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Though it's not quite as "nationwide" as the Pokemon Black and White mall tour, Nintendo is giving residents of some US cities the opportunity to sample the 3DS and some of its games before release, through a four-city demo tour.

From March 11 through April 3, interested gamers in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco, and LA will have the opportunity to enter the scary-sounding "Nintendo 3DS Demo Pod," seen above in a picture shared on Twitter, and try Face Raiders, the Mii Maker (with the option to upload the created Mii to Facebook), and other built-in features, and play launch games including Pilotwings Resort, Steel Diver, Nintendogs + Cats, Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, and more.

Find the full schedule after the break -- and sorry, most of the country!

#blips The 3DS uses small credit-card sized augmented reality (AR) cards for the title AR Games, but Nintendo is currently developing AR cards that are able to reproduce life-sized characters. Here Nintendo president Satoru Iwata poses with his jumbo Mii. Japan's Club Nintendo members will get the chance to snag special "big" AR cards. Details will be revealed at a later date. [via Nintendo.co.jp] More »

The Nintendo 3DS has a lot of cool features, one of which is backward compatibility with DS games. But while convenient, this backward compatibility is far from perfect. Because the screens on the 3DS have a higher resolution (400 x 240 on top, 320 x 240 on bottom, versus the DS's 256 x 192 screens) DS games are either upscaled to fit the bottom screen, or shown in tiny windows on both screens if you hold Start and Select while loading the game. In either case, it's not great.

I recorded a quick video to demonstrate a DS game running on a 3DS, which you can find after the break. As a bonus, I'm pretty sure you can hear my cat toward the end of the video.

One of the biggest shortfalls of the Nintendo 3DS's feature set is its brief battery life, which Nintendo estimates to be as short as three hours. Where we see a disappointing feature, accessory manufacturer Nyko sees an opportunity.

The company has revealed the $20 Power Pak +, a battery pack that clips to the back of the 3DS and "doubles" the battery life of the unit. It'll be out on launch day. One week later, Nyko will ship the $30 Charge Base, a charging dock for the Power Pak + (one of which is included with the package), that replaces the existing 3DS charging cradle.

As a bonus, the Power Pak + subtly enhances the 3D-ness of the 3DS -- not by doing anything to the screens, but by making the unit take up more 3D space.

It was inevitable: faced with the desire to farm 3DS Play Coins without all that bothersome movement, a Japanese 3DS user rigged up an electrical 3DS jostling device to simulate walking. It's elegant in its simplicity, unless you compare it to just walking.

#piracy The 3DS was apparently already cracked within 24 hours of release, and it's now supposedly running piracy devices. Isn't Nintendo going to do anything? You betcha. More »

#accessories Disappointed with the three to eight hour battery life of the Nintendo 3DS? Accessory manufacturer Nyko will be ready at launch with the Power Pak+, an add-on device that promises to double the interval between 3DS battery chargings. More »

#video The 3DS is able to render 3D without the need of 3D glasses. Neat trick, but the 3DS has another ace up its sleep. More »

#3ds You can play DS games on the Nintendo 3DS. No problem there. But did you know they take a lot longer to load on Nintendo's new handheld than they did on the old one? More »

In what we're guessing is a clumsy, hamfisted attempt to demonstrate the game's universal appeal, AQ Interactive posted a clip of women playing the depth-free 3DS title Cubic Ninja. We suppose the video is pretty depth-free too.

In addition to footage of the ladies being delighted by the tilt-controlled action game, and, uh, some guys looming over them, you can see a few seconds of gameplay from the stylish, geometric game, during which the ninja is guided through flame traps and bumpers.

Cubic Ninja showed up as an upcoming North American release in the software lineup video released at Nintendo's New York event in January, though listed publisher Ubisoft hasn't made any announcements itself. However, we have no reason to believe Ubisoft would hesitate to release another 3DS game after the eight it has planned for the launch window.

A beautiful aqua blue Nintendo 3DS arrived from Japan while we were away GDC-ing the sights. For those of you who haven't obsessively inspected every angle of the upcoming device yet, we set to work taking Glamour Shots of the handheld and its included accessories.

We'll be bringing you additional coverage of the Japanese 3DS as we stop taking pictures of it and actually turn the thing on. The European and North American 3DS systems will be out on March 25 and 27, respectively (and will look identical to this one).

#oddities The Nintendo 3DS went on sale in Japan in late February. There is already another 3DS on the horizon, and kids under six can use it without any Nintendo warnings for as long as they like. But they probably won't want to. More »

#video What you trade for beauty, you lose in size. The Nintendo 3DS is able to play Nintendo DS games, but some gamers are complaining that the games are not as sharp as they can be. No worries, there's a fix. More »

#3ds Tomorrow will mark my one week anniversary of owning a Nintendo 3DS. I'm happy with the handheld — it's a peach. However, six days in, and I've already ditched the 3D. I loathe it, and it's a feature I can do without. More »