Nintendo Admits 3DS Won't Beat Regular DS on Battery Life

[Midna]

There's no way to prevent piracy except by taking the prices to tiny sums like the App Store (And even then people will still pirate) or to use force, as in anti-piracy. That's all they can do, really. Don't try to tell us it's somehow the company's fault.

 

[DiscostewSM]

Now, continuing on-subject, Nintendo is admitting that it won't have the battery life as the prior handheld, but is that when everything is on, or is that when most of the stuff is on? The original DS had back-lighting either on or off (no in-between), whereas we'll be getting one with multiple settings, one which may be brighter than the DS. And WiFi? From what we've seen, there is a slider, but is that based for just games, or everything altogether? Would the automatic updates kick the WiFi on for a little bit to find a signal and check for updates before turning back off? So many factors that could add up to the lower charge, but we don't know in what cases it will be that way.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Um, if there were more "quality" games, how exactly would that reduce pirating? More quality games means more games to get, meaning more money spent to get them. Comparing that now, where people believe they should download games because they can't "afford" games, it wouldn't make a difference. Higher quality goods usually means the company is spending more, of which case, they'd be losing more in the long run.

That's merely their excuse. For those who really can't afford games, how many games there are makes absolutely no difference. They'll still only be able to afford whatever they could before, or none at all. If they can't pirate, they probably just won't bother buying the hardware.

For those who can afford games, they may not want to put their money down on crap that took 2 weeks to throw together. I can afford more games than I buy, but there are no more games that I feel are worth their MSRP. I may download a few of them to kill some time now and then or just to see what they're like and confirm they're garbage, but if the developer doesn't care enough to make a decent game I'm not going to give them money for what they produced instead.

I never claimed it was the company's fault, midna, but nor will I buy into the BS the industry constantly puts out that says piracy is costing them a f***ton more money than it really does. If someone can't afford games, they can't afford games; end of story. If they can't pirate, they simply won't play. The rest of us will (I'd hope) pay for games we feel are worth paying for, and not buy shit. Not taking your route and vehemently attacking pirates for no particular reason (other than idiocy, anyway... I mean take a look at the forum where you're spouting this shit) doesn't mean I'm against the companies; I feel no real need to directly attack either group. If, like the DS and Wii, there are 50 shovelware titles put out for every 1 or 2 stellar games, game sales will continue to suffer even if Nintendo manages to completely kill piracy. I'm not going to start buying goddamn pony games just because there are no more AAA titles I feel like buying at the moment. If they want people to keep buying, they have to keep producing. The suburban soccer moms will buy their pony games, but it takes something better to keep others interested.

 

[Knyaz Vladimir]

There's no way to prevent piracy except by taking the prices to tiny sums like the App Store (And even then people will still pirate) or to use force, as in anti-piracy. That's all they can do, really. Don't try to tell us it's somehow the company's fault.

No... that's not force. Force is to analyze all the information ever used on the 3DS and if it finds a pirate title or custom channel, save, etc. then it bricks the system by destroying the motherboard and the chernobylite in it, creating a nuclear explosion. THAT IS FORCE. (Chernobylite is stated because unobtainium isn't radioactive enough)

 

[Bladexdsl]

I figure the average person may experience about 3-5 hours of battery life.

that's fine for me i usually can't play for too long looking at a small screen anyway i get headaches. if all else fails i'll just buy an AC adapter and plug it into that the whole time i'm playing that's what i used to do with my gameboy a long time ago

 

[thegame07]

This is about battery life why is it turning into an anti piracy debate? there is plenty of other topics concerning that matter and it all just ends up in a flame war.

 

[TM2-Megatron]

This is about battery life why is it turning into an anti piracy debate? there is plenty of other topics concerning that matter and it all just ends up in a flame war.

Indeed; including this recent thread where Iwata essentially confirms what I say is true.

 

[RyouChan]

Honestly, the best way to combat piracy for a company in this day and age is to give good incentives for actually having the real cart, for example, infrared support which I haven't seen on any flash cart.

Tournaments in real life, like they do for Pokemon games, obviously require you to have a real cart.

Accessory devices like the Pokewalker, and also just things like having good bonuses that come with preordered game. You'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar...

And people who pirate the games because they can't afford them would probably not be buying them instead of pirating them, even if they couldn't pirate, so that doesn't really affect things all that much. The people Nintendo needs to court are the people who could afford to buy it but don't have much incentive to, and instead pirate it. And this is just my personal business-only opinion without getting into whether it is "right or wrong" to pirate things. I own a flash cart, but Nintendo has gotten me to actually pay for a lot of games with the things I mentioned above.

For example, I did buy both a Japanese and English copy of HG/SS for the Pokewalker and IR functionality and for when I was going up to LA to see if I could qualify for the last VGS. I will buy Black and White when it comes out in the US for the same reason. I preorder some games because they come with neat figures (I'm a sucker for collectibles) or because they come with the guidebook, which I usually enjoy for the pretty pictures, something to read through on the bus when I'm bored. xD

 

[chartube12]

Better get used to seeing your 3DS sitting in its cradle, as Nintendo says it's going to be spending plenty of time there.

The 3DS's glasses-free, handheld 3D gaming comes at a price, and I don't just mean the couple of hundred dollars it's going to siphon out of your wallet. All that technical wizardry is going to drain the battery down pretty quickly, a fact that Nintendo isn't trying to hide.

Speaking to investors, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said that it was inevitable that the 3DS would need more frequent charging than the older DS models, which was part of the reason that the 3DS came with a dedicated battery-charging cradle. The power drain involved in using the device would seem to be considerable, because Iwata said that he thought Nintendo might need to explicitly tell consumers to put their 3DS on charge as soon as they got it home.

It's not really a surprise that the 3DS battery isn't going to last for hours and hours; bigger screens and a more powerful processor are going to eat charge pretty quickly. Iwata's comments seem to imply that the battery life on the 3DS is significantly less than the regular DS, but presumably it will improve greatly by turning the 3D effect off.

Source

Price, autoupdates, bad battery life, the 3DS is becoming less and less attractive, I might wait for the "lite" version now

Welcome to the eyephone

 

[Fear Zoa]

But Nintendo is actually being honest.....not pretending the batters lasts forever because they tested it using almost no power so they could advertise awesome battery life

 

[RyouChan]

But Nintendo is actually being honest.....not pretending the batters lasts forever because they tested it using almost no power so they could advertise awesome battery life

^^^ This.

It's better than if they advertised it like:

NEW IMPROVED SUPER BATTERY - LASTS TWICE AS LONG AS THE ORIGINAL DS!!*

*When playing with no backlight, wi-fi, 3D, and in sleep mode with the DS closed

 

[Fear Zoa]

NEW IMPROVED SUPER BATTERY - LASTS TWICE AS LONG AS THE ORIGINAL DS!!*

*When playing with no backlight, wi-fi, 3D, and in sleep mode with the DS closed

Hey that reminds me of-
The laptop industry AND the smartphone industry!

 

[nintendoom]

How bout .... making a solar powered charger for the 3ds so evrywhere you go, everytime you need, you can play your 3ds

 

[nutella]

How bout .... making a solar powered charger for the 3ds so evrywhere you go, everytime you need, you can play your 3ds

It's probably not in their best interest. That would be cumbersome to bring around as well as take a LONG time to charge, even if they made it big.

 

[Joe88]

How bout .... making a solar powered charger for the 3ds so evrywhere you go, everytime you need, you can play your 3ds

its already expensive enough
and small solar chargers are pretty inefficient

 

[TM2-Megatron]

Even large solar generators aren't that efficient. They could make the entire outer casing of the 3DS out of solar panels, of course, but then it would get pretty damn hot and end up burning people, lol.

 

[megawalk]

noooooo!
meh i will sit the time out until it comes either 2/4th the original price (depending if it's going to be a hardrock heavy death metal mega pantsblowing overprice)

 

[Veho]

They should just pack a hand-crank USB dynamo with every 3DS and put an end to all the whining.

 

[BlueStar]

There are already solar chargers for USB devices and I give it about a day before someone makes a USB charge cable for the 3DS.

 

[spinal_cord]

Doesn't really bother me, as long as it comes with a proper charging cable (as well as the dock of course) so that I can still play WHILE it's charging. Imagine having to hold the dock as well as the 3DS if you want to play while charging