds like it works the same way: the alleged Nintendo rep spells out, "For example, if you play a Korean 3DS game with a Japanese 3DS system (or vice versa), you won't be able to play at all." Nintendo had yet to respond to request for comment as of publishing.

NOOOOO! How am I to play a copy of Doki Doki Majo Shipan 3DS if I have to buy the 3DS in Japan as well as an American version?

Boy I am angry right now, I am willing to throw a fit. I haven't been this disappointed since E3 2010 when Nintendo dominated everyone else. Unfortunately, Nintendo isn't the only one who's making my skin crawl, and not just about the comment on the Battery Life

Just before the battery complaints, a lot of gamers moaned because the 3DS needs to be held steady when playing. Since the 3D technology is based upon the position of your eyes, the effect is negated if you move around a lot. This revelation (despite being totally obvious) was met with anger and dismay from gamers who now deemed 3D useless and who must have Parkinson’s disease if they can’t sit still when playing a videogame. Again, I stress, what the 3DS does is sorcery. Even if it’s just a gimmick, it’s not something we small-minded gamers could conceive as being possible back when all we had were GameBoys. But along comes one small stipulation, one negative aspect, and we’re furious. We’re like children who are angry that we get one cupcake instead of two, regardless of whether or not we did anything to deserve a cupcake in the first place. When you think about it, we really are brats about this stuff.

There are those who hate the state of the modern games industry, and these chaps too are part of the spoiled generation. I mean, really? Life was better back when music had to cut out to make way for sound effects? When challenge in games consisted of throwing endless waves of enemies at you because anything approaching workable AI didn’t exist and titles were too small for complex strategies? We live in an age of high-definition videogames, where technological innovation has allowed for sound effects and music to pipe in through all corners of our living rooms, and games are longer, bigger, more ambitious, and more complicated than ever before. If you plucked your younger self from the 1980′s and sat him in front of a PlayStation 3, he would literally go insane. His tiny brain would not accept the reality of the situation, it’d overload, and he’d shit himself. No joke — in less than three seconds, feces would slalom through his intestines and explode out of his body with such force that his pants would tear and the entire world behind him would turn a rusty brown.

How dare you question our rage. And I know who you are, Jim Sterling. Sneak away from Destructoid onto GameFront to rant about how we're spoiled brats. Well, we're more of a gamer than you are like how Tea Partiers are more Americans than we gamers. We have every right to yell like a flaming internet user, even if our rants don't make sense.

In fact, I believe that we're not completely biased enough. Oh no. To be a real spoiled gamer, one must look towards Fox News for advice, from Sean Hannity to Glenn Beck(Oh, and Bill O'Reily, but he's becoming yesterday's trash). For Fox stands for the following

F- Fear Mongering. Stating that Nintendo is killing gaming isn't enough. I propose we also declare that Nintendo is a secret society hell bent on destroying our way of life. State that old systems are really out to eat your brains. Fear Mongering will cause users to sell their other video game systems and buy the new kinds all while feeding dollars into our company overlords

O- Overstating. OverExaggerating. Overblowing. Over 9000. I don't care how old it is. Push it to epic proportions and they will understand. Take it all the way. Even something as small as a spec of dust getting into a system is declared a defect that will kill the system in the overall run.

X- Xenophobia. By all means, stereotype anyone who's system you don't enjoy. Otakus would go for the Wii and PS3 while saying that the 360 and iPad are not Moe enough, while Patriots go for the 360s and iPods while declaring the PS3 and Wii as UnAmerican, all unaware that all 4 systems, plus the handhelds and Home Computers, are all built in China.

And folks, let's just hope everyone pulls a Fox News when Nintendo does what they can to pull out all the stops this Wednesday

Geek
Joystiq
Gamefront Article by Jim Sterling