With the 3DS and Wii both being majorly 3D platforms room for 2D games is dwindiling. On the GBA and DS 2D games florished. 2D games came out the ying yang and even with DS's 3D capabilities people still bought 2D games in droves infact many of DS's games are infact 2D.

Sakamoto recenlty talked about Metroid : Other M in which he said his whole development team was a 2D game development team unable to create a 3D product on their own. This got me thinking of studios like BrownieBrown and yes even GameFreak who has been taking baby steps towards 3D.

With the 3DS the main feature is seeing things in 3D, how can you make a 2D game in 3D? I don't even know if that would look good.

So the question has to be, with no more 2D console. Both Wii and 3DS are mainly 3D platforms. What will Nintendo do with all of their 2D staff? What should Nintendo do with my estimated 100+ 2D only staff?

2D/3D games?

Either that or they will starve.

Depends on the game I'd guess. Something like a platformer could still be in 3D, with the depth effect simply being that there is a distinction between the background and foregroud.

I don't know what's gonna happen to them though, but I doubt it's gonna be the end for them.

Are you kidding? A game like super paper mario, or even Little Big Planet would be incredible on the 3DS.

Imagine the turning of the world into the other direction actually looking cool in SPM

Imagine if the 3 parallel 2d planes system in LBP could actually be used to enchance gameplay, as opposed to killing you horribly.

That could be done, but on the 3DS it wouldn't look that great. Also think RPG's how would they work in 2D/3D? Pokemon for example wouldn't be that great looking in 3D as it stands today, though GameFreak is working hard to learn some 3D skills.

I think Nintendo will take the bulk of its 2D developers and pair them up with 3D teams as designers rather then programmers and artists etc...etc... Like Nintendo did with Sakamoto's team and Team Ninja. This way Nintendo can use the 2D teams to the best potential.

Just because the 3DS can display games in 3D doesn't mean every game will utilise that technology. I'm sure there will be plenty of regular games on the 3DS which are plain old 2D and plenty of people will still buy them!

Game with 3D graphics on a 2D plane will be fine on the 3DS and look awesome and will surely flourish on there.

Games using 2d sprites however, I'm not so sure.  I don't know whether depth can be added to a 2d image.  It it can, they are fine.  If not, the likes of sprites and pre-rendering will be used much less on the 3DS

It can. That's what Magic Eye books are.

2-D isn't going anywhere. We're in the middle of a revival.

Thanks, I can now sleep easier at night knowing that my beloved 2d game's future is secure!

Considering we've gotten four 2D platformers on Wii so far from Nintendo (one of which was purely sprite based), I'm pretty sure there'll always be a place for 2D on their systems.

I could also see more 2D oriented teams (like SPD1, Brownie Brown, etc) focusing on DD games, and collaborating for their bigger 3D stuff (like SPD1 did with Team Ninja).