Now that the 3DS is in the hands of customers across the Western world, people are finally playing the thing in large numbers. Large enough, it seems, to have found a "black screen of death" error affecting the handheld.
It doesn't seem terribly widespread, so don't panic. But those who have encountered the error have stated it has appeared playing a multitude of titles (including Ghost Recon, Street Fighter, Monkey Ball and Lego Star Wars) and at various times; sometimes while engaged in online play, other times using the menu system, and other times simple...playing.
While in some cases the suggested reboot has worked for some, others have reportedly had to return their consoles to Nintendo after repeated error messages.
Whether this is affecting 2% or 0.0002% of users, we don't know. All I know is, trust a Nintendo console to get a failure state that has such a cheeky, charming name.
We've contacted Nintendo for information on the matter, and will update if we hear back.
[NeoGAF][Digital Spy][AVForums, via VG247][pic: taku @ NeoGAF]