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Post by Nauren on Oct 2, 2008 10:43:27 GMT -5
New Nintendo DS dubbed the DSi. It has 2 Cameras one VGA quality around 180 dollars -Both Screens are touch screens as well -No Gameboy Cart slot -Now has integrated SD card slot   - Mii on DS in Lifestyle Rhythm Calculator software. - Pedometer shown. - To address the lack of Wii memory, you can now download software directly to the SD memory card. - DS browser will be Opera - Punchout for the Wii announced - Sin and Punishment 2 announced - Pikman re-release on Wii - Endless Ocean 2 Announced - Mario and Luigi 3 ---------------------- Stay tuned through Oct 11th for new TGS information |
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Post by Sosa on Oct 2, 2008 17:21:49 GMT -5
History has shown that only a small handful of games will take advantage of "optional" or modular hardware upgrades, because they don't want to risk alienating the majority of their marketshare - the people who don't have one.
I applaud Nintendo for wanting to make that jump, but it's going to be a tough sell getting people to make games that have full touch support on both screens, and an even tougher sell convincing casual gamers (or hardcore gamers that plunked down money on a DS lite) that already own a system that they need to upgrade when the new technology (while cool) doesn't really warrant it.
For the record, I'm a proud DS owner. It may be a technically inferior system, but I go where the games are. In this case, surveys say the vast majority of games are going to continue to be "single touchscreen only."
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Post by Nauren on Oct 3, 2008 8:33:40 GMT -5
I own 2 DS's. This DS looks sweet...but has a few negatives.
1. Price. Its the same price as a PSP now at $180 in japan.
2. Batter life. Now its down to 2-4 hours..well below the PSP's life
3. No Gameboy cart slot (I still have 2 GBA's myself)
4. No MP3 support...My belief is this is to thwart homebrew and piracy.
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Post by Sosa on Oct 3, 2008 16:49:34 GMT -5
I own an R4 card.
I also believe in supporting companies that make fantastic games, and I'm not oblivious to the fact that piracy hurts their ability to make more great games in the future. As a result, I also own about 20 games from the system.
Why an R4 card?
Media capability.
If people really want to unlock their DS as a portable media device, there's not much stopping them from doing it. I kind of understand not wanting to be held liable from a legal standpoint, but really, every portable device in this day and age has music playback capability. There's pretty much no excuse not to include it, it's the single most popular music format used in digital distribution. Several cell-phone models even use this as their primary selling point.
More to the point though, like I said, I applaud Nintendo for wanting to go back and refresh their hardware every once in awhile. The problem is that adding something like a backlight to the Gameboy Advance SP was a fantastic idea - it was something that any gamer could use that also substantially improved the quality of their gaming. Game producers do not need to "opt-in" to taking advantage of this improvement, because it requires no effort on their part to implement.
Adding touch-screen controls for the top screen, on the other hand, introduces something that poses a development dilemma - do you make a game that uses both and is incompatible with old systems, or do you stick with the old format? Virtually every company in existence is going to opt for the latter, simply due to the fact that the target market base is much, much higher if they target anyone who has a DS, as opposed to the few that will buy this upgrade for the web browser.
It's the same thing that's been happening in the industry since before the addition of the NES floppy drive peripheral. Super Nintendo CD-ROM peripheral. Super Nintendo serial port. Super Nintendo mouse controller. Nintendo 64-DD. Nintendo 64 memory expansion. The list goes on and on. Even Sony was not exempt from it - look at the extreme scarcity of games on the PS2 that made use of the hard drive capability.
Although I'm loathe to admit it, Microsoft was the first company in gaming to really prove that if you sell something as a standard feature - everyone will want to take advantage of it. They made this clear by including a hard drive in all X-box models, and it essentially revolutionized storage for console gaming. Other companies did it first, but Microsoft was the first to force developers into using it.
In the end - the only thing the top screen touch capability is going to be useful for is web browsing... which, admittedly, is probably 90% of the reason anyone would buy the upgrade.
/walloftext
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Post by Nauren on Oct 4, 2008 9:05:17 GMT -5
Only MS didn't follow their own line of reasoning with the 360 by introducing the "Arcade Bundle" that has no HDD.
I too, have an R4 card...I own a few games but not as many as I should.
Another benefit to the DSi is the hinted ability to play VC games from the Wii. N64, Turbographix 16, SNES, etc since this model has an SD slot built in.
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