Today, providing your 3DS is connected to the internet, you'll receive a message prompting you to update your 3DS system. If, for some reason, you don't get prompted, but want to update it there and then anyway, you can always head over to System Settings on your Home menu (a picture of a spanner), pick Other Settings, scroll to the 4th page on there and select System Update to update your system manually, at which time, it'll connect to the internet, and download the update in a matter of seconds. Bringing with it a whole host of new features, the system update is Nintendo's way of listening to the feedback it's been receiving, and acting upon it, rather than messing around with everything for the sake of it like the most recent Xbox 360 dashboard updates.
So, what'll be waiting for you when you've installed the update? The most important new feature is the ability to create folders on the 3DS's menu. We don't know about you, but with all the eShop games, trailers and Ambassador games we've downloaded over the past year or so, but our home menu page is getting a bit cluttered - we've had to zoom out so far we now have three or four rows of icons on screen at once, just so we don't have to spend a decade scrolling by to get to the game we want to play. Thankfully, Nintendo have realised the sheer amount of downloadable goodness is getting to be a bit of an organisational nightmare, and have remedied it by letting you create and name folders to shove the games into. It's something of a Godsend, even if it hasn't been done quite as well as you'd hope - somewhat illogically, each folder only displays a single letter, meaning you won't be able to name your folders in a logical manner if you want to be able to tell them apart, as DSi Games, Demos and Download Software all begin with the letter D? Oh well - at least it's an improvement, and maybe future updates will let us prettify the existing folders with funky pictures and rainbow colours...
Life's too short for scrolling - folders are what all the cool kids use nowadays.
Next up is the introduction of 'Update Data', often referred to as patches, which will let you update your 3DS game cartridges, eliminating any possible problems that weren't detected before they were released, as well as offering the potential to add new features, free of charge. The first game on the list for such an update is Mario Kart 7, as there's a little trick people have been using, particularly when playing online, that lets them skip out half of both of the Wuhu Loop courses by driving off a cliff at a certain point, which then respawns you quite a way further along the track than where you went off. While it doesn't really matter too much in single player - the old adage you're only cheating yourself springs to mind - it's obviously a pain in the neck in multiplayer, when only the players who weren't aware of the glitches end up miles behind. As you might imagine, the track's become something of a favourite online, as those in the know can glitch it to win. To make sure everyone who regularly plays online completes the update, Nintendo will be preventing systems that haven't headed to the eShop to download the update from taking part in matches online - so there's no need to worry about cheating scumbags any more! Hooray! With just a few more weeks to wait, the patch is due to appear on the eShop in mid May.
Cheaters never prosper...
Rounding off the updates is the new and improved eShop, which has been fiddled around with a bit - nothing very drastic, but the search box has now moved to the top of the screen, and icons for filtering the shop into 3DS Download Software, Demos, Virtual Console and DSiWare are now at the bottom of the screen, where the scrolling ticker-tape thing used to live. That's all we know of the new features so far - if we discover any more stuff that's been added, we'll be sure to let you know - and make sure you check back for information on any future system updates too.
