Sources are telling us that the new Nintendo 3DS will include what might be best described as some very non-Nintendo-like features when it arrives to market. In the past, Nintendo has been slow to embrace some industry trends leading many to claim that the company has fallen behind its competitors.

This time around, however, it would appear that Nintendo is getting far more aggressive with the release of the 3DS by embracing some features that will be totally new to Nintendo. According to our sources, the biggest feature will be the new ability for players to install games from cartridges directly to memory.

It isn’t exactly clear yet on how this installation process will work, but our sources tell us that they suspect that the 3DS will include a large flash memory area that can be used for storage. Owners would likely find this feature very attractive. We suspect that games could be installed to a large flash memory area on the actual 3DS unit since software developers might not like the idea of owners being able to copy games to removable SD cards (even if they are keyed to one 3DS unit using DRM). Still, strategy would allow rental games, for example, to be installed onto the flash memory inside the device, but since it is limited that might be enough to handle the cries from publishers.

Sources also are telling us of a new social networking support that will be coming to the 3DS; reportedly it will allow the Internet-connected 3DS to interact with friends through a new Nintendo network revamped for the 3DS. Whispers also talk about a reward-type achievement system for played games that will be similar to what we see today on the Xbox 360. Apparently, Nintendo has been experimenting with this for some time and is looking to roll this out at some point.

Claims from our sources that the 3DS will be the most progressive Nintendo product yet do seem to be increasing with the buzz of the upcoming release of the unit. The 3DS does seem to have some new things that will catch the device up with typical home Internet connected console units; and, of course, that could see Nintendo making a large splash when the 3DS is finally released.