Nintendo 3DS gaming handheld won’t be arriving this year

Nintendo‘s 3DS, the hit of the E3 trade show in Los Angeles last week, won’t be arriving in 2010. Tonight, Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime appeared on the Late Night with Jimmy Fallon talk show and said that the 3DS won’t be appearing until next year. Previously, Nintendo had only said that it would ship the portable gaming system before March 31, 2011.

The 3DS can display stereoscopic 3D images on one of its two screens. You can see the 3D imagery even if you aren’t wearing 3D glasses. That made it a big draw at E3. But it looks like anxious gamers are in for a long wait.

It’s not clear if Nintendo is pushing back its launch date. But it’s likely the company didn’t anticipate the 3DS would be as big a hit as it was. It probably has to line up more supply of the device before it can do a launch. Well, Nintendo has been thinking about this one for 15 years — as Satoru Iwata, chief executive of Nintendo (pictured above) told us — so it’s no surprise it isn’t in a rush.

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.