With increasing competition from Apple, and a customer 
base that’s more price-conscious than ever, Nintendo has a lot riding on the 3DS.
The new handheld device, which launches Sunday, represents a leap of faith on the publisher’s part. With cheap and free games available on so many other platforms, will eye-popping effects and the lure of the strongest collection of franchises in the video game industry be enough to keep consumers interested?
Glasses free 3D is still a fair ways from 
making it to the living room, but Samsung is starting to test the waters.
The electronics giant is showing off a 55-inch prototype this week of a set that doesn’t require any sort of dorky headgear. Before you get out your credit cards, the company says it will be at least three years before something like this will hit the market.
3D hasn’t exactly taken the gaming world by storm 
so far, but that’s not stopping Sony from giving the technology another big push.
Killzone 3, due out this week, is the latest installment in the company’s eye-popping shooter series. And Sony’s pulling out all the stops this time. Arguably the best graphics to appear in a PlayStation 3 game to date? Check. Integration of the PlayStation Move controller? You bet! 3D? Oh yeah — it’s in there, too.
Nintendo hopes to kick the 3D 
revolution into overdrive on March 27.
That’s the date its eagerly awaited 3DS portable gaming system will go on sale in North America. The device will be the first mass market consumer device to offer stereoscopic 3D images without the need for special glasses – something analysts see as critical to the success of 3D in the market.
Despite speculation that they 
might miss their launch target and price the system beyond the comfort zone of the mass audience, Nintendo’s 3DS handheld gaming system will launch on time and at a price point lower than many feared.
The 3DS, which lets players enjoy games in stereoscopic 3D without the need for special 3D glasses, will go on sale in North America on March 27 at a price of $249.99. That’s $100 higher than the launch price the DS had in 2004, but lower than the $300 many feared when the Japanese launch price was given.
[In a Friday opinion piece, Gamasutra editor-at-large Chris 
Morris looks at Satoru Iwata’s musings on possible video recording for Nintendo’s 3DS to look at the stealth non-gaming elements of the 3DS and how they might truly ‘future-proof’ the handheld.]
While it has had to endure its fair share of navel gazing and questions from the media over the 3DS — including from me — Nintendo is starting to show once again why it’s always foolish to bet against the company.
There’s no doubt the 3DS will be a hot seller when it hits shelves. Most new game technologies from major players in the industry usually are. The question that has always loomed over the 3DS’s head, though, was is it enough to lure people who are spending more and more time with their iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch.
Nintendo will break new ground with the 3DS 
portable gaming system later this year, offering the first consumer electronics device to let people enjoy stereoscopic 3D effects without wearing glasses. But it looks like the company might have much bigger ambitions for the gadget.
In the latest Iwata Asks Q&A with the company’s global CEO, Satoru Iwata reveals that he would like to include video recording capabilities into future updates of the 3DS, letting people shoot home movies in 3D and watch them back on their device or (presumably) on a 3D TV via SD card.
Panasonic is opening an app 
store – and launching a tablet.
The company announced plans Wednesday to transform its VieraCast service, which embedded a limited number of apps on select HDTVs, into Viera Connect – a market that will welcome apps from a larger pool of developers.
The 3D holdouts that are using the mandatory ridiculous 
glasses as an excuse might want to start coming up with another reason.
Toshiba has taken the wraps off of a prototype laptop that offers stereoscopic 3D images without the need for any sort of headwear. The machine uses the same technology Toshiba is using to power similar 3D TVs in Japan and lets users play games and watch movies in 3D. There’s one slight difference here: Those TVs are 12 inches. This machine boasts a 15 inch screen.
The marketing relationship 
James Cameron and Panasonic struck in the fall of 2009 continues to bear fruit. Panasonic today announced that the 3D Blu-ray version of “Avatar” would be available exclusively to buyers of its 3D TV sets.
From now through Jan.1, consumers who buy a Vierra 3D TV will receive a copy of the film – which has previously only been available in 2D in homes – as well as two pairs of rechargeable 3D glasses.
Chris Morris: Journalist 