Japan’s Love With the 3DS Over? Boatloads of Used 3DS in Stores

It looks like the honeymoon with the Nintendo 3DS in Japan is already over, while folk in the U.S. are just getting their hands on the glasses-free 3D handheld. Several Japanese blogs are reporting that there is an abundance of used 3DS systems being sold back to stores. Is the 3DS really just a gigantic gimmick? Hard to say. Kotaku’s Brian Ashcraft says that lots of 3DS units were purchased with the intent of making a quick buck in light of system shortages, but it looks like the plan might have backfired. We’re thinking that along with Ashcraft’s assertion that the 3DS units were bought for resale, that anecdotal evidence that stated some Japanese folk experienced bouts of dizziness after short play time with the 3D effects turned on might also be the culprit. Or maybe the Japanese are just saving all their bucks for the NGP and its big bad 5-inch OLED screen. A month’s worth of evidence isn’t conclusive. We’ll know the 3DS is a flop, if in six months, sales of it stop selling like hotcakes and topping the weekly sales charts. Until then, reports of the 3DS’s early demise are premature.

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Nintendo Not Keen on Game Demos, Scrapping Them on 3DS?

Out of all three big players in the video game scene, Nintendo is the one with the biggest peeve when it comes to offering free game demos. Nintendo just doesn’t like giving away anything for free – not even if the trial is just a bunch of digital zeros and ones. Sadly, gamers love game demos. They love being able to try before they buy. Just take a look at Apple’s App Store. Nearly every game has a “lite” version to gauge interest – and it works. Often times, trying out the lite version will lead to customers buying the full game. The DS offers temporary downloadable game demos that delete when the system is turned off and the Wii has a few demos for WiiWare games, but no real demos for full retail games. Will the Nintendo 3DS also offer game demos? Once again, 3DS producer, Hideki Konno speaks his mind to let everyone know that he’s unsure on how effective game demos are. With all demos, there is a possibility that players will try a game and then not buy it, but at least they had a chance to judge it from actual gameplay and not from the game’s boxart or a bunch of screenshots. Not including game demos for 3DS games would be a mistake, especially since no one knows for sure how well the 3D effects will be in any particular game. In our opinion, because the 3D effects in 3DS games can’t be shown in regular video, offering demos is the only real way to grab show off a title.

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3DS Can Handle Unreal Engine 2 Says Ubisoft

The Nintendo 3DS is quite the powerful little machine. If you’ve seen it running Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D or Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, you’ll know that it’s a very capable machine when it comes to pushing polygons. To prove just how powerful the 3DS is, Ubisoft Montreal, developers of Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell 3DS says that they were “able to run the Unreal engine on this console console, which is pretty impressive for a handheld machine, and the 3D doesn’t affect the performance.” Does that mean the 3DS can produce games on par with the iPhone and iPad’s Infinity Blade that uses Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 technology? Uh, no. Epic’s Mark Rein quickly went around to do a little crowd control, revealing that Ubisoft Montreal was actually using the old Unreal Engine 2 on the 3DS. Earlier this month at GDC 2011, Rein told the press that if Epic felt the 3DS could run the Unreal Engine 3, his company would be all over it. So as impressive as 3DS titles will look, they’ll still be a hair behind in the graphic wars, but then again, Nintendo’s video game systems have always been underpowered in that department and they’ve all done just fine, with the exception of the N64 and GameCube. Graphics matter, but so does gameplay. What good is a pretty game if it doesn’t control well?

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Samsung Launches 3D VOD service in Korea tells U.S. and Europe to prepare

Samsung promised 3D video streaming service has received official approval today in the company of national origin, bringing to fruition the contents of a partnership with DreamWorks Animation and give new life to many 3DTV sets. The press release is not automatically translated entirely clear what the content is provided when, but it looks like movie trailers, music videos and films for school children begin things, before films and more are added later. All new media demand will be accessible through the application Smart Samsung 3D TV platform. The United States and Europe are next to Sammy roadmap for this release VOD, but do not worry, if I live elsewhere, the service is available worldwide at the time.

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