Nintendo woos gamers with classics, 3-D

LOS ANGELES (AP) — You won't need special glasses to play games in 3-D on Nintendo's newest handheld device, but don't expect the technology to hit big-screen TVs anytime soon.

The 3DS, as the Japanese video game maker's upcoming gadget is called, uses a technology that's specially suited to a handheld device. It's a "parallax barrier" LCD screen, whose pixels are aligned so your left and right eyes see different portions of the image.

It's as if two sets of thin blinds were laid over the screen so each eye sees its own version. Combined in the brain, the two versions become a 3-D image, explained Satoru Iwata, president and CEO of Nintendo Co.

Nintendo showed off the 3DS along with a broad swath of upcoming video games Tuesday at the E3 Expo in Los Angeles, an industry conference of 45,000. To please its longtime fans, Nintendo also introduced updates to classic game franchises like "Donkey Kong," "Zelda" and "Kirby."