Should I buy a 3DS?

hutch

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Seeing some pretty good deals around now for the 3DS and there seem to be a few decent titles just released or coming pretty soon, is now the time to be looking at buying a 3DS or will it be relegated next to my Wii within a week?
 
Well there's never been a better time to buy in terms of the current price point of the console.

Plus points:

1. In general the 3d works well and adds increased depth to many games, personally I would find it difficult to go back to 2d on say the DS or PSP after playing 3d handheld games.

2. The games (back catalogue) are cheap, you can pick up the likes of Street fighter and a number of earlier releases for £15. I would personally not pay anymore than this for the games. At £30 they are IMHO overpriced.

Bad points:

1. Many of the games are rather lackluster if much of the back catalogue is anything to go by, some of the new titles (Zelda, SF64, Marios) look more appealing but I personally would not pay £30 for them.

2. The e-shop is crap, i'm in the Ambassador program and having downloaded many of the games free I would not personally be buying for any price.

3. Many of the functions of the machine look under-utilised, the AR has become an initial gimmick. The online play has largely been overlooked.

Would it be relegated to Wii status in a week, well I rate it above the Wii in terms of the long run appeal, personally I think the price of the machine coupled with a certain number games retailing for say £15 make it a worthy purchase, I like the 3d effect and think the machine has had too many critics.
 
Great reply thanks thats exactly what I was after, lets see if I get through the weekend without pulling the trigger :)
 
I love my 3DS to bits, its a fantastic portable despite the lack of software so far. I really like the 3D effect, Street Pass function and Augmented Reality, which is so cool though severely underused so far.

Like The Snake I think I'd find it hard to go back to 2D portable gaming. When playing a 3DS title If you drop the 3D slider to off suddenly the graphics seem really bland and lifeless, push it back to on and they really pop back to life.

I agree that the eshop is crap at the moment, hopefully it'll improve with time, I'd buy a ton of Gameboy games if they were under £2, at the moment they're around £2.60 to £5.20.

So far I've enjoyed playing Pilot Wings, Lego Star Wars, Ocarina Of Time, Street Fighter and Mario and am looking forward to Mario Kart 7, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion 2, Resident Evil, Metal Gear and Prof' Layton coming soon. :thumbsup:
 
Bought a black 3DS with Mario 3D Land and Starfox this afternoon, must admit im highly impressed with the graphics and 3D it adds a lot to the games :thumbsup:
 
I'm thinking of trading in my DS Lite for one next week, mainly because I quite fancy Mario 3D Land and MK7. Trouble is, they're the two top new games out so they'll be full price at the moment.
 
Mario 3d land is a killer app, amazing game. iam not a massive handheld fan but this game when playing for all the star coins for added depth is insane.
with this and mariokart 7 out dec 2nd. If you love gaming you NEED a 3DS
 
I think perhaps "need" is a bit strong as there's currently only a couple of good games out for it and a lot of filler. The main problem for me is that everything for it at the moment is massively overpriced, whether that's eShop games/apps or the main games themselves. I think they need to bring the game prices down to get more people buying it.

I'll still be getting one next week but I'm looking at around £70 just for two games!
 
Grabbed mario 3d land from morrisons for £25, think at the moment they are selling all 3ds games for £25 but may be wrong. they started selling em in november cheaper but may still be on.
 
ZELDA, MARIO LAND, STARFOX and KART7 are 4 AAA killer apps imho,
with resident evil in jan and metal gear 3 feb. its been dry for 6 months but certainly isnt now, great little system for the money now.
 
I took the plunge today and traded in my DS Lite to grab a 3DS for £70. Picked up Super Mario and Zelda with it and I'm so glad I did. Mario alone makes its worth every penny for me.
I still used my DS pretty extensively, but really want to play the newest games as well which only seem to be coming out on the 3DS so making the upgrade seemed pretty logical as I can still play my old DS games.
 
I'm in the same boat as you jabintendo, it seems like Game is offering a 3DS for £69.99 when you trade-in your old DS Lite. So a new 3DS will you set you back £129.99 (for the console only) which means they're valuing your DS Lite at about £60 which seems pretty fair to me.

I noticed on Game's website you can get a pre-owned 3DS for £119.99 so if you find one in store and can trade-in your DS Lite against it then you can save yourself another tenner.

I'm not sure what you have to actually take with you when trading in your DS Lite though. Is it just the console itself or do you need the charger/DC adapter and/or box/instructions etc with it? Presumably you can just take in the console only without any extra bits as long as it works.

I'm gonna go to Game tomorrow and check it out, might pop in Gamestation and see if they have any better deals but I guess they'll both be similar.
 
Well I popped into Game today and inquired about how much I'd get for my DS Lite and they said £30! I've no idea how you managed to get such a huge discount on a 3DS when trading in your DSL, Miss Mandy. Did you go to Game or was it another shop entirely?

Seeing as I was offered such a paltry sum for my DSL I've ordered a 3DS from Sainsburys online instead as they're only £119.99 new which is the cheapest around at the moment. I also managed to find Mario 3D Land for £28.99 online so together they've cost me less than £150 which is better than most bundle deals I've seen in the shops.

I've still got my DSL but I don't mind that, better than trading it in for hardly anything.
 
Well I popped into Game today and inquired about how much I'd get for my DS Lite and they said £30! I've no idea how you managed to get such a huge discount on a 3DS when trading in your DSL, Miss Mandy. Did you go to Game or was it another shop entirely?

Seeing as I was offered such a paltry sum for my DSL I've ordered a 3DS from Sainsburys online instead as they're only £119.99 new which is the cheapest around at the moment. I also managed to find Mario 3D Land for £28.99 online so together they've cost me less than £150 which is better than most bundle deals I've seen in the shops.

I've still got my DSL but I don't mind that, better than trading it in for hardly anything.

My wife bought me a 3ds from sainsburys instore for £119.99 yesterday! :smashin:
 
I just walked into the store and they had it advertised on one of those handwritten whiteboards that they have in the doorway. I also got sent a postcard about the deal in the post last week along with some other reward card advertising.
According to my receipt the standard trade in price for a DSL is £50 and then I got an extra £20 due to the offer. Game sell the 3DS at £140. The postcard I received also had a half price WBW offer on it for Mario Land so I paid £17.50 for that.
I'd post a photo of the postcard if I could, but unfortunately the store kept it.
 
Well I guess the offer they had on was for a limited time only and must have run out this week. There was no sign of it anywhere in the store and I was really surprised when I asked at the counter and was told I'd only get £30 for my DSL.

Well done you for spotting the deal, I may have to sign up to Game's mailing list so I'll know of any future offers like that, it could come it handy especially for trading in my Wii against the Wii U next year.

At least I've got my 3DS ordered now, so hopefully it should come in the next couple of days.
 
I managed to get in on the Tesco deal last week of any 3DS plus SuperMarioland for £139 so the deals are out there, just a case of keeping an eye out on the different e-tailers..

So that's one present checked off the daughters Xmas list. :)
 
i bought a 3ds from sainsburys last weekend too. i like thesystem, but haven't mesed aorund too much with the actual OS etc, I've been playing a few ds games and just got mario kart tonight

the games are pretty terrible overall, most of them are not worth the 30-35 rrp, only the tripe aaa titles are worth it I suppose which were already mentioned... res evil, kid icarus, mart Kart
 
I agree with you on 3DS game pricing ouija, I think a maximum price of £29.99 for triple AAA titles is better and then a standard price of £24.99 for everything else. Some of the game prices are similar to PS3 and 360 prices and the 3DS one's can't possibly compare with those.

I received my console on Wednesday but had no games for it (they were still in the post), so I bought Super Mario Land 2 from the eShop and it brought back tonnes of memories from my childhood of playing this game for the first time on the original Game Boy. I think the eShop is a great idea but suffers from the same ridiculous pricing structure of the main cartridge games. There's not a whole load of stuff on the eShop and some of the "made especially for 3DS" games seem quite rubbish.

I think the 3DS came out a little too early and doesn't yet have the gaming catalogue there to make use of the 3D capabilities. But I suppose the Wii was the same on it's initial release, that just had loads of random remote-waggling, party-based mini-games out at first until people started making use of the technology and realising that you could do more with it. So presumably the same thing will happen with the 3DS, they just need to get those prices down a bit.

I've now got Mario 3D Land, Zelda: OoT and hopefully I'll get MK7 today or tomorrow, oh and I also bought Zen Pinball 3D from the eShop so I have a nice collection now.The 3D works really well on the console but does take some getting used to, if you move the 3DS remotely while playing (something that inevitably happens with a handheld device), then the 3D effect doesn't work or becomes distorted. It's very difficult not to move though when you're playing something like Mario 3D Land as the constant shifting of perspective and depth while moving round the environment causes you to naturally move the console sometimes. I'm thinking the same might happen with MK7 as you try to steer the console (like you do with the Wiimote).

The 3D level slider can help counteract this somewhat but I think overall playing in 3D doesn't work that great for long periods of time (especially seeing as the battery drains very quickly). I find the safety precautions in the manual to actually be true for once in that half an hour playtime is just right as any longer than this and I can get a touch of eye strain, so after 30 mins I put the 3DS down for a while and then pick it up again once I'm suitably refreshed.

Also, I think I should mention the incredible sound quality of the built-in speakers. They are much louder than on previous DS's and a Surround sound mode gives the sound quality much more depth. I know lots of people will use headphones with the 3DS but I just thought it was worth pointing out that the speakers themselves are very good.

I'm really glad I bought a 3DS now and although I won't be making much use of the Street Pass features as I won't be carrying the 3DS around with me outside of my house, there is plenty there to make use of.
 
Whats Zen Pinball like mate? I had a look at the trailer for it last night on the eshop and it looks pretty good. Just wondered if its worth a punt for £4.

Besides that only marioland 2 appeals to me on the shop.
 
Zen Pinball is really good and worth the £4.50 they're asking for it. The 3D works really well with it and there are 8 different view modes so you should find one that suits you. The game plays pretty much exactly the same as all Zen Pinball games do and has the usual online leaderboards to compete with.

There are only 4 tables but for £4.50 what do you expect? I think it's the best thing on the eShop apart from the obvious VC stuff.
 
I was really impressed with the trailer, I'll be sure to get it now. :smashin:
 
I was really impressed with the trailer, I'll be sure to get it now. :smashin:

Got it myself last night. Only had a few games but liking it so far. Certainly worth the money. Can't seem to settle on a view though. (8 to choose from)
 
I prefer camera 6 as it zooms in closer to the main flippers but not so much that you can't see the rest of the table. This game is great fun, really addictive!

I just read on Nintendo Life that they're releasing 3D Classics: Kid Icarus and if you register two 3DS games at Club Nintendo then you get a free download code for the game and entered into a draw to win a special Mario 3DS.
 

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