Nintendo 3DS Loading Times Significantly Slower Than DS

Usually, you would expect the latest and greatest version of a device to deliver faster loading times, but in the case of Nintendo's 3DS, loading times are actually slower than the regular DS. The 3DS does offer glasses-free 3D video, but loading times for old DS games are not so great. GameSpot was able to get a 3DS when it was released in Japan on February 26th, and compared loading times on several different games with the DS Lite.

According to GameSpot: "On average, the Nintendo 3DS took 35 percent longer than the Nintendo DS Lite to get to the in-game menu. Performance didn't seem to suffer once we started to play the games, though. Frame rates seemed normal across all the games we played."

The Nintendo 3DS has significantly better internals than the original handheld, including a 200MHz PICA200 GPU, but it may need more processing power due to the higher resolution. GameSpot concludes, "We're guessing that the software emulation hoops the Nintendo 3DS needs to jump through to run DS games bog it down a bit." Is the longer loading time worth it, in order to have the 3DS be backward compatible?

[via Red Ferret]