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Nintendo 2DS Tear Down Reveals Giant Touchscreen

The modding community sets its sights on Nintendo’s latest handheld, the Nintendo 2DS, and finds out what lies beneath its plastic surface.

Did you know that the Nintendo 2DS came out last Friday, October 12? I wouldn’t be surprised if many of you didn’t, considering that it came out on the same day as Pokémon X & Y. Nothing really stands much of a chance against the attention-sucking black hole that is the release of a spanking new Pokémon game, but lucky a few shoppers managed to get a hold of the 2DS on its launch day, and have been submitting grade-A reviews of it online.

This of course means the usual round-up of tear downs, and from Rose Colored Gaming comes their first crack at the Nintendo 2DS. What has the RCG gang learned from their reckless regard of Nintendo’s hardware warranty? Mainly, something that was reported around the handheld’s reveal, but couldn’t be fully confirmed without first-hand evidence: underneath its front shell, the 2DS has only one large screen.

Nope, not two screens, just one. Quite the divergent set-up contrasted to that of the Nintendo 3DS and 3DSXL, which both use two separate LCD display panels in their hardware – the above screen having the stereoscopic 3D tech, while the below one being a resistive touchscreen. With the 2DS though, Nintendo just masks this difference with plastic that divides and frames the grand, 3D-exempt touchscreen into two differently-sized quadrants.

It’s… an interesting design choice. I mean, I had a good double-take when I first laid eyes on it. Although, its odd inclusion does make sense when you remember the 2DS’s $129.99(USD) price: having two displays costs more, and when you’re creating a budget-friendly handheld, you’ve got to take shortcuts somewhere. Sort of a smart design you’d certainly find from the playbook of the great Gunpei Yokoi, the creator of the Nintendo Game Boy.

That’s not to say that I feel like it’s a great misuse of real estate. The 2DS is shaped much like a tablet already, so why not just go down the natural road and keep it unrestricted? Plastic-free, and all that. That would be so much, I dunno, common-sense. I guess that would ruin what Nintendo is simply going for this new product – it’s not a reinvention of the wheel – but just a cheap Pokémon player – oh, and hey, a new one of those just came out on the same day! What great timing that is!

Maybe the modding community will pull through and find interesting uses with that large screen. That’s certainly my hope, and judging from Red Colored Gaming’s Facebook intentions, that appears to be the direction they’ll be taking with their recently acquired – and now torn apart – Nintendo 2DS. We here on WiiNoob will be sure to bring you that news in the future, along with Pokémon X & Y selling over 4 million units (what a surprise), and musical life-sized treasure chest from The Legend of Zelda.