So... will you be buying a 3DS?

With the price drop of the 3DS is in full swing from this weekend and prices now as low as £115 on Amazon UK, it certainly looks like good value for a next-gen handheld that launched little over five months ago. Being a fan of the original DS, the temptation is certainly there to snap one up, yet for me I still feel hesitant about making the plunge.

Possibly the biggest factor, one I feel that most people on the fence would concur with, is the lack of games. Right now, the only game that really appeals to me is Zelda: OOT, although Starfox 64 3D will be with us next month. Despite the fact that I’d love to run through these “remakes” again, they are updates of games that I’ve played umpteen times before. I must be a sucker for nostalgia.

This concern is dimished somewhat when you think back to the launch window lineup for the original DS. I think the first DS game that I both enjoyed and found impressive was Kirby Canvas Curse, and that was released a good few months after launch. Over the years the DS ended up developing a solid library of games, and I’m optimistic the same will eventually happen for the 3DS. But is it better to be safe than sorry? What if you pick one up a system now and Nintendo decides to release an updated model down the line—by the time the library is beefed up—as we saw with both the Game Boy Advance and original DS?

The second factor—and one we’ll probably see improved if Nintendo does in fact decide to release an updated model—is the battery life. 3 to 5 hours of juice isn’t great, and would almost haunt you back to days of the Game Gear if the rechargeable lithium ion-battery wasn’t the norm, I remember the battery life of the DS Lite was much improved over the original DS, which was sub-par... perhaps due to the inability to adjust the levels of brightness. But it made all the difference: it was just one aspect that made the DS Lite far superior.

The final point, a first for a Nintendo handheld and one that really put me off when it was first revealed, is the region-lock. This has given me a dilemma as to whether to hold out for a North American 3DS, as there’s the possibility that quality games which get localised for those markets never make it to Europe-land, such as titles by smaller publishing arms like Aksys and Atlus. Or how about the titles that take an age to get released here? Times have definitely improved in that regard but there’s still the odd game that's left hanging. The whole region-lock issue has been made more difficult as Nintendo of Europe seems to take more initiative in localising games here, rather than always looking westward. Case in point: Last Window on the DS, the sequel to Hotel Dusk, saw release in Europe, and not in North America.

How about everyone else? Has anyone decided to splurge on one now, or plan to pick one up in the near future... or is holding out like myself?