When I first laid googly eyes on the 3DS XL my reaction was mixed. I love the idea of a bigger screen for the 3DS, and I think the new design is leaps and bounds beyond the creaky old original. But no additional Circle Pad? What gives? In an interview with The Independent in the UK, Nintendo President Satoru Iwata explains why.
According to Iwata, the reason the 3DS XL doesn’t have a second circle pad is purely a design issue.
“When we looked at the design of the 3DS XL we had to look at various factors, one was battery life, one was the overall size of the unit, and we had to make some trade-offs,” he said. “The choice, if we were going to include the second analogue stick, was to reduce the size of the batters or make the unit much bigger.
I like to imagine Iwata wearing a pair of ‘deal with it’ sunglasses as he delivers this statement.
“Attaching a second analogue stick is possible but it would have made the system even bigger and, though it perhaps puts a burden on people that really want that second stick, it’s a call we had to make and these people will have to live with it.”
Well, there you have it. I guess we’re just going to have to “live with it”.
[Iwata laughs]
Satoru Iwata on Wii U: ‘I think it will become increasingly difficult from now on to compete over graphics’ [The Independent]
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