First, the 3DS will indeed be region locked, just like the DSi -- US, Japan, Europe/Australia, and Korea are the known regions.
Second, currently there are "no plans" to release The Last Story in the West, just like how Nintendo apparently plans to sit on Xenoblade forever. Whatever those idiots that thing Westerners don't want RPGs are thinking I don't know, but it's stupid. I know it's not the best selling genre here, but there's certainly enough of a market to sell good games like those.
Per-game friend codes look like they have a solid chance of coming back (in the 3DS), too.
Nintendo Japan's 3DS data site says that the system will get 3-5 hours of battery life in 3DS games, 5-8 hours in DS games. That's the worst battery life ever for a Nintendo portable system...
The numbers obviously aren't 100% confirmed -- they will have to vary based on brightness level -- but it looks like they might be accurate.
(Also, nobody here cares about these things? Um, why not?)
iunno, I haven't owned a portable system since my now lost GBA: SP. Haven't had much desire to get any newer iterations. The idea of a 3D portable system sounds interesting, but I'm reserving judgment until trying it myself... which would probably only happen if a friend got it, or I should happen to walk by a kiosk. Even then, the interest in purchasing one just wouldn't be there.
What's the rest of y'alls excuse? :colbert:
The DS is one of the best videogame systems ever, incredible library... it is true that I've also played a lot of GBA games on mine, but that's just because the GBA's library is also outstanding. The DS though has great games, lots of them, in just about every category. The only thing it can't do is good looking 3d graphics, the lack of aliasing makes it look worse than N64 graphics even if otherwise they are at least on par, but other than that (and the lack of an analog stick, but the 3DS fixes that issue) it's such an amazing system...
The 3DS will be expensive, though. I think it'll do very well anyway, but it is true it won't be cheap.