Nintendo 3DS eShop to launch with Game Boy classics, Pokemon Rolodex

By Adam Rosenberg June 2, 2011

We were all disappointed to hear last month that Nintendo would be pushing back the launch of the 3DS eShop from late-May to June 6. Fortunately, June is officially here and and the eShop is literally days away from becoming a reality. A large portion of the games reporting world will probably be too busy with E3… unless of course they’re in attendance at Nintendo’s press conference on opening day, the morning of June 6. The eShop will probably be a hot topic of conversation there, right?

Then again, maybe not, since a freshly e-mailed press release from Nintendo gives the scoop on what’s coming. We already knew that the 3DS eShop would launch with a 3D-remastered version of the NES classic Excitebike as a free download. It’s a limited time offering (July 7 cutoff), likely to knock fence-sitters off of the perches, but it’s a sweet freebie all the same. More newsworthy is the revelation that the 3DS Virtual Console will launch with Game Boy Advance classics Super Mario Land, Radar Mission and Alleyway. Okay, only the first two are classics, but Alleyway is kinda like Arkanoid, which is great. New content updates will follow every Thursday.

Also coming is PokeDex 3D, which is essentially an interactive Rolodex of Pokemon characters. Your level of excitement about this one is of course directly proportional to the amount of love you have for the magical animals fighting series, but the franchise has always been very popular with Nintendo fans and this Pokedex sounds like a cool nod to that contingent. It sounds like it integrates with the most recent Nintendo DS releases in the series Pokemon Black and Pokemon White. The app (it’s an app, right?) will also feature SpotPass integration for sharing data with friends and an AR Viewer, which uses the device’s built-in camera to render a Pokemon beastie in the real world.

The eShop update will also bring a few other tweaks to the 3DS, including the promised web browser with built-in 3D support for site’s containing that kind of content. Also, for DSi and DSi XL owners, the update will bring a method for transferring DSiWare games to the 3DS.

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Former Digital Trends Contributor

Previously, Adam worked in the games press as a freelance writer and critic for a range of outlets, including Digital Trends…

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