A Look Inside the Nintendo 3DS XL

Nintendo, the Japanese video game company, did very well with its hand-held DS game player, released in 2004. But since then it has had to deal with a new competitor, one that has a lock on millions of pockets: smartphones. To counter the threat from cheap phone-based games, Nintendo came out with the 3DS, with 3-D features that phones can’t match. Initial sales were so weak when the device came out in March 2011 that Nintendo made an unusually swift and steep price cut, dropping it in August 2011 to $170 from $250. Sales have picked up since then, but at the expense of profits. The 3DS XL, shown here, went on sale this summer for about $200; it has larger screens and longer battery life. One innovative feature of these players is the way they allow game characters to appear in real-world settings as seen through the 3-D camera.