The Nintendo 3DS has recently seen a hardware revision which has seen the gaming console upgraded in size to the Nintendo 3DS XL. We’ve talked about different types of video games before with regards to the circuits inside so when we stumbled across this image from a recent Nintendo Q&A session on their website, we had to share it.
Nintendo gathered many of the people involved in the development of the Nintendo 3DS to discuss the process and give an insight into the decisions made during its design. Before the casing of the console was even designed, the team simply connected two of the larger LCD screens to the 3DS circuit boards to ensure the screen displayed correctly. The LCD was determined by a number of factors including size, backlight and cost.
The larger screens provided other additional issues such as the size of the framing area of the console around the screen. The size of this area affected the position of the speakers which had to be created to fit the new frame size. With regards to the insides of the console, the developers used every trick they could to reduce the size of components, shaving off 0.1mm wherever possible to fit it everything.
One of the problem solving ideas they incorporated was the use of flexible printed circuits (FPCs) within the hinges to connect the upper and lower screens. There are actually three FPCs in there which connect the various separate electrical circuit boards throughout the two sections of the handheld.
