The Nintendo 3DS will be available for purchase in Japan on February 26. The cost for the 3DS will be 25,000 yen, which is about $299. This is an increase over the price of the current DS models which sell between 12,000 and 16,000 yen. When will it be available for the United States? We do not know yet, although it may become available sometime in March.
Why not release it before Christmas? After all, that is the big selling season. The answer is that they do not have enough units available to sell.
Nintendo is using a new graphics processing chip in the its soon to be released Nintendo 3DS. Nintendo selected a graphics processing chip designed by the Japanese company Digital Media Professionals (DMP). The graphics processing core is called the PICA200. The true advantage of this new GPU is that it consume very little power. That feature is important in such portable devices as the Nintendo 3DS.
The best part of the Nintendo 3DS is that it requires no glasses to use, and you still get the 3-D effect.
Several “AR Games” (Augmented Reality) will be pre-loaded on the hardware, as will a new Mii Plaza for Miis collected using the passive communication “Tag Mode.” Other downloaded apps can be stored on 2GB of flash memory.
via Nintendo 3DS available February 26 in Japan, priced at 25,000 yen | Joystiq.
