By now, most of you have already seen the new 3DS second nub attachment (and if you haven't...look above) and most of you, (judging by the comments) have raged at the thing. Whether it be because of the look, or because of the concept, the darn thing can't catch a break. Yet, I feel that much of this discourse may not be very well founded, and I would like to offer a few rebuttals.
We don't know how it came about. I'm sure there have been fans who have wanted a second nub considering the fact that the Vita will have one. This puts Nintendo in a predicament. What if this attachment wasn't an excuse for Nintendo to decide to make a new 3DS, but a result? If they were to simply announce a new model, the current 3DS owners would feel slighted. Instead, this is a way of Nintendo to allow them to play the games that will be compatible without having to go out and buy that new model, instead paying a much smaller amount on an add-on.
Furthermore, we don't even know if it will be something that becomes standard in future games. It might. Or it might just be something used in a minority. Nintendo hasn't needed that second nub until this point, because they don't offer as many games that make it a necessity. Even if there do end up being games that offer it as an option, it could just be that; an
option. If it makes your experience better, you can go out and get it, or you could ignore it.
Moreso than anything else though, I think we need to look at it and recognize what Nintendo is trying to do:
Improve the handheld. They are not taking anything away, they are not forcing you to buy it (at least not yet). They are trying to make the experience better. The 3DS had a bumbling first several months, but now with Nintendo trying to fix some of the mistakes that the fanbase made incredibly clear, is it worth bemoaning it? The 3DS's problems have happened; they're in the past, no one can change them. Can't we just, for once, appreciate them trying to bring it up to our expectations?
If nothing else, I ask you this: In ten days, Nintendo will have their 3DS press conference before the Tokyo Game Show, where they'll go over this, and their plans for the future. Then we can see where this is going. Can we just keep an open mind until then?
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It's a bit of a you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't. A large section of the 3DS owner population will not have the 2nd stick so developers will have to keep that into consideration when making their games, for instance the touch screen was seen as a way to allievate the use of a 2nd stick, but are developers willing to shrink the games sales market to make a game that requires a 2nd stick while using the touchscreen for something else. WM+ has been bundeld with every Wii for a couple of years now, but there's only 2 WM+ games that people regularly talk about, and the first sold poorly (Red Steel 2), and the 2nd (Zelda) isn't out yet.
This new peripheral could really mean anything. I do think the next hardware revision will have a 2nd stick built in, just like the WM+ is now, but like the WM+ just because it's inexpensive and sold with every new console doesn't mean developers will use this, but then again the WM+ was released years after the Wii was already on the market and this new stick has already been revelaed just a few months after launch. This new stick can really go anywhere.
I really hope Nintendo requires devs to make the games work without the add-on if they're going to make use of it.
Whatever works! You've got to meet your deadlines and you've got to put something out there when you have to, to max those profits. I like the system well enough and the 3D is honestly very magical as a thing. But I'm not ready to buy in, because I wasn't compelled to buy in for Rev 1. If I had, I would've enjoyed it just fine (like the DS Phat I still use).
My role is to buy in and enjoy or not, and let'em know what I think about what they've given me. Pro-consumer or not, getting hot or giving heat over speculation... I dunno. Sometimes its good to just wait for the official story.