3DS charge cradle motivated by StreetPass

Those of you who have spent a day out in the world looking for Dragon Quest IX tags know how taxing the DS's Tag Mode can be on its battery life. It appears that's still going to be the case with the 3DS and its expanded "StreetPass" passive communication mode. And that's one reason the 3DS comes with that fancy charge cradle.

"As for the battery," Nintendo president Satoru Iwata said during an investor Q&A, "it is inevitable that Nintendo 3DS will be a device which requires more frequent recharging than Nintendo DS. This is why we are going to include the cradle, which is a dedicated battery charger. Perhaps we may need to dispatch to our consumers a message, something like, 'Please place your Nintendo 3DS on the cradle as soon as you return home with it.'"

Though we like how Nintendo thought about the consequences of increased battery use on the daily DS routine -- and we happen to think the cradle is a really attractive accessory -- we must admit that we wonder how much that cradle adds to the cost of the 3DS package.