You weren't banking on getting your hands on a new Nintendo 3DS this Christmas, were you? The chances that the gaming giant will deliver the hotly anticipated portable by the end of the year seem slim indeed. While the company hasn't ruled it out entirely, Nintendo president Reggie Fils-Aime announced late last week that the handheld will ship by the end of March 2011.

Granted, there's a pretty big window between now and then, but given the announced time frame, I would be surprised to see the new system launching before the holidays this year.

PC World speculates that Nintendo is planning a holiday launch in Japan, with the rest of us getting access to the device early next year. It's not an entirely unrealistic prediction. Nintendo does, after all, tend to release hardware in its native country first. Of course, it would be unfortunate for the company to just miss the holidays in the rest of the world with its biggest E3 announcement.

You can check out my brief hands-on write up with the device over at PCMag.com.

Originally posted to Gearlog.