If you wondered why we had Japanese characters in our article, it’s because with Nintendo everything is released in Japan before it comes to the United States. 発売日 means “release date” in Japanese, and Nintendo has announced that the 3DS release date will be February 26th, 2011 in Japan. There is good news however for those in the United States excited for the first 3D hand held video game system, one which doesn’t even need glasses to work. Nintendo hopes to release the 3DS sometime in March of next year stateside.

The Nintendo 3DS is a revolutionary device. The Lower screen is a normal touch screen, while the upper screen is one which can be switched on to a 3D display. The hand held game will cost approximately $300 in Japan, likely translating to about the same here in the US. Nintendo which surprised the market with the success of the Wii, has recently seen sales decline as gamers turned towards the Playstation 3 and the Xbox 360 recently. Could the Nintendo 3DS be the next great innovation for the Japanese company?