By now I'm sure you have heard about Nintendo's new Circle Pad attachment for the 3DS. If you haven't, here is a link for you
3DS Circle Pad insert from Famitsu
So here are my thoughts on this subject. A lot of people are quick to write this off as Nintendo just not knowing what they are doing anymore and how much of a failure this whole idea is. Now I will be one of the first to agree that Nintendo should have learned from Sony's mistake with not having two analogs on the PSP and agree that they should have started with the two circle pads. At the same time, to call this a failure is to call the Dualshock on PS1 a failure in essence. My argument for that is that the Dualshock on PS1 was only used for a few games and pretty much any game that you were really getting into on the PS1 didn't require it (excusing Ape Escape right!?).
In the same idea, I also don't consider the Wii Motion Plus to be a "failure" either. Now I know a lot of people are going to scoff at me right there saying "it should have been in there to begin with!" but really, is it Nintendo's fault that nobody made any games for it when it was brought to them? The Wii was all about simplification anyway, and the Motion Plus was made really only for a few games. When you take a list at all of the great Wii titles like Silent Hill Shattered Memories, Muramasa, Monster Hunter Tri, Smash Bros, Mario Galaxy - None of these needed any complex motion control and the simplified remote was fine. Games like Red Steel 2 and Tiger Woods greatly took advantage of the Motion Plus and are great for it.
My point is, don't write this thing off yet as a "WTF Nintendo!" because this could be just like all of those things - some attachment for just a few games that wont replace anything too crazy for your 3DS.
So, to reiterate, I would have LOVED it if Nintendo had put 2 circle pads on the 3DS to boot, but until they say that they are re-designing the 3DS or make this new addition a super focal point, I don't see the need to get up in arms.
Yes, this thing is hideous, it is effin' huge, and I REALLY wish it was a small little attachment for 5-10 bucks - but I guess we will get all of the details on the 13th.
-Eddie
source - Joystiq, Famitsu
"....but really, is it Nintendo's fault that nobody made any games for it when it was brought to them?"
ReplyDeletePart of the problem with WMP was that Nintendo didn't make third-party developers aware of the peripheral until the general public knew about it. So they either had to play catch up, or didn't utilize the device at all. A few links for your reading pleasure:
http://www.mywiinews.com/third-party-devs-did-not-know-about-motionplus/
http://www.1up.com/news/conduit-dropped-wii-motionplus-support
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/07/23/developers-kept-in-the-dark-about-wii-motionplus/1
Hopefully this won't be the case with the new circle pad add-on for the 3DS and a lot of great games will utilize it!
Even though it's Nintendo's initial fault, they should have come up with something this far down the line.
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