The newest runt in the 3DS family litter has just been introduced to North America via Nintendo Direct. The new console, chalked up for release February 13 2015, will feature hardware designed to decisively answer consumer feedback from the original hardware and provide a more pluralistic starting point for developers, incorporating firmware to bring out the full breadth of Nintendo’s 3D handheld possibility.
Face Tracking 3D – a veritable god-send for anyone (read: everyone) who owns a 3DS and abstains from the console’s titular technology because keeping up with the limited range of 3D focii makes games like Smash Bros. in 3D a head-bopping, backflipping, console shaking mess. The new technology implements a dynamic focal point through a face-tracking internal camera that ensures even the most gaunt-knuckled boss fights and Landmaster bound battles will remain rendered in glorious stereoscopic 3d.
For all those who have begun hoarding Amiibo figures, stashing them in sequestered spots far from the light of day, NFC Amiibo support has been sneakily slid under the touch screen of Nintendo’s latest handheld.
Also on the newly dynamic ledger is the back-lighting. The screen will now automatically adjust to changes in ambient lighting to ensure that you aren’t blinded or squinting furtively as you play.
The C stick is all-new, with nascent suggestions of gameplay compatibility no doubt appealing to gamers who are out to extract every possible camera angle and hyper-smash from their library of titles.
Processing has ‘got boost power’, with start-up times slashed for software and the hardware ceiling for developers buttressed several stories higher.
No AC adapter with the system however. Undoubtedly to try and keep the final sale price at a palatable minimal, Nintendo has announced the new console will NOT come with an AC adapter, although those from DSi and 3DS systems of all ilks will be backward compatible.
It seems Nintendo has taken the teetering tower of customer complaints away into their magical, mushroom infested workshop and built a suitable apotheosis with the fan’s best interests in the spotlight, emerging with what the console should originally been – just in time for possibly their biggest year yet.