Okay so I had a chance to try the 3DS XL at a nearby Gamestop that had a promo unit.
I got a good 15 minutes gameplaysession with Resident Evil Revelations, Mario Kart and Snake Eater.
I must say my impressions were mixed.
First of all, the opened system looks gorgeous. It actually feels thinner than it is, and the matte plastic is really great against fingerprints. The outer shell is ok, nothing to write home about. Buttons are great with a much sturdier feeling and better response. A huge improvement over the original 3DS.
The rounded edges make it a lot more comfortable to hold, and the new shoulderbuttons are simply a lot better.
The new look works as long as the handheld is open. Close it and it looks like a cheap chinese knock off. The front in particular looks cheap as hell with the top side not really closing the unit but sitting on the screen protectors at a slight angle.
It looks cheap, and to me at least is a huge blemish on an otherwise nice redesign.
I get that they want to protect the upper screen, but it honestly looks like shit with this solution.
Now the screens:
First the bad: The lower ppi is very very visible. The pixelation is extremely visible and I simply cannot shake the feeling that they should've made the 3DSXL with a higher ppi and buff up the system specs to scale the output to the new size of the screen. In this regard the XL is a huge backstep from the original 3DS. The screen also seemed darker than the original 3DS, but I wasn't able to compare this aspect. The XL is definetly not an option for people who are bothered by low ppi screens.
Now the good: The 3D effect is better. I tried RE:R, Snake Eater and Mario Kart, and the 3D effect was surprisingly more natural. This is probably due to the bigger screen and the fact that the edges of the screen aren't as visible when looking at the center of the image. I even managed to turn up the 3D enhancers in RE:R to max without getting double images or ghosting.
It was also more comfortable to watch the top and bottom screen due to the increased size and it seemed like the screen had actually better contrast ratio.
All in all I'm not sure anymore if I'll buy it on day 1. It's benefits almost equal it's negatives and I don't know if I can justify spending 200 Bucks on what amounts to an upgrade that is modest at best.
One great thing however was that this Gamestop was running a promotion that was giving you 20€ off of the digital version of NSMB2. I hope these retailer digital promotions will happen with more titles in the future.
Are those yellow USK stickers that can be removed or printed on the art?
Printed on the cover. They used to be a lot smaller before laws were enabled to make them bigger.