Breaking News: Nintendo 3DS to Launch By March 2011

Nintendo Co., Ltd. (Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch “Nintendo 3DS”(temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011, on which games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses.

“Nintendo 3DS”(temp) is going to be the new portable game machine to succeed “Nintendo DS series”, whose cumulative consolidated sales from Nintendo amounted to 125million units as of the end of December 2009, and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for Nintendo DSi, can also be enjoyed.

We are planning to announce additional details at E3 show, which is scheduled to be held from June 15, 2010 at Los Angeles in the U.S.

This is fresh off the block from Nintendo of Japan. I know we usually ignore the more general Nintendo news, but this is huge. Not only is a new handheld coming either at the end of this year or early next year, it’s going to be fully 3D like those movies you watch without the need of glasses. On top of that, it will be DS/DSi backwards compatible. How about that? The implications on this for Zelda could be never ending… and is this a possible sign for what may be coming for the next console? 3D. Zelda. Nintendo DS. I can’t even fathom what is going to come of this.