Nintendo Announces 3DS Portable Game System

Some of the greatest innovation comes from the world of gaming. I got my first taste of technology with arcade games and the original Atari. A lot of the innovation of the early tech days and the proof of Moore's Law were greatly because of the constant improvement that game designers kept churning out. Unfortunately, I haven't played much in the last 15 years, but I still remember...

Today Nintendo announced the next big thing for handheld gaming. Since it was launched in 2004, the Mario folks have been making and selling millions of their DS portable gaming system. While at one time it was thought Sony's PSP would conquer this market, the DS became the device that it seemed every kid had.

Now comes the next generation the 3DS which promises a 3D gaming experience with no glasses. Supposedly using something referred to as "naked eye 3D using a parallax barrier technique developed by Sharp Electronics". From what I can glean, this technology is already being used in some types of mobile phones in Japan.

The press release was released on the company's Japanese website and I found what was stated to be a translation. It seems to contain good info, but I cannot confirm it is indeed from Nintendo:

Nintendo Co., Ltd.(Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch “N intendo 3D S”(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 125million 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.