3DS

At last year's E3, the Nintendo 3DS was arguably the headlining tech of the whole show, if for nothing more than its successful use of glasses-free 3D in a handheld game system.

Nevertheless, since the launch of the 3DS this March--just a few short months ago--the system's been luffing in a dying breeze. While the 3DS' capabilities show promise, the actual games, price, and battery life (or lack thereof) have soured the equation. Add to that the fact that the 3DS still doesn't have its Web browser, online e-shop, or last year's promised Netflix streaming … Read more

Nintendo 3DS owners will get free Wi-Fi access at 25,000 locations around the U.S., starting Tuesday.

The wireless access will be available at nearly 200 malls owned by Simon Property Group, Nintendo said today, as well as in more than 1,000 Best Buy locations. Nintendo has also inked a deal that will allow 3DS owners to connect to AT&T Wi-Fi hot spots at no charge.

"With thousands of free Wi-Fi access points through our alliances, Nintendo 3DS users across the country can instantly enjoy one-of-a-kind entertainment experiences wherever and whenever they like," Nintendo … Read more

At E3 2010, we wrote that the show's usual software focus had been temporarily eclipsed by a flood of new hardware, from the Microsoft Kinect (which actually debuted a few months before at the Game Developers Conference), to the the PlayStation Move, to Nintendo's handheld 3DS console.

Since then, all three devices have been released commercially, each to great initial success and generally positive reviews. But, we've also noted, in anecdotally talking to people in and out of the industry, that a user's interest level in all three of these groundbreaking projects can drop off quickly in many cases.

Case in point: after moving to a new apartment a few months ago, neither my Kinect nor PlayStation Move have been permanently hooked up again yet (at least partially because of the logistical problems that come with using the Kinect in a small apartment). We've talked to many other gamers who also find that their hot hardware from E3 2010 is collecting dust.

The primary culprit seems to be a lack of must-play software. The number of new Kinect games slowed to a trickle almost immediately after the motion-sensing camera launched, and the same is true of the PlayStation Move (although that camera at least works with high-profile games such as Killzone 3 and SOCOM 4). The Nintendo 3DS, groundbreaking as it is, also suffers from a lack of killer apps. Big buzz games aren't here yet, nor are long-promised features, such as 3D video recording and streaming, although the built-in 3DS shop is set to go online next week.

So, our question here for you is: Of the big three hardware releases from E3 2010, the Xbox 360 Kinect, PlayStation Move, and Nintendo 3DS, which ones have you purchased but now rarely, if ever, use? … Read more

Nintendo next week plans to launch the first major update to its 3DS portable.

Owners of the 3DS will be able to download the free update on June 6, the company announced today. When they do so, they will find a new Web browser on the platform, as well as Nintendo's eShop.

The device's browser allows for regular Web surfing, but also supports 3D content. So, if a user browses to a page that has 3D content, it can be viewed from the portable.

Nintendo's eShop is a content-downloading service, featuring applications, product information, and game trailers. … Read more

The big three video game console manufacturers love to use E3 as a forum to brag, tease, and whet the appetites of gamers worldwide.

An entire year later, where do all of the promises, announcements, and hype from 2010's show stand? We've hand-picked each conference's spotlight moments and detailed the progress in a slideshow.

Even though it's supposedly an industry-only trade show, the Electronic Entertainment Expo is an event of epic proportions for video game aficionados, as evidenced by the legions of fans who follow the show's daily announcements online, through blogs, news outlets, and (a more recent development) video feeds.

But despite its decade-plus place in the public consciousness (I've been attending since 1999), the E3 show has been to the brink of extinction more than once, and while it has pulled off a remarkable recovery over the past couple of years, there's still a chance history may repeat itself.

In brief, what happened was the trade show equivalent of a boom and bust cycle. Throughout the 2000s, game companies competed to outdo each other, with excessive budgets and outlandish displays, creating literal mini cities inside the Los Angeles Convention Center that easily trumped anything seen at the larger Consumer Electronics Show, which takes place in Las Vegas every January.

The trend peaked in 2006, after which the participants collectively realized that entirely too much money was being spent on the show, which had long since stopped being a place for retail buyers to make deals with publishers, and had become essentially a weeklong press conference. Simply put, the week's worth of media hits was judged to be simply not worth the investment.

At the time, the Entertainment Software Association, a trade organization that runs the event, agreed to retrench, scaling down the 2007 version into what then-Entertainment Software Association President Douglas Lowenstein called a "more personal, efficient, and focused" show. E3 went from 60,000 attendees the previous year to about 4,000, and from 400 exhibiting companies to fewer than 40. E3 2008 was a similarly small affair, returning to the Los Angeles Convention Center, but keeping the small, low-cost format.… Read more

Today Nintendo announced that its DS Lite handheld, originally released in 2006, has had its retail price reduced to $99. This comes a week before the annual E3 expo in Los Angeles, and a week after the Nintendo Wii dropped its price to $150.

The DS Lite was always a well-received handheld, and was the last Nintendo portable to support Game Boy Advance cartridges, but it's currently two generations behind. The Nintendo DSi, released in 2009, still sells for $150, and the Nintendo 3DS, released earlier this year, sells for $250.

It's not surprising to see price drops … Read more

Nintendo and Best Buy are teaming up to try to improve the 3DS experience.

Starting in June, Best Buy will offer 3DS owners free wireless access inside 1,000 stores. When folks connect to the Best Buy network via the portable's SpotPass feature, they will find movie trailers, "gaming extras," and "exclusive offers," the companies said today.

Nintendo's SpotPass feature automatically finds wireless hot spots. Once connected, players can access game data, free software, and other content. It also works in sleep mode, so people can add data to their devices without needing to … Read more

April was a very good month for the video game industry, with sales up 20 percent compared to a year earlier.

According to industry analyst The NPD Group, total U.S. video game industry sales came in at $961.2 million in April, up 20 percent from $802.4 million in April 2010.

Software led the way, NPD reported, with sales up 26 percent from a year earlier. In a release accompanying the firm's monthly report, analyst Anita Frazier pointed out that April was the first month since November of last year that video game software saw jumps in … Read more