Were you hoping to find a shiny Tegra SoC under the hood of your brand new Nintendo 3DS? Well, we’re sorry to disappoint, but it seems as if the 3D handheld console will feature a design “totally” divorced from Nvidia’s mobile processor.
Indeed, according to DigitalFoundry, Nintendo has instead chosen an unknown Japanese partner to power the 3D acceleration hardware within the device.
“Sources also confirmed that the 3DS’ development codename is ‘Nintendo CTR,’ meaning that this motherboard picture we ran a couple of weeks back, sourced from the FCC website, is indeed something akin to a development or test station for the new handheld,” explained Richard Leadbetter of DigitalFoundry.
“This strongly suggests that 3DS does feature a widescreen “glasses free” stereoscopic 3D display, along with a more conventional 4:3 2D display beneath it.”
In addition, Leadbetter noted that Nintendo boasted a “strong track record” in “excellent” battery life with every one of its previous handheld devices.
“Even the four-core PowerVP chip said to be at the heart of the PSP2 offers a performance level some way between the original Xbox and the 360.
“[So], a more modest GPU is therefore a much more realistic proposition, especially bearing in mind that even the iPhone 3GS with its PowerVR SGX535 architecture doesn’t exactly command outstanding battery life in 3D gaming,” he added.
