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German retail may be facing limited stock for the European launch of the 3DS later this month.
Sources have indicated to GamesIndustry.biz Germany that the territory is to receive units in the "maximum mid-five figure range." Larger branches of major retail chains are expected to receive around 100 consoles each.
By contrast, UK sources close to the matter have suggested that Nintendo may ship over 185,000 units here - which would be in excess of the original Sony PlayStation Portable's launch figures.
No numbers have been officially confirmed as yet, but a GAME spokeperson told GamesIndustry.biz that in the UK "There seems to be enough stock for launch - but if everybody who is excited about the product buys it, there probably will be stores (not just GAME or gamestation) that sell out."
In addition, "We're expecting queues for the launch of the 3DS, both for GAME and gamestation stories, when they open. The 3DS... has the potential for a huge following, and therefore a huge sell-through."
Germany, meanwhile, has seen little marketing for the handheld as yet, and retail sources claim to have had meagre data about stock expectations.
"Nintendo failed to give us any information about the initial shipment of 3DS," said a German buyer toGamesIndustry.biz Germany. "As usual with hardware launches, we are expecting less - rather than more - units on day one. We expect several phone conferences this week in which the initial shipment should be fixed."
Claimed another: "It is understandable that Nintendo is pretty quiet in marketing in order not to overheat expectations. They probably think that the initial shipment will be completely sold out to hardcore gamers who already know the product."
Meanwhile, Amazon.de has now limited 3DS orders to one per customer, although other retailers such as GameStop are yet to impose such limitations.
Thomas Adler, head of sales at major retail chain Media Markt Bayreuth did not expect a repeat of the long queues seen at the 3DS' Japanese launch, but "assume[d] that we have enough product."
"If we recall the launch of the DS, the sales began relatively slow," he continued. Then as now, he felt, "important titles are missing." Because of this, "the high fixed pricing and the competitive situation with the iPhone and iPad...I think this situation is very, very dangerous for Nintendo."
Nintendo's German office declined to give shipment numbers. What is confirmed is that the US and Europe will share 2.5 million consoles over March, with another 1.5 million going to Japan. Almost 400,000 of the latter have already been confirmed as sold.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...s-launch-stock
...

Ngmoco boss Neil Young has expressed concern that the new Sony and Nintendo handhelds may be in for a tough fight against newer mobile platforms such as the iPhone.
"I think they're clearly hurt," he said of Sony to Industry Gamers. "I think PSP is done and the new [NGP] is dead on arrival.
"It's really difficult to compete with an app store that has hundreds of thousands of applications and a wide range of options where the average price paid is around $1.20 and there are tens, if not hundreds of thousands of free applications that are really high quality. So I just don't think Sony's going to be able to compete with that."
While he was clear that "it's not like it's crap at playing games – it's pretty good at playing games and it can do a whole bunch of other things as well," he felt the sheer versatility of Apple's mobile devices would keep them more appealing that a more dedicated gaming handheld.
He was more optimistic about Nintendo's 3DS, launched this weekend in Japan, claiming it was "likely to be competitive" but "the 3D piece of the puzzle is kind of gimmicky."
Nonetheless, "Nintendo has great franchises and there are tens of millions of people who want to participate in those franchises, so that always helps... But the real question is the degree to which there's a third-party community."
Ngmoco was recently bought by Japanese mobile giant DeNA, and plans to bring its Mobage social network for smartphones to the West.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...t-by-app-store
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Nintendo has confirmed that the eShop update promised for 3DS will arrive in May.




This major update will finally add the eShop to the console, which will let you download DSiWare games, give you access to new Game Boy and Game Boy Color Virtual Console games, along with Game Gear and TurboGrafx-16 systems.

You'll also be to download and watch Hollywood movie trailers in 3D.

The update will add the ability for DSi owners to transfer their DSiWare purchases over to their 3DS.

Nintendo's also announced that the eShop will give you access to '3D Classics', which it says "will introduce select classic video games remastered in 3D."

Ooh!

The big news from Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata's GDC keynote today wasthe revelation of the new 3DS Super Mario game, with screenshots.

http://www.computerandvideogames.com...VG-General-RSS ...

For a man who hadn’t once used the word iPhone in his hour-long GDC lecture, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata still managed to publicly tear into the Apple smartphone empire.
“Rather than offer you a rosy picture of our industry, I would like to discuss three concerns,” he said at the concluding stages of his keynote speech.

Iwata glided through his first and second concern, but the final one he embellished on with the kind of provocative language that, at times, seemed extraordinary for a leading Japanese businessman.
“Game development is drowning,” he declared.
The Nintendo boss recalled that in his 2005 GDC keynote, the audience were developers of many systems, but not commonly mobile devices.



“But today, it may be the majority of you developers who are making mobile games,” he said.
“It gives me concern.”
And, just a stone’s throw from the venue of Apple’s iPad 2 press conference, Iwata exposed his long-harboured dislike of the mobile gaming market unequivocally.
“These platforms have no motivation to maintain the value of the gaming,” he said.
“Quantity is how they profit. The value of software does not matter to them.”
By “them”, he wasn’t simply referring to Apple. Google and Facebook were too the target of his attack.
Speaking to the packed crowd of industry professionals, he claimed that the business of game design is more perilous than ever.
“With so many consoles to publish games on, it is already so hard to attain visibility and status,” he said, before explaining that mobile market is only making life harder.
Citing Forbes data, Iwata claimed that 92 per cent of mobile app downloads are for free content. He said that, in the oceanic smartphone games market, the chance to be visible – and the opportunity to make a living – is remarkably low.
It’s a very confusing time for people. There’s not much stability, he said.
“It confirms for us that our world is changing.”
But Nintendo insists that one defining value remains – “Content is king.”
Quality of product is still distinguishes success from failure, he said.

“But will that still be the case moving forward?” he asked. “Is maintaining high-quality games a top priority, or not?”
Iwata said the only constant in a shifting games industry should be the primary need for quality content.
“Without content, there is no industry,” he said.
This was, make no mistake, Iwata’s declaration that the firm will not join the smartphone race or the $0.99 business. It will not spend three months building a game and then add to it thereafter.
“We really want consumers to appreciate the premium value of content,” he said. “What we make is valuable, and we should protect that value.”
http://www.develop-online.net/news/3...drowning-Iwata ...

News via http://gbatemp.net/index.php

We have been informed of the release of the first Nintendo 3DS firmware update to ever go live. Now what does this update bring us?

QUOTE(Rough Google Translation)
● Improved system stability
　More comfortable way to enjoy, and will improve the overall stability of the system.
● Since when updating communications capabilities
　We extend some of the ability to receive data, such as Oshirase.
● Improved network connectivity
　And other wireless Internet access in some Nintendozon, sometimes can not communicate it made measures.
● "3D images of live music," added
　 Delivering music is "Super Mario Brothers Theme" in, O. Kondou Hiroshi was responsible for the Super Mario series composer (piano), is played by studio musicians

Does this update block DS flashcarts? We are eager to find out.

Source: Official Nintendo 3DS website ...

The game of Super Monkey Ball 3D was released by SEGA and it will be came out on 03-03-2011.Following is the information about this 3DS games ;

Game Name : Super Monkey Ball 3D
Platform : 3DS
Developer : SEGA
Type : Action
Release time : 03-03-2011



Game Information :

Taking advantage of the power of the Nintendo 3DS, players can let themselves loose in each new vibrant world as they twist and turn whilst aiming to collect every banana in the fastest time possible. This latest installment contains three brand-new compelling gameplay choices including single-player puzzle levels, Monkey Race and Monkey Fight. These new game modes give players the chance to compete via wireless connection with up to four players in the best 3D social experience possible in the palm of their hands. In addition, Super Monkey Ball fans will be able to choose between the Nintendo 3DS motion sensor or the Slide Pad to navigate the puzzle mazes with complete precision

Game Video Show :

...

Here comes a break news that r4igold 3DS flash card was came out offically this afternoon. The time is sooner than the arranged time (05-03-2011).Cheers.thanks for r4igold team's hard work .

Following is the original quote from r4igold official :

" The chips included in this 3DS cart is MX23J4GC0-75H(48Pin) and 25L4001(8Pin) and its hardware structure is almost the same as that of the NDS cart.What's more,Our technical team removed the standing out part of the 3DS cart and inserted it into a NDS,so 3DS cart's encrypiton part is different from that of a NDSL cart."

From above,we will find that there havn't much change for r4igold 3DS with r4igold.The only mini difference between them lies in package and modchip adopted,please look at following comparison picture :



you will find compared to r4igold original package,the new package for r4igold 3DS with a striking mark "3DS" in the left bottom,yet,they are still sharing with the same offical website.(www.r4ids.cn)

In the respect of Modchip Adopted : the r4igold 3DS uses MX23J4GC0-75H(48Pin) and 25L4001(8Pin) Modchip,so 3DS cart's encrypiton part is different from that of a NDSL cart.Yet,its hardware structure is almost the same as that of the NDS cart.

R4igold 3DS Video Show :



There will be more information about this item and i will keep update in this forum.

Source Link :

R4igold 3DS Official

R4igold 3DS Flashcard ...

Hello everyone! You all enjoying your 3D Tvs and wearing your specs?
What do you mean you don't have one yet? Oh ok you over there has one, cool.
So you been playing your games in 3D then, seeing them come out at you and really feeling the depth? What you mean you don't have any games like that? pfft!!

Ahh yes, stereoscopic gaming. With the advent of release of the 3DS, (with no need for the specs I might add) 3D gaming is the big thing of 2011, but actually its been going on for quite some time....

Which brings us neatly on to the topic of RETRO 3D GAMING (ooooh!)

This is not the first attempt that Nintendo has released a 3D portable console, its first was the virtualboy:



The virtualboy came out in summer 1995 in japan (August 14 US), and was a red/cyan based 3D but recieved a luke warm reception and never made it to europe, so sadly was canned the following year.

Although it did have impressive 3D, because of the monochromatic nature limited its appeal.

Other companies have developed 3D addons for their consoles, but none had gone past the prototype stage.

That leads us on to PC gaming.

3D acceleated graphics cards have made gaming on the pc what it is today, with so many available there have been so many gimmics bundled with them.

And one company decided to add some stereoscopic glasses to the package:



Elsa had bundled these glasses with their Gforce cards around 1999, and were shutter based that synced with the pc, and were wireless using infrared.

They were pretty much comparable to how modern 3D shutter glasses work, so how come they didn't start the 3D stereoscopic gaming a standard back then?

Sadly at the time this was a novelty (half life did look pretty great though!) and was bundled with few demos and tools, but support and compatability mean't it died off pretty quick.

So back to 2011....

You got your latest graphic card, all 3Ded up, but your wondering if you can get your retro fix in a whole new perspective? Well your in luck!

Emulation:

Emulation is pretty much where most retro is played on a modern system, and with more and more plugin based, has allowed console games to be graphically improved, with direct stereoscopic support or to be allowed to be used with the hardware using nvidia 3d vision.

Noteable emulators:
Dolphin, allows stereoscopic display for gamecube and wii with the included plugins

Pcsx2:


N64: with use with the modified rice plugin s3d allows use with nvidia 3d vision

And the rest...

Want to have your classic glide based games in stereoscopic such as tombraider?
well with the use of wrappers with its possible such as http://www.glidos.net/

With so many options for retro games in stereoscopic 3D, the list is endless, feel free to ask questions or post your own findings in the comments or on our forums.

Well i'm off to play a few classic games in HD now, something to write about for another blog me thinks........... ...