Porting Classic Nintendo Games to the 3DS Is Difficult, Company Says

The Nintendo 3DS console was released at the beginning of the year but, since then, only a few 3DS Classics titles have appeared, as Nintendo has apparently run into quite a few problems when converting games from its 8-bit or 16-bit eras into stereoscopic 3D for the new handheld device.

Nintendo released its new portable console earlier this year, and promised that it will release lots of classic games from its portfolio, remastered to take advantage of the 3DS' autostereoscopic screen which can display 3D images without the need for special glasses to be worn by players.

Since then, however, only a few titles were released, with Excitebike or Kirby's Dream Land appearing for the 3DS.

Nintendo motivates this rather poor showing on unpredicted difficulties that appeared during the porting process on quite a few titles.

More specifically, during a recent session of Iwata Asks, where Nintendo President Satoru Iwata talks with developers from internal studios, Takao Nakano, the director who oversaw the 3D conversion of classic NES shooter Xevious for the 3DS shared details about the problematic development process.

"With a 2D screen, players had to use their imagination for Solvalou flying above the ground, but on the Nintendo 3DS system, we thought we might be able to recreate it using stereoscopic graphics so it looked like it was really floating," he said. "In the original version, the game unfolds on a flat surface. The moment we made Solvalou float in midair, all sorts of discrepancies arose."

"For example, when an enemy on the ground fired at Solvalou in the original, everything was on the same plane, so it didn't seem unusual if the bomb appeared at the same altitude as Solvalou the moment it was fired and then hit Solvalou right away. But with the Nintendo 3DS system, Solvalou is floating in midair. If the bomb suddenly appears - zhing! - at the same altitude as Solvalou. "

Challenges like the ones mentioned above have put many 3D remastering processes on standby as Nintendo needs to put extra developers on them in order to ensure that they'll retain their classic feel but also work properly on the 3DS.

As such, fans shouldn't think that Nintendo is just wasting time instead of releasing more 3DS Classics for the device.