I've vented about this enough on GAF but the New 3DS thing really does bother me. Honestly these days I find myself getting less and less worked up over gaming news, so it seems a little unfair when CJ tries to just dismiss the issue with the standard "gamers backlash about everything" complaint. I mean, it's true, but that doesn't really address whether or not they have a point in any specific situation.
I think it's lame that Nintendo is releasing an iteration of the 3DS with upgraded specs. It's not analogous to Game Boy Color or Apple products. The GBC released a decade after the original GB and was basically a new system, and with Apple there is a precedent and expectation in place that there will be a new version of their products every year (whether you are for or against that is another matter).
I never thought I would run into the issue of purchasing a gaming console or handheld and not being able to play certain big retail games on it because they were made for a different version of the same platform. There is no precedent for that. The closest is DSi but even that isn't comparable, in my opinion.
I'm used to Nintendo iterating on their hardware and I've got no issues with that. I bought a 3DS and a 3DS XL on launch day, for instance. It's really just the spec upgrade with exclusive major retail games issue that is rubbing me the wrong way. It also has nothing to do with Xenoblade, as the 3DS version looks horrible and I've already played the game on Wii. I'm more concerned with the precedent being set with this move.
If this was the real successor to the 3DS I'd be jumping for joy, but instead it's some weird half-step that does nothing more than confuse the market and cause me to think twice about investing in Nintendo hardware at launch. I'm not saying I'm going to boycott Nintendo products or anything that extreme, I just think it's kind of stupid.
