3DS 3Destroys All!

Sweet, merciful Poseidon, this is a good one. Earlier this week Nintendo announced the final specs, library and features of their next generation handheld system: the Nintendo 3DS. While there had been a decent amount of information that had been released during it's initial unveiling at E3 (as well as some launch titles), Wednesday's news revealed cold, hard facts about it's latest and most glorious handheld.

First off, the 3DS (as the name implies) is 3D. Full-on, stereoscopic 3D, but WITHOUT GLASSES. Suck it, Sony. The 3.53-inch screen provides autostereoscopic 3D with a sliding dial on the side to determine how much depth of field you want or to turn off the 3D completely.

The hardware for this device is pretty great too...for Nintendo. The (boring) facts of this handheld. 3DS sports:

CPU: 2 x 266MHz ARM11

GPU: PICA200 133MHz GPU by DMP

RAM: 64MB

Storage: 1.5GB Flash-based plus available SD card expansion.

Blah, blue, snore. Right? But here's the thing. Below are the specs for Nintendo's last home console: the Gamecube.

CPU: 486 MHz IBM "Gekko" PowerPC CPU

GPU: 62 MHz "Flipper" LSI GPU

RAM: 43 MB total non-unified RAM

Storage: None. All storage is on removable (and easily corrupted) memory cards.

I'm not a scientist or anything, but it seems tome that the new 3DS has more horsepower than the 'Cube. You can run and tell THAT, homeboy.

To be fair though, there have been rumors that the Gamecube had the internal capabilities for 3D way back in 2001, but the cost of the associated monitor was cost-prohibitive

The starting line-up of titles is pretty impressive: (*INHALES*) Kid Icarus, Mega Man, Metal Gear Solid, two Resident Evil titles, Super Street Fighter IV, Paper Mario, Mario Kart, Final Fantasy and 3D re-releases of the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time Star, Fox 64 and (supposedly) Super Mario World.

But the fun doesn't stop there. 3DS will play DS titles (presumably) in 3D.

Chrono Trigger...in 3D. Oh god. It's full of stars!

That's it, right? You're sold. Well shut up for a sec. There's more. Nintendo will be offering a Virtual Console for previous Gameboy and Gameboy Color titles. Kirby's Dreamland, Metroid II, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Link's Awakening. Now you have no reason not to.

There's also talk that the 3DS will have streaming TV coming to it as well, but only in Japan.