 Linus Tech Tips coverage of PAX 2013 is brought to you by Western Digital, Intel, and SteelSeries. Hey guys, we're here at Nintendo checking out the Nintendo 2DS. Now the big story around this is no hinges, but you've had some pretty good retorts to that, and what do you have to say about it? So, Nintendo 2DS first off is the newest member of the Nintendo 3DS family, of course. Just announced a few days ago, playable for the first time here at PAX 2013, really excited about that. As the newest member of the Nintendo 3DS family, it plays all 3DS games and Nintendo DS games in 2D, as the name implies. So, we're really targeting that audience of maybe players that want to play games like Animal Crossing New Leaf, Pokemon X, Pokemon Y, but don't have a Nintendo 3DS yet. This is a cheap option, the lowest priced option at $129.99. Also, it's just 2D. Me personally, I will never play a game in 3D because it really, really hurts my eyes. So, I have no real draw for the 3D. So, when I heard there was another one coming out in 2D, that had already intrigued me. So, yeah, that's actually a great point. Some folks, maybe they can't see 3D, or maybe they just don't like using the 3D option. So, from a functional standpoint, this is essentially playing a Nintendo 3DS with the 3D depth slider turned all the way off, right? So, the games still look gorgeous, and you don't need the 3D to actually play the games. You know, certain games do look great. I personally love Legend of Zelda, A Link Between Worlds, upcoming. It's got some great 3D effects, but at the same time, looks great in 2D. So, absolutely. Cool. Now, one thing I heard you say earlier about the no hinges thing, actually, was that you've had a lot of, say, mothers coming up saying that they were very happy that there was no hinges because it felt a lot sturdier. I came in kind of worried because I like the hinges idea, but after feeling it, I still kind of want hinges, but I definitely understand why someone would just want a slate idea with no hinges, because it does feel really solid. Nintendo's known for you being able to drop their device, and it's still working. Not that I recommend it, but a lot of their products are quite sturdy, so I'm not surprised to see that out of this one. And there's a few other form factor changes, like the top buttons. Can you tell me more about those? So, right, as you mentioned, the buttons, you've got everything you have on the Nintendo 3DS, Nintendo 3DS XL, so your plus control pad, circle pad, your face buttons. The top L and R buttons where your left and right index fingers go, they have more of like a curved design now, so you can actually press it from the sides, from the top. It just feels really comfy when you get your hands on there. How did you feel when you kind of went hands on earlier? That was great. I didn't really like the idea of hooking my entire finger on the top. I do have large hands, but I didn't feel the need, and I claw grip mice. I don't know how into a computer game you are, but I claw grip mice, so I'm usually like this anyway. So I was claw gripping the top buttons, which was interesting that I could do that, and it works totally fine because there seems to be actuation points around it, which is interesting. What's your favorite thing about this device? For me, I really like the way it just feels. When you pick it up and you actually get it in your hands, it just feels really natural and comfortable. You know, the buttons actually are located a little bit higher up now near that top screen, but it feels great. I think my favorite feature, though, is still that it has all of the great things that the Nintendo 3DS, the Nintendo 3DS XL does, minus the 3D. So it still comes with a 4GB SD card, still have the wireless, so those great, you know, eShop games you can download like Harmonite, Attack of the Friday Monsters, you've got all that abilities just at a lower price point. And that cost is, I think, probably my favorite feature because come gift season, I know I'm going to be buying some of these. And it hits a price point that is actually pretty good for a lot of people's gift seasons, where a lot of the other ones didn't. Now, release date for this device is actually timed with something else. What is it timed with? So, Nintendo 2DS launches October 12th. It's going to be coming out the same day as Pokemon X, Pokemon Y. So great timing there. If you're in the market, we actually had, you know, a lot of folks yesterday, some college students actually coming in saying, you know what, I have to find a way to play Pokemon X. I'm a college student. I don't have a lot of money. So this is going to be how I'm going to be playing it, was a common theme among some of the college students in here yesterday. Not that it was a good thing, but a bunch of friends of mine in university, we actually rushed out and bought black and white and played it in lectures. So I'm not surprised that the college kids were happy to see Pokemon. Another thing that I want to add that my cameraman, Brandon, noticed when he had hands on with the device is that he liked that the buttons were up by the screen. He found it a lot easier if he got out of orientation to find the buttons again. So it's another little adder for you guys out there. So if you weren't super stoked for the Nintendo 2DS, there are things to look at. It is very solid. The buttons are higher. New shoulder buttons are great. All that kind of stuff. Thank you for watching our Nintendo content. If you want to see all of our PAX content, be sure to subscribe to Linus Tech Tips.