Saturday, September 17, 2011

 

So I Bought a 3DS

Continuing a proud and unbroken tradition of eventually caving in to everything that Nintendo has ever tried to sell me, I find myself with a 3DS despite every rational argument against it.

Yes, the 3D effect is interesting, but it's the same problem I have with 3D movies -- it's striking for about five minutes, and then your eyes have adjusted to it and it's no longer any big deal. 3D photography is fine. I got one game to go with it -- Pilotwings Resort -- and it's fun, just flying around Wuhu Island a bit. The battery is disappointing, but it's okay because I doubt the thing will ever really leave the house.

That's right, the damned thing is never going to leave my house. You know why? Two reasons: the DS Lite and the DSi. Or, more to the point, the L and R buttons.

I'm not a woman. I don't have a fucking purse to put my shit in. If your device is so flimsy that it will rapidly and reliably break by being left in my pocket, then it will not go anywhere with me. So fuck your internal pedometer and fuck your fucking "game coins" and fuck your Face Raiders game that's supposed to inspire me to go around showing it to people, because I spent too much fucking money on this thing to hobble it in the act of playing into your little fucking social marketing campaign.

So why did I buy it?

Twenty free games.

Duh.

Here's the thing. The thing. The only thing about the 3DS that matters to me.

Portable. Virtual. Console.

See, I'm starting to warm up to the idea of a handheld gadget that lets you play video games if you give it a credit card number. And while iPod Touch games are improving, they're hardly Game Boy games, are they? Sure, there's a lot you can do with a touch screen, but I'm not sure if I want Super Mario Brothers to be one of them.

And yes, maybe they could... oh, let's face it, it's a real dickheaded move on Nintendo's part not to do this with the perfectly serviceable DSi. Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, NES, Super NES, just put 'em all up for a couple bucks a pop. But okay, you want to save that feature for the 3DS, fine, whatever. I'm just glad it's happening.

I'm less glad that it's happening with GLACIAL SLOWNESS.

They pulled this shit with the Wii too, didn't they? One game a week, with maybe four really excellent and worthwhile games per year, and the rest is filler. Christ, Nintendo, you seriously wonder why no one's downloading your shit? If new stuff comes out so slowly and hardly any of it is interesting, interest drops off. This isn't fucking voodoo.

And this online store IS. A. MESS.

"Oh good," I thought at first. "They're doing away with points and allowing you to work with real money, just like on the iTunes store." Except whoops, they've got to be assholes and fuck it up. It'd be too convenient for the customer to just put whatever amount they want into their account, so you've got to work in $5 increments. And since sales tax is applied to your purchases, you will never ever have a clear balance ever again. There will always be some unused amount floating around out there.

At least you can transfer software from one system to another now. But only a couple times, you naughty customer you! We wouldn't want you to get too cozy with the idea of using the things you own in the way you want to!

So now I have a portable that stays at home and plays ten NES games, and those are fun in that "Haven't I done this a million times already?" sort of way, and now I get to wait for GBA games to arrive as if they're a huge sack of gold and I don't have a perfectly serviceable GBA and a huge stack of absolutely wonderful games sitting RIGHT THERE. Like, I can look straight at them. I could stop typing this shit RIGHT NOW and play them.

I think I'm going to.

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