Nintendo: 3DS XL’s Screens Won’t Look “Awkward”

July 24, 2012

There’s been some concern on the internet regarding the larger screen size of Nintendo’s upcoming 3DS XL console. With the screen size increasing, but the resolution staying the same, you’d expect that games might not look as good as they do on the original 3DS. Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, discussed the issue during his latest ‘Iwata Asks’ section on Nintendo’s website. He said:

Many customers appear to be worried, asking questions like “If the screen is bigger, won’t the dots stand out?” and ‘Will the screen get blurry?” The dots are indeed smaller than on the Nintendo DSi XL system. When I played it, I wasn’t bothered by anything at all.

Takashi Murakami, from Nintendo’s Mechanical Design Group, stepped up to speak about the screen as well, based on his experience with it.

Apparently I have incredible eyesight, so if you look at it with eyes like mine, you can tell. But for normal play, I don’t think anyone will be able to sense anything awkward. What’s more, the Nintendo 3DS XL’s attraction as a product is that it’s bigger than the Nintendo 3DS and shows 3D graphics with impact—and when it comes to that, it’s just fine.

That’s a bit of an odd statement to make, is he trying to say that our eyesight isn’t good enough for us to tell the difference? Well, at least the 3D is good. Murakami also mentioned that the 3DS XL will feature better anti-reflection technology than the original 3DS.

Anti-reflection is something that we’ve been working on for quite some time now. On an LCD screen, there are basically three reflective layers, which all of them reflects and cause glare. So this time, we specially treated all the layers. Reflectivity on the Nintendo 3DS was about 12 per cent, but we decreased that to about three per cent.

It’s good to hear that we won’t have to worry about bright light reflecting off the 3DS XL’s screesn too much, since that’ll make playing slightly easier. As to whether the screens will really look as good as those on the original 3DS, we’ll have to wait and see.