So the Sony folks don’t feel like I’m kicking them while their sales are down, I should note that I don’t have a 3DS either. I recently purchased a DSi XL, and am very happy with it so far. So why didn’t I just spend the extra cash and get a 3DS?

Look at the size of that thing! The DSi XL is a big handheld, and – frankly – that’s a good thing. Since the dual-screen nature of the DS and 3DS mean that there’s going to be no way to play games on a larger screen, the size of the screens becomes very important. While the resolution of both screens on the 3DS is much higher than the resolution of the screens on the various incarnations of the DS, the screens themselves – particularly the touchscreen – are small. The touchscreen on the 3DS, in fact, smaller than all the DS models except for the very first. I can’t help but feeling like I’m trying to game on a postage stamp when I’m playing a 3DS. I’d love an XL release of the 3DS, but until that happens, the screens are just too tiny for my eyes.

Where’s the charger? When I play an RPG on my DS XL, I don’t really worry about the battery life. Heck, I can leave the thing on most of the day day and still have plenty of battery left. The 3DS, on the other hand, boasts a battery life comparable to the PSP Go’s – and the Go gets slammed a lot for its poor battery life of between 3 and 6 hours.

what about the games? I will admit to never having been that much of a Nintendo fanboy. I was gaming on computers during much of the NES era (though I did own an NES). I owned the SNES, but much preferred the game library of the Genesis. I never owned an N64, because the N64 was pointless. I owned a Gamecube, but didn’t find all that much worth playing on it compared to the PS2. I never bothered with the Wii, because I already had a PS2 and a 360. (I may yet get a Wii or its successor, but that will probably be for the rest of the family…)  I’m just not that into Nintendo’s first party games. In other words, I don’t get wowed by Pokemon and Mario. Aside from that, in my preferred genre (RPG), the 3DS has a rather Vita-like lineup of … SMT: Devil Survivor Overclocked and Tales of the Abyss. Both of these are ports of games I already own on other platforms. Sure, I could play DS RPGs on a 3DS, but then we’re back to the teeny tiny touchscreen on the 3DS compared with the much larger DSi XL. Just like the Vita, though, with time the lineup of must-have games for the 3DS will hopefully improve.