I don’t believe anyone gasped when we found out Nintendo was releasing the 3DS XL this fall, day and date with New Super Mario Bros. 2. What I believe did surprise a lot of people was the lack of a second analog slide pad built into the gargantuan beast.
Firstly, I just want to get personal bias out of the way. I feel that the 3DS is the most visually attractive handheld Nintendo has put out to date. That said, the 3DS XL does not look appealing to me at all. It doesn’t have any of the sexy edginess that the original does, it simply looks like a DSi XL.
Ok, now that I’ve whimpered over the new shell, let’s get to the reason I started this article: the blatant and inexcusable absence of the second analog slide pad. Take a look at this image. Let it soak in.
Ok. Now answer the following question:
Is there enough room on this machine to have two analog slide pads?
The answer is YES!
I cannot believe that after hemmorhaging money over the release of the first 3DS that Nintendo would be so blind to assume that people would be willing to drop $199 for a larger screened 3DS, and another undisclosed amount (I’m assuming $19.99) for yet another Circle Pad Pro, instead of putting the goddamed thing on there to begin with.
If you want a console to sell, give people a reason to buy it. Personally, I wouldn’t give a shit if the screen was a 24” OLED capacitive touch screen that scratched my balls when they itched, I’m not going to spend money on a console that is exactly the same as the one I have not been using.
Here’s hoping the Wii U has a successful launch, or we’ll be bidding Nintendo farewell from the console market.
