No plans for 3DS Lite

Consumers shouldn’t expect a revised version of the yet-to-be launched 3DS anytime in the near future, according to platform holder Nintendo.

With previous handhelds the company has been quick to roll out revised versions of its portable hardware. The DS Lite, a radically re-engineered version of the twin screened device, was released just 15 months after the debut device in Europe.

With the 3DS, however, things will be different.

"The first thing Nobuo Nagai-san, who’s in charge at the [Kyoto based Nintendo factory] Uji plant, said to me when he looked over the designs for Nintendo 3DS before mass production began was ‘this time it’s fully packed right from the start’," Nintendo president Saturo Iwata stated in the latest Iwata Asks.

"When making Nintendo 3DS, we used all our tricks for Nintendo DS Lite – and more – for cutting down on size right from the start."

Kenichi Sugino of Nintendo’s Research and Engineering Department added: "That’s why we don’t have any short-term plans for creating a more compact version of Nintendo 3DS like we did with Nintendo DS Lite."