First Adult Images Available for Just-Released Nintendo 3DS

NEW YORK—With sales projected to be 4 million in just its first month following Sunday’s release, the Nintendo 3DS hand-held game device with the no-glasses-required 3D screen is a platform made for mischief. Though ostensibly targeting youngsters, the versatile play station could easily find its way into the hands of eager adults interested in more age-appropriate content, and one producer has already steeped up to meet that as-yet unproven need. Just three days after its limited European and U.S. launch, and a month after its Japan launch, Japanese bikini and cosplay model Julie Watai, aka Ai Amano, has made a series of 3D photos available for free in .mpo format for the Nintendo 3DS that are not sexually explicit, but point the way to a world of far more overtly sexual content. According to pocket-lint.com, Watai “has always had a deep love for gadgetry and technology, most notably displayed in her recent photography book Hardware Girls, which features pictures of 25 different Japanese models adorned in game and tech trappings, and her gift to 3DS owners is to celebrate the launch of the console in the west (including UK).”   Another site, t3.com, reports that the images have been downloaded more than 53,000 times in just the first two days, an indication of the interest in content that one might not usually associate with Nintendo. But this is 2011 and it is safe to say that no digital platform can seriously be considered For Kids Only.  "I'm a photographer and I've long been interested in 3D pictures," Watai told Kotaku. "I wanted to see what it was like to use the game machine I'm most into, the 3DS, to display my photos!" Still, the ultimate success of the Nintendo 3DS is far from assured. The company has a long a troubled history with 3D, but still believes that the technology has a bright future, especially if no-glasses screens continue to improve and producers continue to produce 3D content. “Fortunately for Nintendo,” reported CNN, “the technology has a number of high-profile backers, including Hollywood. Users will be able to purchase 3-D movies to watch on the device's 3.5-inch screen—larger than most previous DS systems and about the size of the iPhone's—or stream video from Netflix.”   3D content is still expensive to produce, but rest assured that if the eyeballs and dollars are there, Watai will not be the last producer to provide adult-oriented content for the Nintendo and other hand-held 3D devices.