We’re less than a month away from the October 3rd North American release of the 3DS debut of Super Smash Bros., and it now looks like the title will take advantage of some of the new features exclusive to the recently-announced 3DS models. The game will make use of the additional pair of shoulder buttons and second analog stick, presumably giving players more convenient ways to perform certain in-game actions. There is a catch for players who already own one of the older 3DS models though, and that is the fact that a support page on Nintendo’s Japanese website, which was translated by members of the popular forum NeoGAF, seems to confirm that the Circle Pad Pro peripheral already available will not be supported.
The Circle Pad Pro adds the same inputs as the new 3DS model, namely a second analog stick and additional trigger buttons, so it seems odd that Nintendo would ignore a large portion of their existing customers who already have a 3DS. The most likely possibility is that the company may want to keep similar features exclusive to the new model, especially since their recently-announced port of Xenoblade Chronicles will apparently be exclusive to it, but it still seems like a bit of a missed opportunity.
Still, it doesn’t seem that those already with a 3DS will miss out on anything vital, as the demo we played of the game at E3 seemed perfectly functional.