Colors! 3D – a big step for Nintendo eShop and its first third party app

Collecting Smiles’ Colors! 3D is headed to the eShop later this year – and there’s reason to be excited about this. Those who enjoyed using DS homebrew will instantly recognise the name of this software – which also made the leap to iOS in late 2008 – as it’s widely recognised as one of DS’s best homebrew programs available for the dual-screened handheld.

While we don’t know too much about Colors! 3D at the moment, previous versions are robust painting/drawing applications, complete with the ability to upload creations to a gallery for all to see – a feature which made its way to DSi’s Flipnote Studio. It made innovative use of DS’s capabilities back then, such as pressure-sensitivity on the touchscreen – something that makes quite a bit of difference when you’re putting a virtual pen to paper, or in this case, stylus to touchscreen – and arguably brought tablet-style drawing methods to a wider audience.

Just one of many creations possible with Colors! This particular one - by cubic loop - was created on the original homebrew DS edition of the app.

Colors! 3D’s obvious new – and exclusive – feature is the ability to paint in 3D whilst retaining the gallery mode that’s proved so popular in past years – of which still sees artwork submitted on a regular basis from older DS handhelds alongside the newer iOS version. We imagine that paintings will probably be submitted to two types of galleries – a 3D one, only viewable on 3DS or 3D devices and a 2D one that can be viewed on everything else. We’ll also be able to collaboratively paint in a 4 player co-op mode.

Why is this so important for eShop? It’s the first third party app on the service, and it’s not a game. While eShop support has remained incredibly thin since launch, it’s not only good to see things picking up on the games front with the announcement of erm, Pyramids 3D, Let’s Golf 3D and Picross E (though it’s worth noting that Japan’s been receiving 3DS-only downloadable gems on an almost weekly basis, such as this one, with VectorRacing due tomorrow), but we can finally breathe a sigh of relief to know that eShop’s finally receiving some worthwhile content here.

It still doesn’t fix a few of the service’s problems however. Let’s ignore the virtual console side of things for today – Colors! 3D is an original 3DS software download. The lack of paid downloads within software will hurt some third parties, for example, though it’s worth noting Nintendo’s swiftly working on a solution. More importantly – why isn’t more 3DS-only eShop software receiving worldwide releases?

Many gamers are now accustomed to receiving the App Store’s biggest games launching worldwide at the same date and time – even Cave’s shmups such as Deathsmiles and Dodonpachi Resurrection received a worldwide launch -  yet some of eShop’s Japan-only best has remained, well, on the Japanese eShop. Check out this page to get what we’re on about. In an ideal world, Nintendo should be pushing for publishers and developers to release their eShop content worldwide – or at the very least helping them to achieve this. We’re iching to play some of Hamster’s Japanese puzzle apps, for example, or Jupiter’s Picross E. Even Gameloft managed to get Let’s Golf 3D on the Japanese eShop swiftly…

So, good news for eShop – and Nintendo’s handheld – then, though eShop’s still got a long way to go until it becomes a download service that complements the 3DS perfectly, despite the unmistakable quality of some of the DSiWare gems which make up a huge proportion of content on Nintendo’s online shop.

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