After Nintendo dropped the price of the 3DS by over 30% earlier this week, the company announced a program to reward consumers that purchase the 3D device before the price drop on August 12. If a consumer connects to the Nintendo eShop before 11:59pm Eastern time on August 11, they will automatically be qualified for the Ambassador program. This initiative rewards Nintendo 3DS owners with ten free NES Virtual Console games as well as ten GameBoy Advance titles that Nintendo isn’t planned to release to the public. Five of the NES games include The Legend of Zelda, Balloon Fight, Donkey Kong Jr., Ice Climber and Super Mario Bros. The GBA games include Mario vs. Donkey Kong, Metroid Fusion, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Yoshi’s Island: Super Mario Advance 3 and WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame.
Other games will be announced later in the year. Further details indicate that these games will be in 2D, however upgrades will be made to the titles when they become available to the public. New features may include multiplayer modes and 3D visuals. 3DS Ambassadors can download the updates to the titles at no extra cost. It’s unclear if Nintendo plans to schedule weekly releases on the 3DS eShop of its extensive library of classic titles. Nintendo has been releasing titles weekly on the Nintendo Wii.
The price of the Nintendo 3DS is also dropping in Europe and Japan this year, however the main reason for the drop was poor North American sales due to a lackluster lineup of titles. Nintendo has made strides with the 3DS as of late with the release of Nintendo Video, a video delivery system to provide 3D video downloads, and Netflix support. However, the lackluster lineup of titles is often the main complaint from consumers. Nintendo is hoping to impress consumers with the release of several high profile titles this year including Mario Kart 7, Super Mario 3D Land, Kid Icarus: Uprising and Star Fox 64 3D.
The Galaxy Tab 10.1 is about as effectively close to an iPad 2 as you can get right now without purchasing anything from Apple. The tablet is comparable to the iPad 2 in just about every way – in fact 
The HTC Flyer ($499.99 for 16GB model) is smaller than the other tablet offerings on this list, at 7 inches, and it has a slightly better processor than most with the 1.5GHz Snapdragon. However, it runs on Android’s Gingerbread software with a stylus rather than Honeycomb, like most contenders. But while the Flyer is a strong alternative in its own right because of its hardware and battery life, it has one thing going for it above all the other tablets (right now): OnLive support. The streaming PC gaming service will support the Flyer when it releases its Android mobile app later this year, which will allow users to actually play full PC games on their Flyers using a universal gamepad. So far, the list of compatible tablets is pretty short, and any tablet that’s capable of playing full-release PC games using only an Internet connection is head and shoulders above its competition.
A solid choice in Android tablets, the Xoom (Wi-Fi only version priced at $499) is pretty similar to most offerings on the market and has the hardware to be a solid gaming choice. It sports a 1GHz NVIDIA Tegra-2 processor, which means it’s in good shape to handle games, and the tab features microSD card and micro-USB slots to allow users to expand memory and use peripheral devices. That means it can be easily loaded up with Android apps and other gaming-oriented media. Although the Xoom is slightly heavier than the iPad 2, it is also a touch smaller. Most notably, the Xoom has great battery life so it’ll keep you entertained between charges.
This slick tab has a lot of features you would expect from an Android device, like its Tegra-2 processor and high battery life. But the T-Mobile G Slate ($399 with a two year contract) stands out from the crowd for two reasons. First, it’s a 4G device, so if you’re the kind of person who likes online gaming wherever you are, you’ll have blistering speeds to help you win matches. The G Slate also has a 3-D camera on board and is capable of 3-D viewing and playback. It is an underdeveloped feature right now, but there’s potential in the fact that developers could run with 3-D technology and expand the tablet’s capabilities to the gaming sphere. That’s something of a big “if,” but 4G connection speed is probably more than enough to cover for 3-D for players serious about being the best gunslinger on the Internet.
PC gamers will find something to love about the Asus Eee Pad Transformer ($399 FOR 16 GB, $499 for 32 GB), because the “Transformer” part of the title refers to the tablet’s ability to switch freely between tab and laptop. A snap-on keyboard dock allows the Transformer to become more akin to a laptop, and that makes the keyboard available for use to control some games instead of using the touch screen, gestures or virtual controls. Keyboard control isn’t ideal for everybody, but avid PC gamers will feel right at home with this brand of control and it gives the Eee pad somewhere to rest as well as additional battery life. The Transformer also has USB and SD slots to expand memory and allow the use of peripheral devices. It is a lot more like a netbook than a simple tablet, which is a good thing.
