Those who relished a long battery life for the original Nintendo DS may have some woes coming up; The 3DS will have a shorter battery life than what you're already used to. The reason? Bigger and better hardware, obviously.

It does seem however, like the 3DS will contain the same battery as its non-3D predecessor. Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata has made so much clear with this comment:

"As for the battery, it is inevitable that Nintendo 3DS will be a device which requires more frequent recharging than Nintendo DS. This is why we are going to include the cradle, which is a dedicated battery charger. Perhaps we may need to dispatch to our consumers a message, something like, 'Please place your Nintendo 3DS on the cradle as soon as you return home with it.'"

Not exactly surprising information. I would like to think that aftermarket batteries would be made available to provide a longer life, but given the 3DS hefty price tag of $300, I'm not sure I would want to invest that much into it. Hopefully with the delay on release, Nintendo will be weighing the cost of a better battery to the huge numbers they will expect to be selling. With Nintendo also fighting piracy on the platform, I think it will be pretty cost-effective to include a better battery in order to please gamers who don't want to charge their 3DS every couple of hours.

I would really to see some advocacy for this within Nintendo's ranks. They don't have a problem making money, so by including a better battery pack, they will do a better job of pleasing fans. And as we all know, happy fans mean better sales. Just a thought.

The Nintendo 3DS will be coming to retail in the North Americas in early 2011 for about $300. Check out our 5 most anticipated Nintendo 3DS games!

Source: CVG