I posted that somewhere a while back, but it's very isn't it?

I am thinking that iPhone apps could well follow suit.

My money's on the use of ridged plastic, like the 'flicker' badges and rulers of old. As you tilt the device, a simple animation is played.

Nintendo is to announce a new 3D-capable handheld gaming console called the Nintendo 3DS at E3 this coming June.

The Nintendo 3DS will allow you to play games "enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses," according to Nintendo.

Out soon

The company will release the new 3D handheld console at some point within the next financial year, between April 2010 and March 2011.

Kotaku notes that Nintendo president Satoru Iwata previously stated Nintendo was considering the "possible health effects" of playing video games in 3D for long periods of time.

The Nintendo 3DS will be fully backwards compatible with Nintendo DS and DSi games.

Nintendo recently released a DSi game in Japan that used the devices' camera to track your head movements in order to deliver a glasses-free 3D illusion to the gamer. It's not clear if this is the type of 3D tech that Nintendo plans to make use of in the Nintendo 3DS.

TechRadar has spoken with a Nintendo UK rep this morning who could not tell us anything more about the technology being used in the new Nintendo 3DS. "We will not release any further information until E3 in June," the rep informed us.

Stay tuned for updates as they come in. in the meantime, you can read the Google translation of Nintendo's 3DS press release online here.

Here's the full announcement in English:

Nintendo Co., Ltd.(Minami-ward of Kyoto-city, President Satoru Iwata) will launch "Nintendo 3DS"(temp) during the fiscal year ending March 2011, on which games can be enjoyed with 3D effects without the need for any special glasses.

"Nintendo 3DS"(temp) is going to be the new portable game machine to succeed "Nintendo DS series", whose cumulative consolidated sales from Nintendo amounted to 125million units as of the end of December 2009, and will include backward compatibility so that the software for Nintendo DS series, including the ones for Nintendo DSi, can also be enjoyed. We are planning to announce additional details at E3 show, which is scheduled to be held from June 15, 2010 at Los Angeles in the U.S

You may laugh but they're getting very good at the ridged plastic thing.

I saw a PC game in Game the other day and it uses the ridged plastic thingy.

The cover looked VERY 3D! There was a guy stood in the middle and the background looked like it was a good 2 to 3 inches behind him. Even the guy's arms and body looked 3D.

A single screen, with a camera tracking a face would be a far simpler and more effective solution to the problem in the context of handheld 3D gaming.

You don't actually need the camera if you can get the user to 'calibrate' it for you before playing.

You have a calibration 'game' that looks like a pair of spirit level bubbles that cross over each other but are offset in the 'virtual' z axis. You get the user to hold & tilt the device until the bubbles cross in the centre. Once they've done that, you know they are 'vision centered' and that the device is flat level. From then you can then use accelerometers to track variation from that zero point and therefore calculate the new different eye position in 3D space.

You'd have to play the 'calibration game' each time you picked the console up but that's relatively easy to do and once users became used to it they could probably do it almost immediately i.e. they'd instinctually pick up the device in the 'correct' way.

Nintendo 3DS - if you haven't heard about the announcement today you should return to your dark cave. If you have though, it seems more specifics have trickled out.

Nikkei, whose reports seemed fairly spot-on before DSi and DSi XL were made official, has reported that the new DS will feature a 3D analogue stick, a vibration pack and that the screens will measure smaller than four inches - DSi XL's are 4.2 inches.

Tilt function claims sit in line with CVG's report back in February when a source told us dev kits for the new console were already in the hands of developers.

Nikkei (via NeoGAF) also reports that the wireless connection will be faster than the current DS and battery life will be improved.

James Mielke, a producer at Q Entertainment, the developer behind Lumines, has complained that the 3DS will only benefit Nintendo - with outside developers unable to make any money off the new device.

Mielke, a former Editor-In-Chief of US gaming publication EGM, wrote on his twitter account: "Breaking news: Yet another Nintendo console that's impossible for anyone other than Nintendo to make money on."

In the past Nintendo platforms have drawn harsh criticism as difficult consoles for third-party developers and publishers see significant sales on.

As reported earlier today, Nintendo has announced it intends to release a new iteration on the DS, with glasses-free 3D gaming.