Nintendo surprised the masses by announcing a 3DS hardware update late yesterday evening. The Nintendo 3DS XL will be released in North America on August 19 for $199. It has screens that are 90% larger than the original 3DS. The top screen is 4.88-inches and the bottom screen is 4.18 inches.
The 3DS XL will also come with a 4GB memory card and better battery life in an effort to make the price a little more attractive.
Nintendo decided not to add a second analog stick to the 3DS XL. This is a bit of a shock considering how Nintendo released the Circle Pad Pro to address dual-analog controls. On the other hand, there haven’t been too many games that compel anyone to carry a Circle Pad Pro around. Nintendo also hasn’t shown a 3DS-specific Circle Pad Pro attachment.
We’ll soon see if this refresh will boost 3DS sales, or if Nintendo jumped the gun on this one.
Site [Nintendo Direct]
I’ll need to see the screen quality before I jump on this. The blocky DSi XL graphics were quite a disappointment.
DS and DSiWare games already look kinda bad on the 3DS. I can only imagine how much worse those imperfections will look on a bigger 3DS XL screen.