Nintendo president Satoru Iwata reveals the company made a 3D capable Game Boy Advance prototype, and talks 3DS pricing.

While Nintendo announced their new portable this week at E3, the company is well known to have been dabbling in three-dimensional tech for many years. Indeed, the Virtual Boy was released in Japan and North America in 1995 to financial failure, and Iwata spoke this week of running 3D tests on GameCube launch title Luigi's Mansion.

Speaking to Venture Beat, Iwata revealed that the company were also trying 3D with the GBA:

"The prototype is still inside my chest drawer. When we saw 3D images on the GBA SP, we saw the high resolution wasn't good and the parallax barrier display available was not functioning well. The graphical processing power of the GBA wasn't good enough. So we had to give up on that idea because it wasn't appealing enough to consumers."

Finally, when pressed on the mysterious price-point for the 3DS, Iwata refrained from specifics, stating that "in terms of the production costs, it will cost more than the costs for the Nintendo DS today. Having said that, we believe we will produce enough value worthy of the production cost. We do not think we have to sell the products below cost." What that will mean for consumers remains a mystery.

What do you think would be a logical price point for the 3DS? Stick with N-Europe for more 3DS news as it breaks.