I'm not done yet.

Some friendly PR types brought a dozen or so 3DS demo units to the office today, and after the GamePro folks had their fill we wrangled an hour of hands-on time for ourselves. I wish I could say we brought all the class and atmosphere of a shady backroom deal, two teams of four questionable characters facing each other across a Lucite no man's land as a dozen prototype units change hands.

Hardly. After an hour goofing around with the hardware, I can tell you it works, and it works well; if the case is durable and the battery can hold strong through sustained use it's going to be a very successful product. Quixotically, the 3D effect is the least interesting aspect of the 3DS; it works and it's entrancing for about half an hour, but it's quite limited in the illusion of depth generated; most of the games and movies we saw topped out at what appeared to be an inch or so of simulated depth. Presumably this is due in part to the need for all games to be enjoyable in 2D as well as 3D, but the small screen also trivializes the experience.

Playing with these devices, I came to understand that part of the appeal of 3D movies like Avatar or Tron: Legacy is the feeling of existing partially within the story and being able to peer past the first "layer" of 3D to explore the scenery at my own discretion. Since different levels of the background now have different priority depth-wise, I perceive a clear hierarchy without a clear ranking system of importance (excluding the action of the film.) The screen is so large it takes me up to a full second or two to swing my eyes around and refocus on different layers of the scenery, and thus I feel more active and engaged in the fiction of the film.

That feeling of exploring a world was not present when I played a few minutes of a few 3DS launch titles like Pilotwings and Steel Diver, and I think it may well be because the screen is just physically smaller and more limited when simulating depth.

To be clear, the games were still quite enjoyable; I just feel that the hype surrounding the first portable 3D gaming system may leave a few folks underwhelmed, especially when you consider that the 3DS games available when the system launches are pretty unimpressive. The AR stuff that comes packed in with the system is arguably more exciting, though the AR game we saw today was just a simple snipe hunt designed to show off the tech.