Back in October, Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata said that the 3DS will naturally have shorter battery life than the DS.
This makes sense when you consider the super 3D magic it’s making happen.
What was said though, was that there would be 3 to 5 hours of play time. It seems now that even 5 hours is really stretching it to it’s limit.
Ars Technica have been putting the 3DS to the test.
They say:
“When Nintendo announced that the battery life for the 3DS would be three to five hours while playing 3DS games, many people assumed that was a worst-case scenario, and you could extend that time by turning down the 3D, or the system’s brightness, or turning off the wireless connection. The truth is that five hours seems to be the hard limit, and we had a very hard time even hitting that.
Why is power consumption such an issue? “[The 3DS] has to deliver separate images to the left and right eyes. Which means that in 3D the amount of light delivered to each eye is halved,” 3DS system designer Ryuji Umezu said. “In order to make it look just as bright as usual, you have to increase the brightness of the backlight, which increases the power used by even more.”
With the screen at a reasonable brightness, 3D and wireless turned off when the game allowed it, and no sound, we were about to get to a little over 4.5 hours of playtime. If you like a brighter screen, keep 3D turned on, or if you have that speaker going, that time is only going to go down. No matter what you do, there doesn’t seem to be a way to get more than five hours of battery life if you’re playing 3DS games. If you’re playing older DS games the estimated battery life is five to eight hours, but we haven’t tested that yet.”
So 4.5 hours with NO SOUND?
Seems like a problem alright.
They also mention that the charge cable is slightly longer this time.
I would certainly hope so, my current DS charge cable can’t be more than 2-3 feet, making it next to impossible to charge it while playing in bed.
Still, I know I’ll be getting a 3DS at some stage, once the worthwhile software comes out.
As sure as night follows day, it’s pretty much guaranteed that Nintendo will be milking this for all it’s worth. There will no doubt be a new version soon with a better battery, then a version that with a better screen, or a usb port and then a version with a better battery AND a better screen and usb port etc etc
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