Nintendo reveals the 2DS

Nintendo has officially announced the newest entry into the 3DS lineup – the 2DS. Yes, you read that correctly – the 2DS. Effectively, it’s a 3DS minus the option to play any of your games in 3D. It is also built into a single slab-shaped body, and is thus unable to fold closed as every previous 3DS/DS variant was able to do. The 2DS is still backwards compatible with standard DS games and is still able to access the eShop. Based on its physical design, it doesn’t look like the 2DS will cost Nintendo a whole lot to produce, but my concerns lie more with the name of this handheld. I feel that Nintendo runs a significant risk mainstream consumers being confused about what the 2DS is/does in the same way that many people were initially confused as to whether the Wii U tablet was simply an add-on to the Wii or part of a whole new console. The name ‘2DS’ could easily lead parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles of the younger gamers who this system is apparently being marketed toward to believe the 2DS is just a new label for the standard DS in order to distinguish it from the 3DS. As for why Nintendo is actually releasing this new variant, I believe it has more to do with the upcoming Pokémon titles than anything else. They know full well how much of a cash cow the Pokémon games have proven to be for each previous handheld generation, and these games are as popular with younger gamers as they are with older gamers. The fact that Pokémon X and Y release a week prior to the 2DS seems to me just a tad too convenient to be coincidence.