Nintendo’s 3DS Conference

Today’s (tonight’s?) conference has been hotly anticipated, and we’ve got a whole new load of 3DS details. Unfortunately, the new handheld is not set to release this year in any region, but mark your calendars for sometime in March for North America and Europe.

Here’s a point-by-point breakdown of the new information from the conference:

-3DS will release in North America and Europe in March of 2011, though no price was given. In Japan, Febuary 26th at a cost of 25000 yen (approximately $298.61 in US currency–not necessarily indicative of the final price outside of Japan).

-Launch colors will be Aqua Blue and Cosmo Black (catchy names, eh?).

-3DS will feature a Virtual Console-style feature for downloading Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games, as well as other Classic Games in 3D.

-3DS stores tag-mode data for multiple games at once, so you don’t need to be playing a specific game in order to exchange data with someone else.

-You’ll be able to multi-task on the 3DS: you can hit the home button while playing a game in order to launch other programs such as a “Memory Notebook.” Should be handy while playing complicated games.

-3DS can connect to WiFi while in sleep mode and auto download things such as rankings, ghost data, free downloads, etc. Presumably, the next logical step is full sentience.

-You can use the camera to take a picture of your face and create a Mii–you can still tweak it to perfect it, though, in Mii Studio. Miis can be saved to the SD card, and by printing out a QR code or posting it on a website, your friends can take a picture of the code and add your Mii to their 3DS. Additionally, there will be a type of tag mode Mii Plaza so you can see the Miis of anyone you bump into.

-3DS units will come with a 2GB SD card.

-Some games were shown, including Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, a separate game from Resident Evil: Revelations shown at E3.

-Iwata confirmed the Wii Remote Plus–a Wii remote with built in Motion Plus technology–but more details are forthcoming.

-Nintendo is aiming to change sales for 3rd party games–3DS is the next step to solve the problem. Presumably we’ll see more joint promotion of 3rd party games by Nintendo.

Update:

-It has been confirmed that you can transfer DSiWare games to the 3DS. Additionally, you can move data from one 3DS to another. Apparently there are some limits–some games won’t transfer and there’s a limit on how many times you can transfer, but it’s still great news for DSi owners.

-Check out this new trailer for several 3DS games, including Ocarina of Time 3D, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, Super Street Fighter 4, Kid Icarus: Uprising, and much more: 3DS games trailer