I picked up, purely as an impulse buy, a Nintendo 3DS on launch day (Friday 25th March 2011 in the UK). Since then I've been acting a little differently, for 2 reasons.
1. I've been keeping the 3DS with me in my trouser pocket much of the time, and possibly walking a little more.
Why?
The 3DS has tilt switches and so, in addition to other uses, acts as a pedometer. Now I can compare how much walking I've done each day.
In addition to this, walking will also earn you "coins" which can be used in some games, up to a maximum of 10 coins per day. (Un)fortunately I can walk far enough to earn all my daily coins just by walking to the station first thing in the morning on the way to work. I can't help thinking it's a little too easy to get that booty.
2. I'm walking via different routes.
This is not only to rack up a few more steps, but also to pass as many people as possible. The 3DS has a feature called "Street Pass" which, if the console is sleeping rather than powered off, will exchange data with other 3DS users as you get near them. This data includes game functionality for supported games (for example Lap Times for Ridge Racer, Characters for Street Fighter) and adds their Mii to the Plaza on your console. This Mii can then be used to, for example, help you complete a 3D image, or help rescue your own Mii (which has been captured in one of the games).
All in all, providing these two motivations for keeping the 3DS with me at all times is clever marketing by Nintendo; it keeps the console at hand and makes it more likely to be used, and therefore more likely that I'll buy more games for it.
Until the novelty passes anyway...
Oh, and by the way, the 3D is yet to make me feel dizzy, which is a surprise since I can't play first person shooters without getting motion sickness.
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