Hopefully a bit more 3D than this

Excited by the upcoming release of the 3DS eShop? Of course you are, but we bet there's room for your excitement-o-meter to jump up a few notches when you hear the service will apparently launch with a free game.

As part of Nintendo's 3D Classics range that will see older games re-released with a lick of three-dimensional paint, Excitebike will hit the service on day one for absolutely nothing, according to a report from Andriasang. The company also confirmed the service will launch with Game Boy and Game Boy Color games, but that it is investigating bringing other formats to the service in future, hopefully paving the way for Virtual Boy games on 3DS.

Judging from comments made by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata at an investors' briefing, the game may not be free for ever:

More specifically, we will give a free download of "ExciteBike" as one of the "3D Classics" series during a certain period of time after the beginning of the system update. We would like to announce this widely and have as many people as possible update their hardware and start using Nintendo eShop.

Best get in there quickly.

[source andriasang.com]