You’re probably tired of hearing about it by now, since I’ve been tweeting and Facebooking about this all week. But anyways, I picked up my 3DS at the post office today, and have been testing it out most of the evening.

First generation meets last generation.

I have mentioned this to some of my friends: I have actually been waiting to buy the 3DS since the day I bought my DS back in 2004! So to say. Not that I knew Nintendo was going to make a 3DS. The thoughts that went through my mind when buying the original DS was something like "Well this is 3D graphics… but it would’ve been even better if it was real 3D graphics! If anyone made a game console like that, I’d buy it right away." And so I bought the 3DS right away. Maybe the next iPad will be the iPad 3D!

Anyways, some of first impressions on the 3DS:

• When testing the 3DS at the launch event, I though it was sometimes pretty hard to find the infamous "sweet spot", but when testing the 3DS at home on my couch it was a bit easier. It might’ve been harder at the event because I was sometimes standing, and maybe also talking with the people at the event made it harder to hold the 3DS still.
• I slightly regret buying Super Street Fighter VI: 3D Edition instead of a more story or progress-based adventure or action game. But I guess I might try and play through the arcade mode with all the characters to listen to their stories, however cheesy they are. The 3D does work in any case, I kinda like playing in the "over the shoulder" mode. Oh, and the internet mode worked! I got to fight two online opponents while testing the arcade mode (before I decided to turn off "accept requests" to finish arcade mode). It was some lag though, might’ve been because the first player probably was Japanese. Ah, my condolences to the Japanese people!
  
  Almost all the houses are just gone… so unbelievable.
  I pray that they manage to fix their reactor and that the people most directly affected will have the strength to rebuild their cities and restart their lives. I did donate some money to them.
• There are a couple of AR games, which are quite fun, though there isn’t much variation. Hopefully it’ll be possible to unlock more stages or so… There are indeed some unlockable modes/toys that I have to buy using "Game coins", which I have to collect by walking around with the 3DS in standby mode. In fact the 3DS is doing so much stuff in standby mode that I worry about how much it will affect batterylife! But I guess the screens are still probably what uses more battery, and those would be turned off in standby mode. I also did test the shooting gallery game with a giant photo of the AR card on my computer monitor, which worked! But it would require much more space around me to play it properly. I should print out some big versions of the AR cards and play with it out on the street! 😀
  Game characters pop out of the AR cards! Then you can move them around and make poses.
• The 3D camera works, and I managed to make a 3D Youtube video of the photos:
  
  Some 3DS photos in Youtube 3D

  But it turns out that the 3D photos are only 640×480, which is pretty crappy. So using the 3DS as my main travel camera might not be such a good idea. Maybe I could buy a 3D camera to complement the 3DS? Ah, which brings me to another point:

• Copying 3D photos from internet and viewing them on my 3DS worked! Turns out I just have to rename them in a specific way. It’s fun. 🙂
• The music player works and has a few interesting options like changing the speed and pitch of the song, 8-bitifying the song and other effects and allowing you to drum along or play various other sound effects along with the song. It also has some nice 3D visualizations, which might make it more attractive to keep the lid open while playing music, preferably while charging the 3DS. Going to the home screen stopped the music though. At least the music keeps playing when you close the lid, which really is a requirement if you want to use the 3DS for listening to music while walking around.
• The charging cradle is nice, though it turns out it doesn’t charge by magnetic induction after all. There are two metal pieces that are pushed out from the back of the cradle when a button on the cradle is being pushed by the 3DS. Quite a basic mechanic, but I guess it is still a bit more fancy than having to fit the charging cable into the 3DS when putting it on the cradle! There is also a hatch that can be opened at the back of the charging cradle, about which I have not been able to find any info.
  
  Mysterious hatch! Why are you there?
  There is nothing in the instruction manual about it, and nobody online has even mentioned it. Though if I had to make a guess, I’d say it’s probably there to make sure the 3DS still fits in the cradle even if there are some kind of 3rd party accessories attached to the top…? Not that it seems to be any ports for accessories on the back of the 3DS, besides cartridge slot itself.
• I’m disappointed that there is no internet browser or Nintendo shop available yet. Let me download games and movies! I would definitely buy a 3D movie! According to the Nintendo support page, the Nintendo eShop won’t be available before late May. Oh well, the system update added a bonus 3D movie with random clips of mostly nature videos. It’s nice!
• And finally, I haven’t gotten any headaches from looking at the 3D effect yet. I managed to play through the arcade mode in Street Fighter once (on easiest setting) without having to turn off the 3D. Though I have to admit that I started finding it harder to find the sweet spot when doing the final battles, so I guess my eyes did get tired…

Man, I always spend way too much time writing blogposts. There’s already too much text and it’s late, so I’ll just stop here, and maybe play a bit more on the 3DS before sleeping. Tomorrow my plan is to finish Batman: Arkham Asylum. In 3D! Yesh!