NDS Video Game

In under two weeks, the Nintendo 3DS will make its way to U.S. and U.K. shores and bring glasses-free 3D gaming to the masses. One feature that’ll take a hit? Backward-compatibility loading times on old DS games.

One would think that faster hardware would equate to faster game loading times right? Apparently not. Gamespot managed to get its hands on a Japanese 3DS from last month’s launch and compared the load times of several DS games on the new handheld with the old DS Lite. Here are were the results:

As you can see, in some cases, the 3DS takes roughly 35% longer to load DS games. While game loads are merely a couple of seconds more, any gamer can attest that any increase in load time is a major no-no. Just ask PSP fans and their swirling UMDs.

It doesn’t make sense for old games to actually take longer to load on faster hardware. Every model of PSP after the original loads UMDs faster, the PS3 Slim loads games faster, the DSi loads games faster than the DS Lite and the iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad family all load games faster than their predecessors, so what is going on here?

Gamespot is attributing the longer load times to emulation software that the 3DS is using. While it’s hard to believe that Nintendo isn’t aware of this “issue,” it’s 3DS representatives at PAX East 2011 seemed to know nothing about the issue when we pressed them about it.3DS accessories

I can only get one and i can’t come to a final decision. I have been waiting for the 3DS for about a year, but most of the games i want don’t come out until the end of the year and next. i recently discovered the iPad 2. I use to own an iPod Touch 3rd Gen and sold it to upgrade to 4th gen (but bought a Xbox 360 instead).

In missing my iPod Touch, i literally just bought an Android to “replace” it. well, the main reason, and mostly the only reason i want an iPad 2 is because of the Autodesk Sketchbook Pro app. it seems to be an advanced drawing app that would improve my artwork and bring lots of fun. Of course the iPad has eBooks, iMovie and such but is the Drawing App that great? Is Sketchbook Pro worth spending all that money for an iPad over a NIntendo 3DS? How advance is it really? Is it easy to use or should i just stick to pencil and paper? And I even want to buy some 3DS accessories from Eachgame.com.

I love portables and spend hours on them but nothing productive gets done except for bringing me joy. The 3DS will give me everything my inside-gamer has ever wanted, but most of the games i want don’t come for a quite a while. The iPad 2 seems cool, but waaaaay to expensive. i would use it mainly for drawing but i dont want it if the Sketchbook Pro app isn’t going to provide an advance drawing software.