The FCC is like the ESRB of hardware. Whenever a company tries to get their products certified without the whole world knowing, leave it to them to make a leak. Case in point, the FCC has leaked the above image of a DS motherboard from a test kit. It’s a filing by Nintendo and manufacturer Mitsumi, and it’s simply designed for approval of the US DS Wi-Fi card. It was leaked last month by WirelessGoodness.
However, the attached image initially did not attract too much attention. It’s just a motherboard for the current DS, nothing to pay attention to. Not so, says Digital Foundry, via Eurogamer. According to them, there are some strong indicators that this motherboard is not for the DS, but rather the 3DS. If this proves, true, there could be some interesting implications.
Most noticeable are those big black blocks. Obviously screens, the bottom conforms to the 4:3 ratio currently seen on the DS series. However, the top on is clearly of a different type, larger and closer to a 16:9 screen ratio. Some speculation is that the top one is the 3D-enabled screen, while the bottom is more traditional DS touchscreeny goodness.
Finally, what is even more important is the code name applied to this motherboard. This one is “CTR”, which is surprising in that no other DS has been codenamed with this moniker. The DSi, for example, was the “TWL” and the DSi XL went by “UTL”. Ultimately, this is all speculation, and could very well be some obscure DS motherboard. Or, it could be a sign of what’s to come from Nintendo. We’ll find out next month at E3.
