FireGrey said:
Well i've been doing some thinking and wouldn't it be great if the 3DS was not only a console but a media player which you can watch 3D movies on the go.
My guesses:
movies
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1) no movies ready at launch.
2) no movies in cartridge form.
3) movies online-only, if anything - at some point.
Reasons:
limited shelf space at retail. Games being sacrificed for movie shelf space. Confusion as to where to stock them (DVD section or gaming section). The need to assign resources for a strong launch (with good games being the priority). Movies will get attention afterward.
Audio
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1) won't have MP3 support
Reason: Nintendo will say no to paying MP3 licensing royalty just like the DSi.
http://mp3licensing.com/royalty/software.html
Picture
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1) Probably won't have a decent picture viewer to load real camera pictures on the SD card (except from cameras on the DS itself). I believe it will display 640x480 pics from the 3DS's cameras just fine (just like the DSi), but not do much else.
Reason: Nintendo won't regard this as a high priority. Much like they didn't care about adding bluetooth, this will be another feature not really essential to get people to buy it so they will give it the chop. 3D photos would be the draw. DSi-like editing features will be enhanced, but much the same stuff here.
Audio / video formats
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Honestly it would surprise me if they licensed anything from the MPEG group (video or audio). Perhaps something with less battery drainage.
Reason: cost and battery life
So yes the
3DS will play more content than just games but movies and audio playback won't be pushed too much in comparison to games, in my opinion. The PSP has nothing to fear on the media playback front, I think. The
real 16:9 screen on the PSP (versus 15:9 on the top screen of the DS) already tells us a lot, in my opinion. Plus unless the
bottom screen can be turned off totally independently of the top screen, I don't think it's ideal for watching movies sanely while preserving battery life. I suppose they could use it for gimmicky touch controls but the unit has plenty of physical controls to manipulate video (like the PSP).