Nintendo 3DS… what the hell?

I’m continuously amazed by the way Nintendo has handled the Nintendo 3DS.

Of course, at the same time what they’re doing is what Nintendo has always done, I guess I’m just getting sick of their asshattery…

The Nintendo DS had quite a history, coming from humble beginnings with the original version (aka the DS Phat), moving on to the DS Lite and then the DSi and DSi XL. The DSi was the definitive version of the handheld system and the DSi XL was great for those who wanted that extra screen real estate. Of course, no one denies that Nintendo brazenly cashed in quite a lot from the sale of all of these different versions of the system. They’re all about making a profit from selling their product just like any other company, so it’s only natural they go through this progression to cash in as much as they can.

However, when it comes to the 3DS, I really do wonder what is going the minds of the people who designed it. They came up with a system that featured a smaller overall screen size than the DSi, a lower screen that doesn’t match the proportions of the top screen, and then they came out with the Circle Pad Pro attachment after realising that they made a mistake of not including it in the first place. These are all obvious methods to get people to spend more money on extra crap for the 3DS, but it only gets more confusing once they finally announced the 3DS XL.

Here is a system that takes on the original DSi XL concept, create a handheld system that isn’t really all that portable, but has large screens for people to enjoy games comfortably around the house. The design concept makes sense and there’s a specific market being targeted. Now what DOESN’T make sense about the recent announcement through Nintendo Direct is that the 3DS XL, despite being a much larger system, has no second circle pad built into the system! Why?! It really doesn’t make any sense…

The popular reasoning seems to be that Nintendo supposedly doesn’t want to alienate people who bought the original version of the 3DS by including the second circle pad built into the 3DS XL. This honestly doesn’t make sense to me at all, especially when you consider the behemoth size of the 3DS XL and the news that Nintendo is releasing a version of the Circle Pad Pro for the 3DS XL in the near future.

What Nintendo should have done is simply announce the “3DSi” and “3DSi XL” both being released at the same time. The 3DSi would be a redesigned version of the current 3DS with the second circle pad built-in while the 3DSi XL would be what we’ve gotten with the announced 3DS XL except with the added second circle pad built-in. It’s not rocket science, it makes perfect sense. They can cash in and give developers and gamers what they want out of the system with one swift stroke.

Well, whatever… Nintendo can do whatever the hell they want when it comes to the handheld market since they obviously don’t see the PlayStation Vita as a threat to begin with.