Nintendo has entered the third dimension.
The Japanese video game giant announced this week that it will launch a 3-D version of its popular handheld gaming system within one year’s time.
The Nintendo 3DS, as it’s called, will have a 3-D display that needs no special glasses, and it will be backwards-compatible with games made for earlier versions of the DS.
No further details were released, but more will be revealed at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or “E3,” this June in Los Angeles.
Nintendo is taking a play from Apple’s book lately and “thinking different,” releasing a larger-screened DS later this month in response to demand from older gamers even as everyone else toils to make ever-smaller gadgets.
Then there’s the company’s now-infamous focus on “casual” gamers over the younger, hipper hardcore crowd with low-fi products like the Wii and Wii Fit. Nintendo is even trying to sneak its DS systems into schools as “educational aids” and teaching tools.
Whether or not the 3DS is a hit, its development could be a boon for other companies and industries as software and hardware components are created from scratch for the relatively new technology of home 3-D gaming.
It’s not the first time Nintendo has tried to play the 3-D game: In 1995, the company released the Virtual Boy (named after its first handheld system, the Game Boy.)
The head-mounted 32-bit system used parallax graphics to create an illusion of depth — but consumers weren’t buying it, literally. The price of the Virtual Boy dropped several times before it was discontinued quietly a year later.
Is the time right for another go?
