Nintendo 2Ds

Continuing with their habit of making multiple versions of the same hardware, Nintendo has recently released the Nintendo 2DS, a 3DS that has no 3D capabilities, and also does not have the "clamshell" design that Nintendo's DS family has had since the launch of the original DS back in 2004.

As some of you may know already, the 2DS is the third installment in the 3DS lineup, following the standard model, which recently was released in a variety of colors (many of which were teased at the 2011 E3 demo and only just brought to fruition), and the more recent 3DS XL (3DS LL in Japan), which offers users a much larger top screen for easier viewing. The larger screen also unfortunately does not compensate for resolution, so it does stretch the visuals of the games out a lot, which depending on personal taste, can ruin the game for you.

The 2DS aims to provide parents with the peace of mind of knowing that their children cannot activate a 3D mode, which can potentially harm developing eyesight, and also released at a slightly lower price than the 3D technology model, to give potential users who don't care for the 3D function an ever so slightly cheaper alternative by cutting it out entirely.

The design of the 2DS harkens back to Nintendo's first GameBoy, being large and seemingly sturdy, since for younger users, the GameBoy Advance SP and everything in the DS/3DS family would often break at the hinges, since the hinge area is hard to fortify. Interestingly, the 2DS uses only one screen, which is a large touch screen that has been divided by the 2DS' CPU to display as if it were two screens. The debate over whether or not Nintendo should have taken advantage of the touch screen capabilities of the top screen remains ongoing, and some fans of the design have come up with relatively convincing reasons/innovative ideas for how Nintendo could have potentially used that feature.

The naming of the 2DS is a bit questionable, since to the casual observer, 2, being less than 3, implies that the 2DS is some form of prototype or watered down version (which it technically is), so exactly how many sales it'll lose or gain thanks to this odd naming scheme remains to be seen.