The Nintendo 3DS battery details explained and detailed

Nintendo go in depth about how and why the battery life on the 3DS is what it is

The latest instalment of ’Iwata Asks’ is out and it is part two of the look into the Nintendo 3DS. While the talk again is great like all instalments, this one is the first one we’ve seen with something worrying in it.

We all know the Nintendo 3DS battery is not going to be anywhere near the Nintendo DS Lite or DSi’s. The whole thing is very un-"Nintendo"-like and the quoted 3-5 hours has been ambiguous, until now. As suspected, it’s the backlight and the 3D effect which are having the most drain on the console, not so much the actual processor and graphics.

The Charging Dock, not just for decoration.

Speaking to Satoru Iwata, Ryuji Umezu, the man behind the design of the system, explains just how and what draws the most power. "We announced the other day that the battery duration for playing Nintendo 3DS games on it is about three to five hours. When I measured it by playing several Nintendo games, with the backlight set to the brightest level and the power save mode turned off, battery duration was about three hours. But if you use the power save mode under the same conditions, it gets about 10-20% longer. And if you set the backlight to the darkest setting, the battery lasts five hours, but the power save mode makes less of a difference then."

Umezu has also commented on what effect the 3D screen and the wireless has on the battery. Turning on the 3D adds an extra 25% draw on the power. Wireless features too naturally drain the power more, Umezu says about an extra 10% draw will be taken when playing a game. StreetPass uses less than that as it’s more passive. The charging cradle has been included in the system because of this. In other words, Nintendo knows the battery isn’t great – but they’re trying to not make you notice.