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Topic: 3DS as a long-term travel companion

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Radio_KJ

I wrote the following as a blog post from the perspective of someone who lives out of a backpack. Keep that in mind while reading it. I thought I'd copy it here from my blog to see what reaction it gets. A bit of background: the blog itself is managed completely from a cell phone as part of an experiment in traveling as portably as possible.


I’ve been using the 3DS a fair bit since it came out. As a former gaming addict, I’m always on the lookout for the best portable gaming systems to travel with. You may ask why I don’t just use the same phone I’m writing this blog on, to which I reply: when an emergency comes up and I need my phone, will my battery be dead because I spent too much time playing games?

Though the 3DS is still a fairly new system, it has completely failed to impress me as a portable gaming device. Let’s start with the same problem as the phone: battery life. Normally one would not shut down the 3DS, but rather leave it in standby. This is to make use of some of the trivial features of the system, including SpotPass, which can basically be summed up as trading save data with other 3DS owners you pass by in the street. But leaving the system in standby kills a full battery in under 36 hours, so it is desireable to just turn the system off and let these features go to waste. This will give you plenty of time between plays, but doesn’t change the fact that the system still has lousy playtime while you’re actually using it. You may get four hours before needing a charge of equal length; the worst battery performance of any Nintendo handheld I’ve ever used. Sure those fancy 3D effects take a lot of juice, but this suggests to me that the technology was pushed out too soon.

Next are the internet capabilities. In short: if you are on a slow connection, the Nintendo Shop is unusable. This isn’t the sort of unusable where it can actually be used but is just too slow to be taken seriously; the shop cannot be used at all. When loading a new page, timing out will cause the shop to stop working with a message that you must restart the system. (Actually you only need to restart the shop, but it’s still highly bloody annoying.) Screenshots are also poorly handled: all six images (up to three top-screen and three bottom) must load before any of them can be zoomed in, and if so much as a single image times out the shop must be reloaded to zoom in on even the ones that did load. In my travels I have not often had access to speedy internet connections, so the Nintendo Shop can also be put on the pile of useless features.

And then there’s the regional lock-out. What happened Nintendo? You’ve never locked a handheld before, so why start now? I’m not always in the same region in which I purchased my hardware, and I like to stay out-of-region for long periods of time when I can. Previously this never interferred with handheld gaming, as I could always play the local games on my system. But now I can’t buy new games online OR offline if I’m away from home — which I am, and which is why I want a PORTABLE system — and thus I have to put the system itself on the “useless features” pile we’ve been discussing. Your excuses about different rating systems and different downloadable content don’t fly with me. I’m 27 years old and will play whatever game I damn well please. The only people who care about ratings are parents buying for their kids*, and aside from the fact that these grown-ups should be smart enough to know what the rating means even if it’s different from their local system, most parents don’t import games. As for downloadable content inconsistencies, a) I don’t care, and b) we just finished discussing how the online component of the system fails, rendering downloadable content moot.

Finally, the built-in games just don’t work well on the road. AR Games require a good-sized flat surface to play, and Face Raiders has you moving around far more than you will ever do in public unless you enjoy looking like an idiot and getting in people’s way. Both these games require you to be at home rather than out and about, and so from a travel perspective we have two more useless features.

Overall, as a travel companion, I give the 3DS a fail. It’s potentially possible to use it strictly for DS games or 3DS games in 2D mode and get decent battery life, but you’re pretty much throwing out everything that makes the system unique. If you want to travel and like Nintendo handhelds, stick with the DS Lite, or better yet, the GBA SP. Both have huge game libraries and can play foreign titles, and both have far greater battery life.


*Who are we kidding? Parents don’t pay attention to ratings even in their own region. They just buy whatever their spawn demand. I’ve seen people trying to buy Grand Theft Auto for their eight-year-olds. Is the name not enough of a hint?

Radio_KJ

Raptor78

Odd, I find it a fantastic travel companion. It plays all my songs, I have an almost always on internet connection because I am with BT and everytime I pass a BT Openzone location or a FON location it connects me which is great for accessing many mobile websites, facebook and emails with a decent speed, the eShop also works fine with these connections so the store cannot be that demanding. I have plenty of my old DSiware apps and suchlike stored on the system. All that I do is that I have the cradle in my front room and when I get in from work or whereever I have been I just pop it on there and leave it til I want to use it again or im ready for popping out again. The battery lasts me just fine and I always have it in standby mode when im not playing it to get all those important spotpass and streetpass updates, saying that I have never left it for 36 hours and I havnt had a need to do that either. Playing your music on the system uses very little power too when listening with your headset and I can be sat for long journeys listening without the light turning red. The only thing is that when I am on long journeys I turn the 3D effect off especially because I sometimes get travel sick and this will probably save a chunk of battery and sometimes when it is too sunny I have to turn the brightness down. But compared to my DSi and my iPod I much prefer my 3DS as a travel partner and I leave my Android for my phones needs.

Edit: Noticed your location as Canada and mabey I get a better experience from my 3DS because I get a great connection to the internet more or less everywhere in the UK which of course would make it or more usefull gaming/entertainment device. Without the great internet connection I would imagine that you would indeed find it a poor travel companion and not much better than say a DSi.

Edited on by Raptor78

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TheAmazingRaccoon

as long as you pack the charger, it is a great travel companion

It's just an empty pot...
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There's something at the bottom!
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Terave

The battery life is horrible indeed, but the 3DS is a handheld which can give you tons of fun. AR games need a flat surface, but you don't play them while traveling in a train I think And Face Raiders needs space, not for good in the train as well. I know that it is meant as a handheld: A part of it just makes it less portable, according to these in-built games.
Next point: Regio Lock is indeed a problem which means you can't import games from NA or JP. But you don't need that too many times, unless you follow a game (serie) which only comes out on the other side of the sea or world. I think regio lock is a problem indeed, but the most player don't import a lot of games from NA or JP.
The internet connection is really bad, but that is just the fault of my router. Otherwise (If everything works correct) the system has a great internet experience. I hear a lot of things like 'the browser doens't support Flash.' Do we really need Flash for like every internet browser? It should be fine if we had it but it's not like we miss this: Apple doesn't support it on their devices as well. The internet browser is fast and if it would support youtube, we could get more 'out of memory' messages. The eShop never has given me any problems at all: There is only an error which other people from NL does annoy, but that's quite it.

And now, I'd like too say that the things for the 3DS aren't bad. And what you need to do: Look what the systems does, not what it all should do.

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Radio_KJ

The key phrases here are "long-term travel" and "living out of a backpack". Your responses are certainly valid, but they were written from the perspectives of people staying at home.

"I have an almost always on internet connection because I am with BT and everytime I pass a BT Openzone location or a FON location it connects me which is great for accessing many mobile websites."
I'll keep this in mind should I come to your neighbourhood.

"Noticed your location as Canada..." "I have the cradle in my front room and when I get in from work or whereever I have been I just pop it on there and leave it til I want to use it again or im ready for popping out again."
I was born and raised in Canada, so I tell people that's where I'm from. But, taking the last year as an example, I've had four addresses in three countries, not including interim stays in hostels and hotels. Sometimes I get great connections where I am, but most of the time I face either slow speeds, spotty signals, or a general inability to connect to some spots at all. Maybe this is normal for the regions I travel in, but it doesn't make the problem any less significant. We don't all have super high speed turbo connections and most devices can accommodate that, but not the 3DS (or the Wii, for that matter).

"...saying that I have never left it for 36 hours and I havnt had a need to do that either."
I have. Long train rides. Therein lies my point: the battery on my SP lasted long enough to amuse me between other activities, while the 3DS dies in my backpack before I can use it.

"Playing your music on the system uses very little power too when listening with your headset..."
I'm going to grant this simply because I've never used the thing to play music. I prefer to listen to the radio when I'm on the road.

"as long as you pack the charger, it is a great travel companion"
When you're away for longer periods of time, the lighter you pack the better. I like the cradle, but right now it's sitting in my parents' storage room 10 hours drive from where I'm currently living. Even small items like that can make a significant difference when you put them all together.

"...but you don't play them while traveling in a train I think And Face Raiders needs space, not for good in the train as well."
Exactly. I was on a train when I first thought up this post. They're fun games when you're at home, but I just feel it defeats the point of a handheld when you have to enjoy it at home where your consoles are.

"But you don't need that too many times..."
I lived in Taiwan for six months. I was able to buy new DS games while I was there, but 3DS games? I have to pay extra to import them from America instead of paying less for Japanese or Australian releases. This is the point I'm trying to make: people who stay out-of-region for long periods of time get less use out of their system, making it more a waste of money.

"Look what the systems does, not what it all should do."
I am looking at what the system does, and from the perspective of one who is outside more often than inside, what it does isn't all that useful.

Radio_KJ

Papa_Godzilla

i travel around with it everyday, and i never experience problems.
the battery life is exagerated. do you remember the gamegear ? 6AA batteries for 3hours? and now you think this battery is a fail ? right. I recently got the nyko powerpak+, and the difference is noticable, i never run out of battery, or even go low.
my 3ds is open all day long, from 6AM to midnight the sleepmode hardly takes any energy.

internet is not that bad, gotta find the right spots and its ok. but i agree, if you try an iphone compared o it, its far behind. no movie streaming kills the usefulness of it.

so it depends what you mean by travel. youre a backpacker ? if so, why buying technology anyway ? better get an iphone, or a ds for gaming.
if travel means to you, going to work, taking the bus, the subway, walking around town, then the 3ds is excellent.
just dont forget your power cable just in case.

********edit**********
i misread at first, but it seems youre a backpacker after all.
dont get the 3ds. its a urban travel companion. i would stick to a dslite. the battery never failed me, it lasted long, and the library is huuuuge. plus it freakin lightweight. with a gamecase, you can bring around anything you wish.
i wouldnt even dare saying a portable gaming system will give you internet right. iphone will, but its not a gaming system, its a phone.

the 3ds if urban style. the 3d effect is meant for you to enjoy at home or in public transportations, like i do everyday.
oh yeah, dont even dare talking about built-in games. theyre like tech demos, you enjoy them when you just bought the system, then forget about them soon enough.

one last thing to mention. the 3ds or the latest gaming portables cost a lot, and when you backpack around, it makes you an easy prey for thievery. stick with the oldies, they wont be interesting anyway for thieves.

Edited on by Papa_Godzilla

Papa_Godzilla

geek-master

battery life is not horrible. 3D for me is off most of the time because it does not work well with dirty glasses and yes i do clean my glasses quite often but the air born particles really screw up my vision so that why 3D is off. as far as a travel companion it depends. you would want to take some games with you that have decent replay value and a long play time like ocarina of time 3D. i have pilot wings resort so it is easy to say i put it down when i cannot get at-lest a 2 star ranking on a mission. as far as a music player it is easy to say i would greatly prefer something much better like an ipod nano or smart phone with play-lists and shuffling of songs. as of now the 3DS does not have a 3G model so when netflix does come you will not be able to watch movies on the road unless you have a portable wi-fi hot spot. so i have to partiality agree with this blog until the 3DS gets deeper games such as monster hunter and Luigi's mansion 2

EDIT.
i strongly agree with the post above. unless you have a solar power gadget recharging device then you are out of luck. stick with a ds lite and get it a life proof case like nerf.

Edited on by geek-master

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SpentAllMyTokens

Having backpacked a fair share myself, I can see many of your frustrations. Battery life is a big issue when you are looking at an 8 hour long bus ride or overnight train. Other than that, the rest of your complaints are moot. Stock up on eshop games when you do have good connections. You don't need a new game every day, and you can save up between hostels. It's not like you're going to be getting new games off the eshop on a DS Lite/GBA, and at least with the 3DS you have a way of getting games beyond retail. This is important if you are in areas that don't sell games (which, since it looks like you may be backpacking though asia, is a pretty huge chunk).

Also, the biggest new feature about the 3DS is not the online or AR, it will be the games. It's the next generation portable. The extra features are just icing on the cake (though, I agree, there probably isn't enough out on it now to make it worthwhile as a long term travel companion, but that's the nature of any system at launch).

If you have a stable address and want to import games, I'd recommend Playasia.com. They ship for free to China (and maybe Taiwan, they're Hong Kong based), and the games are marked up only $5 over the US releases. Given the exchange rate, you're paying more for Japanese titles, especially if you're not in Japan and are paying a markup over that for them to be imported (many games in Taiwan are just imported Japanese titles, for example).

To save space, get a USB charger. I'm sure they have them online. You can plug that into your laptop or into a USB plug adapter (if you have an iPod/iPhone, you probably have one already). Best purchase I made, especially since Nintendo's chargers (at least for the DSi) were not universal voltage, so I couldn't use my US charger in Asia.

Those would be my tips to make your life easier, as someone who's backpacked through much of Asia (China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia) with a DSi. The battery life is a real shame, because it's the long bus/train rides where the DS is the most useful. Outside of that, if you're backpacking through somewhere and are relying mainly on a game system for your entertainment, you're doing it wrong.

Edited on by SpentAllMyTokens

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Papa_Godzilla

geez. youre right. no 3G, then monster hunter or other mmo will be rather useless unless youre at home... where you could play them on a console or pc anyway.

and the nerf case is a great idea !

Papa_Godzilla

OldBoy

For me the 3DS fails as a handheld instantly because of the reflection of the top screen when outside ,its pretty much unplayable when sunny.And yes your frustrations are perfectly valid considering your lifestyle though I think you already have the answer.Buy a DS lite,seriously thats all you need.DS and GBA games,great battery life and region free ,lovely .
Still love my 3DS but thats because I use it mainly at home or work and its an awesome console

Edited on by OldBoy

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Raptor78

I can really see why in your situation it isnt the ideal system, you raised some very good points and although I find it perfectly suitable for my portible needs it doesnt meet yours. Thanks for how you handled our comments, it could have easily become a bitchfest but you accepted our points and just offered your opinions.
Me,I use it daily to and from work, long shopping trips, etc. Its been a many years since I have done any kind of backpacking and the only battery life I had to worry about was the Gameboy, Gamegear & the Lynx and back then there was no question on which handheld had the best battery life.

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Terave

And battery life is on a lot of devices horrible.

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AutumnShantel

It's not the first thing I'd be concerned about if I had to live out of a backpack, for sure...

AutumnShantel

Papa_Godzilla

Luigi78 wrote:

For me the 3DS fails as a handheld instantly because of the reflection of the top screen when outside ,its pretty much unplayable when sunny.And yes your frustrations are perfectly valid considering your lifestyle though I think you already have the answer.Buy a DS lite,seriously thats all you need.DS and GBA games,great battery life and region free ,lovely .
Still love my 3DS but thats because I use it mainly at home or work and its an awesome console

damn right. the sun kills it.
i mainly use it at work or at home, and in the bus. but everytime the sun moves into the window, the top screen looks likecrap and barely visible, and the down screen look pale.
not a apparel for sunny days, unless you find a nice shadow spot.

and the lady before me has a point. it is not a thing i would be concerned about if i was to live with a backpack all year long
keep it old school and affordable. gameboy advance wont be a bother if it fails or be destroyed

Papa_Godzilla

Stereoman

Radio_KJ wrote:

The key phrases here are "long-term travel" and "living out of a backpack". Your responses are certainly valid, but they were written from the perspectives of people staying at home.

"Look what the systems does, not what it all should do."
I am looking at what the system does, and from the perspective of one who is outside more often than inside, what it does isn't all that useful.

well i can completely understand you Radio_KJ
Lets face it the 3DS is just no international or cosmopolitan handheld, but well dunno if as a handheld designer you firstly think of that option

It's more of a cozy companion who doesnt want to stay outside long and needs a nap from time to time.
It's good to take to a picknick lunch nearby but definitely not on a cross country or cross continent world self find tour of epicness
So for long journeys you have to look for minimalism in every term. As u mentioned the less backpack the better. So the less graphic power the more battery life easy as it is.

So i would recommend travel with either DS lite or Gameboy SP. I heard the DS lite got wonderous battery life

And i doubt any future handhelds will be any more travelsome....
Battery is always the weak part and the evolution of battery technology cant catch up with the evolution of graphic powers sadly!

ps: How is the performance of gameboy micro batterywise ? Never had a micro.

*cough ok i noticed samholy summed it up pretty good already ....

greets

Edited on by Stereoman

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