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What is more puzzling is what the existence of two camps creating such huge codebases for a fundamental application type says about the whole state of open source development at this time. It clearly isn't the idealistic world it tries to present itself as."

How exactly is this different from, say, a developer or team of videogame developers, leaving a company they were fed up with, to create their own with new and fresh ideas for innovative and competitive products? Happens all the time.

Ah, yes, almost forgot this tiny difference: with open source software, the LibreOffice guys didn't have to start from scratch...

The problem with TFA's thinking, though, is that Sony is in a completely different position from Microsoft and Nintendo. Nintendo spent relatively little developing the Wii, they will probably sell the console at a small loss if any, and their existing console has almost no momentum at all. From this position, if Nintendo captures 30% of the market they will have achieved a massive success.

According to n-sider,

* Bad for the game: Twilight Princess is a GameCube game, plain and simple. It was developed around a solid traditional foundation, with traditional and cleanly defined control options. The Wii controller is simply unable to completely emulate the functionality that the game was designed around. Even if it could emulate all of the functionality, it's not really adding anything to the game. All it's doing is tacking on more convoluted ways of doing things you could already do with the GameCube controller.

* Bad for the Wii: Again, Twilight Princess is a GameCube game. Gamers might be more forgiving of the fact that the Wii version has GameCube graphics if not for the fact that it has GameCube gameplay as well. The Wii seems to be rife with these kinds of games at the moment -- games that only use the motion-sensing capability of the controller to emulate actions that you could do with a regular controller. When you change the controller without changing the game, you do a piss-poor job of proving the point of your hardware. The Wii is supposed to offer new possibilities, not repackage the past with a shiny new bow.

The same article also says the game plays rather poorly with the wiimote, and that the controls seem to be a bad imitation of fine gamecube controls. The worst part is the lack of camera control on the wii version. Looks like I'll be picking up the GameCube version for sure.

Yes, such wonderful, innovative games as "slightly modified smash bros 3", "now you can jump to planets mario umpteen", and "hey look, the exact same zelda with much, much, worse controls".

a) What to you think "jerky, gimmicky shit" is? Why the fuck would I want to wave my controller or console around.

b) Hardcores care about the games, and Nintendo isn't delivering with the "slightly modified Smash Bros 3", "now you can jump to planets Mario Umpteen", and "Hey look, the same Zelda with much, much worse controls".

c) Graphics don't matter, but physics, AI, and room and ability to make your game without it running at 30FPS if you're lucky (ala Shadow of the Colossus) does.

d) Why do you care that Nintendo makes money? What should matter is that they're trying to make games you/I/true gamers (if indeed, you are one, I have my doubts) like, rather then trying to appeal to a lower common denomiator then even EA? I'm boycotting EA for less then this, and if Nintendo still didn't have good games coming out for GameCube, I'd cut them off my money for good as well. But you? No, you're Nintendo's good little bitch. They say "you don't want this, you don't want this", and you agree no matter how stupid the decision is. Go back to sucking Nintendo's cock and taking it up your ass from them and get the fuck off Slashdot.

Last, but not least, once again fuck Nintendo, and fuck you their corperate shill numero uno.

http://www.n-sider.com/newsview.php?type=story&sto ryid=2042

'nuff said.

"Obviously you have no great love for Nintendo, but c'mon....If you spent all that time working on it, you could at least get the acronym for the Game Boy Advance right."

Do a little Googling. You'll find that AGB was the acronymn for the Game Boy Advance. Clicky.

Well, good news for you then! EA, Capcom, Namco, Activision, Sega, Squenix (Square Enix), Taito, and a bunch of others are all in support of the Revolution. In fact, SEGA is releasing games for the virtual console of the Genesis era. There are a lot of other companies on board as well, for the most comprehensive listing check here: http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=4 97

While it looks somewhat disheartening not to see EVERY developer pledging support most developers don't join in till after they see if it will fly or not, so who is to say that the third party support won't grow. With all the interest in the console I'm sure most companies are on the verge, they just need the financial inscentive.

Nope, besides being lighter and better-engineered (the lid closes shut firmly rather than smacking up against the main unit like the classic DS), the screen also has four levels of brightness and has, as far as hands-on reports are saying, much better color. Try here for the brightness and here for the color.. And here for a hands-on in-store. Battery life is also rumored to be better.

I like my classic DS, but there's no denying it was a bit of a rush job from the development model seen at E3 2004 to what hit the shelves that November.

Nope, besides being lighter and better-engineered (the lid closes shut firmly rather than smacking up against the main unit like the classic DS), the screen also has four levels of brightness and has, as far as hands-on reports are saying, much better color. Try here for the brightness and here for the color.. And here for a hands-on in-store. Battery life is also rumored to be better.

I like my classic DS, but there's no denying it was a bit of a rush job from the development model seen at E3 2004 to what hit the shelves that November.

Ok, I overlooked Madden. Madden is neck-and-neck with The Sims, with about 45 million sales as of last August.
For reference, The Sims franchise had sold 41 million copies as of Sept. 2004. Since that statistic was reported before the release of The Sims 2, it's entirely likely that the franchise has surpassed Madden in sales.

And you're kidding yourself if you think either of those franchises have come anywhere close to touching Mario in total franchise sales. Mario games make up four of the top five best-selling games of all time. The original Super Mario Bros. alone has sold nearly as many copies as the entire Madden franchise. As of December, the Mario franchise has totaled 184 million sales, with Pokemon following at 143 million sales. The Sims and Madden, while both very successful, have sold an order of magnitude fewer copies than Nintendo's leading franchises.

As for Madden being the top-selling game each year... it's generally not. Madden 2005 was drastically outsold by both GTA and Halo 2, and other games tend to beat it every year. The problem it has is that while each copy may sell well at its launch, each version dramatically drops in sales after the new one is released. Contrast this with Halo, which sold well in 2001, but continued to top Xbox sales charts until the release of Halo 2 in 2004.

In an attempt to stay on topic: The Sims is one of the top five most successful franchises in history, which is quite impressive considering that it's a relatively new game. As a game that's targeted toward women (or "non-gamers"), that's even more impressive. Pursuing this market could be Nintendo's best business decision yet. Not only can they open themselves to a large, mostly untapped market, but they may help defeat some of the negative stigma attached to video games by appealing to some of the industry's critics.

If anyone still believes graphics are what make a game, read this http://www.n-sider.com/newsview.php?type=story&sto ryid=1577

The link in question refers to a hoax, but piracy IS possible on the GC...

http://www.n-sider.com/articleview.php?articleid=2 75>As this article indicates...

So, before you go on, I am right about the, "it did nothing to help" comment about the discs- and they did themselves out of a market segment right out of the gate by doing it.

N-Sider is reporting that 1.89 million DSes have been sold in the US (and 6.65 worldwide), according to Nintendo. Sony hasn't released any numbers since the launch, where they sold 500,000 units. Since then, it sounds like the PSP is usually leading weekly sales by a slight margin, but that may not have been enough to put it past the DS's million-unit lead from 2004. For all intents and purposes, they're basically tied in the US. The difference is almost certainly less than half a million units.

As for the other markets, the DS has sold over a million in Europe (where the PSP hasn't launched yet). In Japan, the DS is leading by a little over a million units.

This might be the article in question, it's a rather long and very in-depth look at the history of Retro.

To expand on your first comment, N-Sider has a very informative article detailing the history of Nintendo's online endeavors. It's a must-read for anyone who's still convinced that Nintendo is staunchly opposed to online gaming.

"New wireless support will not help the company for as long as the same people who came up with Mini-DVD disks and whoever is in charge of their game licensing division are still in power."

He's not. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president since the late 40's, retired in 2002, nearly a year after the GameCube went to market. His successor, Satoru Iwata, is taking the company in a new, distinct direction as evidenced by the Nintendo DS, among other things. Under his lead, Nintendo has become more accepting of current technology standards. The DS has adopted 802.11 WiFi technology and will use SD memory cards in its media expansion. The Revolution will also use typical WiFi standards, as well as supporting DVDs, SD flash memory, and USB. As a longtime video game fan, Iwata seems to be much more in touch with what gamers want, and he has claimed to be committed to pleasing hardcore as well as new gamers.

Most journalists have been fairly impressed with the way Iwata has handled the company. He's already beginning to take steps that Yamauchi would never have taken, like the Revolution's backward compatibility, which is clearly designed for fan service rather than profit. Iwata has also been working with many third parties in order to win back the support that Nintendo lost in the N64 generation. We'll see how things go, but under his leadership, the Revolution could be the most exciting Nintendo console since the NES.

"New wireless support will not help the company for as long as the same people who came up with Mini-DVD disks and whoever is in charge of their game licensing division are still in power."

He's not. Hiroshi Yamauchi, Nintendo's president since the late 40's, retired in 2002, nearly a year after the GameCube went to market. His successor, Satoru Iwata, is taking the company in a new, distinct direction as evidenced by the Nintendo DS, among other things. Under his lead, Nintendo has become more accepting of current technology standards. The DS has adopted 802.11 WiFi technology and will use SD memory cards in its media expansion. The Revolution will also use typical WiFi standards, as well as supporting DVDs, SD flash memory, and USB. As a longtime video game fan, Iwata seems to be much more in touch with what gamers want, and he has claimed to be committed to pleasing hardcore as well as new gamers.

Most journalists have been fairly impressed with the way Iwata has handled the company. He's already beginning to take steps that Yamauchi would never have taken, like the Revolution's backward compatibility, which is clearly designed for fan service rather than profit. Iwata has also been working with many third parties in order to win back the support that Nintendo lost in the N64 generation. We'll see how things go, but under his leadership, the Revolution could be the most exciting Nintendo console since the NES.

From N-Sider:

Q: Will Revolution hook up to a television?

Fact: Yes, according to Nintendo Senior Managing Director Genyo Takeda, the Revolution will be able to interface with both a television and a computer monitor. In June 2004 Takeda said, "You'll be able to play [Revolution] not just by linking up to a television but to a computer monitor as well."

From N-Sider:

Q: Will Revolution hook up to a television?

Fact: Yes, according to Nintendo Senior Managing Director Genyo Takeda, the Revolution will be able to interface with both a television and a computer monitor. In June 2004 Takeda said, "You'll be able to play [Revolution] not just by linking up to a television but to a computer monitor as well."

Once upon a time Howard Phillips ("President of the Nintendo Fun Club" and the real-life inspiration for one half of the Howard and Nester comic) was the public face of Nintendo to its primary customers. He was a bow-tie-wearing emblem of an era when Nintendo gave away free newsletters (Fun Club Times, the free predecessor to Nintendo Power), when Nintendo Power itself didn't suck (their articles were sometimes as complete as a full player's guide these days - NP published full maps for Metroid and the original Zelda) and ran a fully-staffed "game councilor" hotline that was an ordinary toll call instead of one of those 1-900 things.

After he quit, sometimes Nintendo Power would publish a blurb whenever he changed jobs. I got the sense that there was some real fondness for him behind the scenes at Nintendo. What he's doing now, however, I have no idea.

As for Nester... when Phillips left Nintendo, the strip was retitled Nester's Adventures and continued, but it didn't last long. (Thankfully... the H&N comics, while not awful, weren't actually what I'd call good, either, and they didn't improve after Phillips left.)

There were actually a grand total, to my knowledge, of two video game references to the strip:
1. When Nintendo published Dragon Warrior in this country, they also handled the translation job from the original Dragon Quest. They actually rewrote some of the dialogue, including renaming two slightly-hard-to-find characters "Howard" and "Nester," each looking for the other on the outermost, opposite corners of one of the towns. (Don't try looking for them in the GBA release of
the game, as it was completely retranslated.)
2. One of the few titles released for the ill-fated Virtual Boy system was a Nester-starring game, Nester's Funky Bowling. I've never played it, but even if it was pure gaming gold, it still spiraled on down the commode when the Virtual Boy tanked.

A quick google yielded this bio.

I personally like the idea of gyro-enabled motion sensing controllers. Lots of possibilities there for increased gameplay if they do it right.

Honestly, I would expect this. I don't think Nintendo is really out to piss off their consumers. I think what they're after is quality. Think about it - Nintendo is frequently the last console company to implement something, but it's almost always a high-quality implementation. Remember the SNES' dying days where it was fighting off both SEGA's and Sony's CD-based 32-bit consoles? I remember frustration as my friends played games like Tomb Raider and Virtua Fighter in full 3D while I was left with Donkey Kong Country and its 2D, side-scrolling action. But then came the N64, and while it didn't even scratch the surface of the PSone's success, it definitely blew it away in quality. Games like Super Mario 64 and Legend of Zelda : OoT were rendered in full 3D without load times and pixelated graphics and still maintained the Nintendo quality of gameplay from the 16-bit days. It set a new standard for console 3D games and gameplay.

When Nintendo finally moved to disc-based media with the GCN, they moved because load-times were far less of an issue with the current technology. They waited for it so they wouldn't rub their consumers the wrong way. While I loved the PSone, looking back, the load times were atrocious. Piracy of GCN games is near impossible and they're still able to keep up with the pack in most areas (with only the biggest games suffering from the proprietary media size limit).

The DS is another fine example waiting to unfold. Nintendo is just now doing 3D pocket gaming. There have been plenty of technologically superior portable game consoles capable of 3D, yet Nintendo's gameboy series has always done better in the market. There's no question that the DS is less powerful than the PSP, but I think Nintendo is more concerned with the quality of the game rather than the graphical superiority.

This is not to say that Nintendo made the right choice in waiting to advance their technologies, but I am saying that when Nintendo does enter the online arena, it will be a high-quality entrance, as history has proved. They might lose some sales because online console capabilities is a selling point for some people, but I think Nintendo has sent the message time and time again that they're not after the gamers who want bleeding edge technology; they're after the gamers who want high-quality, rich gaming experiences.

(and yes, I'm aware of Nintendo's forays into the online and CD-based markets)

Hi, how is Bizarro-World these days?

I think you'll find that the Gameboy IS Nintendo's bread and butter these days. Please see this article for a review of the numbers. Please note that these numbers are 6 months old. You'll clearly see that the Gameboy outsells the Cube 3 to 1.

Just because you don't see people roaming the streets playing the GBA frantically doesn't mean they're not out there. Most people play them at home for convenience.

Close, but you wanted this page. The page you linked is about the Super Famicom.

And there was also this, which might also be what he was referring to.

The title "Marionette" has been sitting in Nintendo's cache since rumors began in 2000, though they were in a very different vein at the time.

But, yes, Nintendo has been toying with online content for a long time in Japan. They've known better than to try online with add-on products in the states, though, so any online strategy with the DS will have to be integrated in the launch hardware.

Furthermore, Nintendo knows that this is their last shot at getting the older gaming population to buy into portable gaming. They don't want to get beat by Sony a second time to the older-gaming spenders, and the remarkably early launch of the DS before PSP, along with this rumored adult-ish marketing campaign, makes total sense. Kudos to NOA for getting their heads out of Japan's ass and getting aggressive.

From what I gather, talking to people who were actually at E3, the DS's screen is a type of touchscreen noone has seen before... its like noone knows how it works, but it's really durable. Check out the forums at http://www.n-sider.com/ for stories of people really trying to damage them and coming up unsuccessful. I don't belive Nintendo has anything to worry about in terms of durability of the system. They've never released anything that was prone to break down, whereas Sony is on what? It's 3rd or 4th version of the PS2? They couldn't make a durable product even AFTER going through a whole previous generation of console manufacturing? I really hope the PSP does come with some kind of protective case. And I don't doubt the DS will survive something closer to a nuclear blast.

Online Gaming The FIRST console to have online gaming. It came with a 56k modem for those horrid dial-up speeds and eventually had the ability to be expanded to broadband with an adapter. Phantasy Star was one of the first (if not the first) game to be online for a console and many games for the Dreamcast joined it. Including sports games and shooters.

Now if it plays HD-DVDs (or whatever comes after the DVD), that would be a different story. Sony might do this by using Blue-Ray (their DVD replacement) in the PS3 (my speculation).

N-Sider's potential next-gen specs lists the GameCube successor as having "Blue-laser disk technology". Since Nintendo works with Matsushita, they may go with the (also Sony supported) Blu-ray standard. If both Sony and Nintendo's console play Blu-ray DVDs that would give it a big edge over the competing HD DVD standard.

And N-Sider has some screenshots from GameCube/GBA/DS games, including all the DS first party titles. Looks like MKDS will have some courses from MKDD? And the new SMB game looks... well, a bit out of place, but cool nonetheless. Doesn't look like it's using the second screen that much, though.

I'm still stumpted as to why DS would be able to play GBA games if it's an entirely different system, but whatever. IGN seems pleased.

Does everyone forget that of the current console companies out there, the one with the most experience in networking game consoles is Nintendo?

They've been doing online services for their consoles since the Famicom (NES) system.

He has never dismissed internet gaming as a fad. If you're interested, Here is an excellently researched article into Nintendo's history with internet gaming.

Among other things, it documents Yamauchi's two-decade support for online gaming.

Elaborating on this:

There's an interesting article posted today over on N-Sider called "Nintendo's Missing Mojo" that discusses Nintendo's relationship with 3rd Party developers, including Acclaim. The article basically says that in order to capture a larger market share, the big N needs to stop viewing 3rd party developers as competitors and needs to view them as partners.

Nintendo announces an upgraded GBA, and all you slashbots do is complain about the old ones (some of the most successful game appliances developed). Some people have 20/20 hindsight. Oh well, here are some more links:

N-Sider Forums Some more pics.

IGN Pocket

Check out Game Rankings for some overviews of scores only. This can help weed out the trash on each system, and highlight some great buys.

I'm a Nintendo fan myself so here are some resoucres I have found helpful:

Planet Gamecube - Great news, reviews, and info
IGN Cube - lots of Insider-only material, but decent reviews.
N-Sider - They update very infrequently, but their reviews and editorials are insightful and some of the best I have seen.

My own GC picks (in no order):

Metroid Prime
Timesplitters 2
Super Mario Sunshine (you should have this already!)
Super Smash Brothers: Melee (same here)
Super Monkey Ball 2
Eternal Darkness (although it was released a while ago)
Pikmin (this one as well)
Animal Crossing
Sonic Mega Collection

But if you don't have one yet, buy a Gamboy Advance! It has many, many excellent titles, and is portable!

• First, this is a well-informed perspective on why Yamauchi would say this, and it's most likely dead on.
• Second, the Gamecube is going to be impressive, big time, so it's not evan an issue. For those of you who think that Nintendo is for kids and that the games aren't going to be there, wait until E3 before you pass that judgement. Nintendo is not where they are now because they are stupid, expect them to learn from their mistakes. Yeah, Pokemon and Mario will be there, but so will Metroid, Perfect Dark, Too Human, Biohazard 0, Eternal Darkness, and a number of other games that will impress even us "old people" in our twenties.