Nintendo held their Japanese games conference today and the company has announced the Nintendo 3DS's release date across all regions, along with a launch line-up of some fantastic games.
The news comes after months of rumors regarding Nintendo's new handheld, the date was finally revealed at Nintendo's press conference in Tokyo today.
Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was on stage to reveal the news, he confirmed that the 3DS will be available on February 26 2011 in Japan for ¥25,000/$299. The following month, March, will see the release across the US and European markets with a yet-to-be confirmed price, further announcements will be made regarding these regions at a later date we're told.
Upon launch it will be available in Aqua Blue and Cosmos Black, it will also be bundled with a 2GB SD card for storing download data on.
New features were also shown, including a Tag Mode which looked to be similar to the Nintendo Wii's Mii creator, NAMCO BANDAI's Yozo Sakagami explained the new functionality, saying it could be used for online rankings and sharing ghost data in Ridge Racer 3D. Capcom's Yoshinori Ono also talked about the new feature, detailing some specifics and announcing that Street Fighter IV 3D will support Wi-Fi multiplayer and Tag Mode.
Other features showed the ability to pause mid-game and browse the internet, share data and interact with other nearby 3DS users. Much like the Wii, the console can also download data while in sleep mode, such as new software, games, rankings and updates.
The conference was wrapped up with various developers and publishers speaking about the 3DS and what's in store. Capcom also used the time to announce two new titles for the handheld, a new Resident Evil title and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D.
More details on the newly announced games shortly, in the meantime check out the video of upcoming software on Nintendo's official site.
