Nintendo 3DS tech specs leaked

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 23 September 2010 10:25

Your IT - Entertainment

Want to know what can make a handheld 3D device tick? The Nintendo 3DS produces a 3D image without the need for glasses and may be out before the end of 2010.

The Nintendo 3DS started tongues a-wagging at the E3 convention earlier this year.  

Attendees were amazed at the hand-held gaming devices ability to create a 3D image without the need for eye-ware, a propaganda problem larger screen manufacturers are battling.

In very un-Nintendo like fashion, it seems leaks are aplenty about the new device.  

Firstly a Twitter message from a peripheral company, KeysFactory employee mentioned a range of 3DS products that will be ready to go; '....On November 20, eleven 3DS products that we designed will go on sale all at once, People who are buying the 3DS, buy it at the same time! There will be more details on our home page."

Originally thought to be slated for a 2011 release, a November 2010 launch for the 3DS would be in keeping with traditional Nintendo release programs, that month being the launch date for many other DS models in the past.

With many companies already hard at work developing 3D enabled titles for the device, it would not be surprising to see the 3DS before the end of the year.  The machine shown at E3 this year did indeed look close to completion.

Over at IGN a story has apparently revealed the inner workings of the device.  Sporting two 266MHz ARM11 CPUs, along with a 133MHz GPU, 4MBs of dedicated VRAM, 64MBs of RAM, and 1.5GBs of flash storage, if this information is true, it is a marked step up from DS devices in the past.  The DSi for example contains only 256MB's of onboard storage.

Having said that, analysts at Eurogamer do call the decision to run the somewhat aging ARM11 CPU at an underspecced 133MHz as somewhat surprising.  But also add that, unlike the original iPhone ARM11, the 3DS will be able to take full advantage of the power available, without the overhead of iOS.