Would you buy a $250 Nintendo 3DS? Details coming Sept. 29

The Nintendo announced and showcased the Nintendo 3DS, the gaming giant's next iteration into the hand held foray, at Nintendo's E3 2010 press conference (although it was more or less announced earlier this year) to a bonanza of hype.

Could the hype and excitement for the world's first non-glasses 3D entertainment device warrant a $250 price tag? One analyst thinks so.

Industry analyst Michael Pachter of financial and investment firm Wedbush Securities told CVG any price below $300 will allow Nintendo to quickly sell 10 million consoles. He said Nintendo may also be in a position to sell the 3D console's software for a higher price, from an average of $25 per title to $29, placing it more inline with Sony's PlayStation Portable.

Nintendo will make a formal announcement on Sept. 29 concerning a new product announcement, likely the launch date and price of the Nintendo 3DS according to Computerworld.

The question is, would you pay that much for the Nintendo 3DS?

I felt foolish when I forked out about $500 for my PS3, but we're looking at a price that is nearly equivalent to the $299 PS3 slim models. Granted, the overpriced PSP Go currently retails for $250 so Nintendo isn't that far off, but it seems like the $100 jump from the Nintendo DS's original price point and at least $60 more than the Nintendo DSi XL is a little too far.

What do you think?

Renaming the "working title" in video games

Every project needs a title even though creators often don't commit to an official title.

However, in the video game industry, often times the "working title" of a console or game often becomes the only title that sticks in the minds of gamers...or the largest retail chain in the world.

A Walmart advertisement in my local Sunday newspaper listed the new Microsoft "Project Natal" as an "revolutionary new way to play" this fall. I'm not sure when the advertisement was pieced together, but the world has known the new motion-controlled camera peripheral for the Xbox 360 as the Kinect for nearly a month now.

Luckily the retailer's website is aware of Microsoft's Kinect and it's $149.54 price tag.

Who could forget that the Nintendo Wii was first called the "Revolution" for several years before it receive its laughable name. Previously there was the Nintendo Ultra 64 (Nintendo 64) and the Nintendo 64DD ("DD" standing for disk drive) which never came to fruition.

Of course every "The Legend of Zelda" game always has a working title of "The Legend of Zelda."

At least Sony conveniently unnamed it's "motion controller" before dubbing it the "PlayStation Move" earlier this year.

Every game has some sort of working title during development since game producers are so eager to show off their software that they don't bother to take the time to name it. A simple google search for working titles in video games gives us "Heroes on the Move," "Silent Hill 8," "Vectorman," "The Shoot," and of course Sony's blockbuster holiday hit "Motion Fighter."

I'm waiting for game to have the "working title" of "working title," that's something that's easy to remember.

A lot of times we are caught using the "working title" of a game or console for so long we have it ingrained in our minds. Project Natal is a clear example of this which is why I still have a hard time calling it the Konact...Conict...Connect...Kinect.

Roger Ebert Admits He May Have Been Wrong About Video Games as Art

After an onslaught of 4,547 comments, film critic Roger Ebert conceded that he may have spoken too soon after he posted an entry on his blog video games can never be art.

Today, Ebert ate a few of his words in a new blog post where he sites the "don't knock it 'till you try it" defense as the error of his ways:

I was a fool for mentioning video games in the first place. I would never express an opinion on a movie I hadn't seen. Yet I declared as an axiom that video games can never be Art. I still believe this, but I should never have said so. Some opinions are best kept to yourself.

Ebert said he has not played many video games aside from "Cosmology of Kyoto" (which I'm not aware of) and the 1993 classic "Myst."

I should not have written that entry without being more familiar with the actual experience of video games.

However, he does mention that Sony Computer Entertainment's "Shadow of the Colossus" does come close to art and even admits that video games do have the potential to become art amongst some fumbling of words:

What I was saying is that video games could not in principle be Art. That was a foolish position to take, particularly as it seemed to apply to the entire unseen future of games. This was pointed out to me maybe hundreds of times. How could I disagree? It is quite possible a game could someday be great Art.

Ebert does give a clear definition of art and notes that video games could not be considered art by technicality because video games are not created primarily for their beauty or emotional power: neither are many films, nor are many Academy Award winning films.


Nevertheless, it was very nice of Mr. Ebert to concede that he could not be an accurate judge of video games since he has not played many himself. It was a stupid comment to make in the first place with a world littered with opinionated and die-hard video game fans.

The fact still remains that video games can and should be considered an art form.