Nintendo has 3D Demos of Wii Sports and Super Mario Galaxy

Nintendo's experiments with 3D go right back in time: there was 3D Hot Rally on the Famicom Disk System, a 3D GameBoy Advance SP and every GameCube has 3D-capable circuitry inside it. Despite the company's dabbling, not everyone was convinced that the new 3DS would be a success, so Nintendo set about changing their minds.

3DS hardware head Hideki Konno spoke to Kotaku about the experiments the company went through to convince sceptics of how the machine would make games better, starting with a series of 3D games on Nintendo Wii.

We took a special LCD screen and hooked it up to a Wii. We were able to play Mario Kart Wii on a 3D screen and we were also able to do a number of other experiments, again, sort of exploring the potential of how it could affect gameplay. For example we worked with Animal Crossing, Super Mario Galaxy and Wii Sports as well.

Talking more about how the 3D display enhanced gameplay, Konno spoke of the golf mode in Wii Sports, and how putting was much easier:

When you got to the green, you were actually able to see the undulation of the green itself and were able to understand the distance between you and the hole and how the terrain rolled up or down, side-to-side and whatnot. And not just on the greens, but on the fairway. If you were looking at a course that sloped down or had a precipitous upgrade, looking at that in 3D really brought that impact out and made it stronger.