Nintendo didn’t say the 3DS will have a shorter battery life than the DS
Several outlets are claiming that the Nintendo 3DS will feature a shorter battery life than the Nintendo DS, basing their reports on this excerpt from a Q&A between Nintendo president/CEO Satoru Iwata and investors:
“As for the battery, it is inevitable that Nintendo 3DS will be a device which requires more frequent recharging than Nintendo DS.
This is why we are going to include the cradle, which is a dedicated battery charger. Perhaps we may need to dispatch to our consumers a message, something like, “Please place your Nintendo 3DS on the cradle as soon as you return home with it.”
I understand how some came to that conclusion, but I believe people took his comments out of context. Never mind that each DS model has different battery life estimates that vary with brightness levels (ranging from three to 19 hours); Iwata isn’t comparing hard numbers for the 3DS’s battery life against previous systems at all.
The battery life topic came up while the Nintendo chief was discussing the new handheld’s StreetPass feature — which allows users to exchange data with other 3DS owners (e.g. Miis, rankings, etc) even when their portable is in sleep mode. It’s an advanced version of Dragon Quest IX’s Tag mode that works for multiple games at a time.
Nintendo has placed a lot of emphasis on StreetPass, as it hopes to get as many 3DS owners as possible bringing their portables with them and exchanging data with each other. If people make a habit out of carrying their consoles and leaving them on all the time, naturally, they’ll need to charge them more often than they would with a handheld they only turned on to play.
Also, it’s likely StreetPass’s wireless functions will drain 3DS batteries faster in sleep mode, which is the case with the DS/DSi’s Tag mode. So, having a charging dock (which will be bundled with each 3DS) is convenient!
Buy: Nintendo DSi XL (Blue, Burgundy, & Bronze), Standard Nintendo DSi (White, Pink, Black, & Blue) See also: Hella posts about the Nintendo 3DS
