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I've always loved handhelds. Due to the whole idea that a handheld system is designed both for quick sessions (on a bus, for instance) and long playing periods (such as on a plane or in a hotel room), I think handhelds force developers to adhere to what I consider the ideals of video gaming: both instant playability and depth that inspires replay.

Obviously, puzzle games are the perfect match for this. I don't quite agree with some of 1up's puzzle game highlights. Tetris and Klax are true classics, but I'm not convinced that Meteos and Lumines are of the same calibre. Meteos times every game mode except for one, tilting it far in favour of quick sessions. It just isn't that enjoyable for a long period. Lumines falls victim to the exact opposite - the time attack modes aren't much fun but the normal mode is very addictive. The only problem with normal mode is that a typical single session often lasts more than half an hour!

Puzzle games aside, some of their choices and omissions are quite odd.

Donkey Kong on Game Boy is an expanded version of the arcade original, with 100 puzzle-heavy levels. It turns a classic arcade game into an even better home game. I think it's one of the finest games ever made. Mario vs Donkey Kong is a pseudo-sequel to the Game Boy one, but it doesn't quite live up to its predecessor. It's decent but far from being a true classic.

Final Fantasy Adventure, also on Game Boy, is Seiken Densetsu 1 renamed to cash in on the Final Fantasy name. Seiken Densetsu was also renamed for the western market, to Secret of Mana. Yes, Secret of Mana is a sequel to this Game Boy game. And this Game Boy game is the best action/rpg the system has to offer - edging out even The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (which is also a fantastic game and a must-own). Too bad the GBA remake, Sword of Mana, was awful.

Besides Klax, the Atari Lynx had quite a few other arcade ports. Roadblasters is a lot of fun. Robotron 2084 isn't perfect (due to the Lynx lacking a way to duplicate the original dual-joystick control system) but is still decent. S.T.U.N. Runner looks fantastic on the handheld and is the best home port of the game we ever received, even if it does use sprite scaling instead of polygons. Speaking of sprite scaling, Blue Lightning is an Afterburner clone with better graphics than any of the pre-32X home ports of Afterburner. The gameplay measures up, too. Chip's Challenge, another original design for the system (though it was ported to plenty of other systems eventually) is a very fun action/puzzle game like The Adventures of Lolo. It also has a geeky love story plot that I'm sure most Slashdotters will appreciate :)

The Game Gear was perhaps the most lacking of all mainstream handhelds (ignoring utter shit like the Gamate and Watara Supervision), but even it had some very good games. Crystal Warriors and Shining Force II: The Sword of Hajya are an excellent pair of strategy-RPGs with amazing depth for 8-bit handheld games. Bubble Bobble had a great port on GG (not

A funny (or horrifying, depending on whom you ask) thing happened at CES. Coleco was showing off its new (and ill-fated) ADAM computer system, and had decided to use Donkey Kong as the demo game. While Coleco did own the home console rights to Donkey Kong, it was Atari that had earlier secured the computer rights. Once Atari's Ray Kassar caught wind of what was at the Coleco booth, he accused Nintendo of cheating and double-dealing behind Atari's back. Utterly furious, he threatened to cancel the Famicom deal and sue Nintendo out of existence.

Nintendo did its best to rectify the situation, and was aghast when Kassar was ousted from Atari a month later. The contracts were still unsigned, and with Kassar seemed to go all hope of getting the Famicom marketed in the US.

Too much running, not enough jumping. That and magic mushrooms.

If I wanted speed, there was always Unirally.

Nowadays I got F-Zero GX. If only Sega and Nintendo got together for the new Smash Bros game...

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons: Eye of the Beholder, Civilization, Fun and Games, Lamborghini American Challenge, Lemmings 2: The Tribes, Mario Paint, Jurassic Park, Might and Magic III, Nobunaga's Ambition, Shien's Revenge, King Arthur's World, Sim Ant, Super GameBoy, Super Noah's Ark 3D, Super Solitaire, Terminator 2: The Arcade Game, Troddlers, Utopia, Vegas Stakes.

anyway maybe they need to make more games that are mostly "macho type shoot em ups" where your mission was to kill, shot and destroy everything and everybody. - under 1980 http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?history/hist 2.htm

anyway maybe they need to make more games that are mostly "macho type shoot em ups" where your mission was to kill, shot and destroy everything and everybody. - under 1980 http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?history/hist 2.htm

Just caught that , i was trying to do them a favour using the coral cach , apears as if the page wasn't freindly towards caching.
this is the origional link
http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?history/hist 1.htm

Note: None of the original chipset or technology from the Nintendo/Sony SNES add-on was used in the Playstation that we know today. The new 32-bit console was re-designed from scratch.

Remember Little Nemo?

Thank God somebody associates "Nemo" with the character from Winsor McCay's comic strip (and Capcom's mediocre NES game based thereon) rather than with that idiotic clownfish owned by Disney.

On top of that, Mario was originally (circa Donkey Kong) concepted as a carpenter.

The Donkey Kong character was originally called Jumpman until his "jump," if you'll pardon the pun, to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Mario character had no conscious design until the arcade game Mario Bros. where he was given the job of plumber. Jumpman was an early predecessor of today's Mario, so, technically, Mario has only been a construction worker in Wrecking Crew for the NES and Wrecking Crew '98 (also known as BS Wrecking Crew 98) for the Super Famicom.

On top of that, Mario was originally (circa Donkey Kong) concepted as a carpenter.

The Donkey Kong character was originally called Jumpman until his "jump," if you'll pardon the pun, to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Mario character had no conscious design until the arcade game Mario Bros. where he was given the job of plumber. Jumpman was an early predecessor of today's Mario, so, technically, Mario has only been a construction worker in Wrecking Crew for the NES and Wrecking Crew '98 (also known as BS Wrecking Crew 98) for the Super Famicom.

On top of that, Mario was originally (circa Donkey Kong) concepted as a carpenter.

The Donkey Kong character was originally called Jumpman until his "jump," if you'll pardon the pun, to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The Mario character had no conscious design until the arcade game Mario Bros. where he was given the job of plumber. Jumpman was an early predecessor of today's Mario, so, technically, Mario has only been a construction worker in Wrecking Crew for the NES and Wrecking Crew '98 (also known as BS Wrecking Crew 98) for the Super Famicom.

They aren't even "vague rumors", it's true. The premise, the visuals, and the characters are all more-than-loosely based on Ridley Scott's Legend, with inspiration from the Chronicals of Narnia

Actually, from what data I've collected, Nintendo has consistently sold less and less units with each hardware revision.

NES = 62 million units
http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/nes.htm

SNES = 46 million units
http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?history/hist 3.htm

N64 = 30 million units
http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/n64.htm

I didn't see any up to date info on the sales of GameCube, but I guesstimate somewhere between 12-18 million units.

Now supposedly, the game market is increasing, with more and more gamers everyday... why are people abandoning Nintendo?

Basically, Nintendo got nervous about what Sony was doing (The SNES CD-Rom extension). It seemed like Sony intended to use their deal with Nintendo to take over the video game industry and make Nintendo dependant on them. Of course, Sony did end up taking control of the video game industry, but Nintendo remained an independant company.

At first the NES was sold for 249 dollars in a package (Original Set) consisting of: the control deck, 2 controllers, the Zapper lightgun and the strange toy ROB (Robotic Operation Buddy), which came with the games Duck Hunt and Gyromite. Soon, Nintendo decided to change this set and simply release the Action Set (sold for $199 ), which did away with ROB and Gyromite, instead throwing in the best "platformer" the World has ever seen - Super Mario Bros. This must have been the most successful of the many different sets! The Power Set was like the Action Set but with a new improved controller called the Power Pad and a new NES game called World Class Track Meet.

Looks like the original NES was released with all kinds of accessories at first, and they were slowly scaled back to offer less expensive sets. I am almost certain that the SNES launch came with 2 controllers and Super Mario World as well.

I was thinking 'Little Nemo'. In which case, the game was released before the movie. My bad. =)

Of course, this was all based on a much older comic, if I'm not completely mistaken.


--LordPixie

The Play Station was a failed colaboration between Sony and Nintendo to produce a SNES with a CD-ROM. I remember when working for a PS1 developer in the '90s that sony used to get very upset with people who used the phrase "Play Station" instead of "PlayStation", there's the reason why.

Edge magazine here in the UK had a picture of a Play Station a while back so pictures do exist but I cant find one on the web. The best I can find are these two links which mention the project in passing.

http://www.nintendoland.com/home2.htm?snes/snescdr .htm
http://hankfiles.pcvsconsole.com/answer.php?file=2 08

I didn't know Sony Playstation had these problems, considering they released Xenogears, which depicted the crucifixion of furry critters.

Q: What can the XGameStation hardware do? How powerful is it?
A: The processing power of the XGameStation is approximately 10x that of the Super Nintendo (SNES), and it's graphical capabilities are approximately 50-200% more advanced than the SNES. Moreover, the graphics subsystem was specifically designed to draw upon the best parts of the Atari 800, Apple II, Super Nintendo, and Commodore 64, the systems that drove the computer and video game revolutions. Check out the full specs here.

I also really, really liked the Ninja Gaiden series on the original Nintendo. However, if someone took Ninja Gaiden, replaced all the references to Ryo Hayabusa with Joe Musashi and pasted a sticker saying Shinobi on the box to cover over the words Ninja Gaiden, it would still be a Ninja Gaiden game.

I can't comment on the post Genesis/Megadrive Shinobi incarnations. (My history has been to have consoles that never got Shinobi games... even the Dreamcast never got one, #$%&.) I'm just saying that Shinobi III: Return of the Ninja Master is a direct sequel to Revenge of Shinobi in that it has the same gameplay style and the characters look the same.

I mean, Shadow Dancer is completely different, it doesn't even have a life gauge. One hit and you are killed... However, and I can't stress this enough, that is not intended to be a knock at Shadow Dancer.

Now, on one level you are right and I am wrong, because if SEGA says it is a Shinobi game, then it is a Shinobi games. Just like the western Super Mario Brothers II is a Mario Brothers game, even if the original Japanese game it was based on is not.

On another level, any ninja game can be called Shinobi since it means stealth (I believe) in Japanese (well, except possibly for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).

Besides, in this accurs-ed modern age, which I like to think of as the Age of Eternal Darkness in a nod to Ninja Gaiden II, they can take a perfectly good side scrolling platformer, change it into a third person perspective polygon game, call it MegaMan Legends and everyone (including me) accepts it as a MegaMan game. That's a much more radical difference than between Shadow Dancer:The Secret of Shinobi and the other Shinobi games...

I love Shadow Dancer, everyone should go out and buy it.

However, I still think it could've easily been the basis for a seperate franchise. (Oh, and I admit that I am pendantic.)

If you ever get the chance, try the Turbographix-16/PC Engine game Ninja Spirit. It's a lot of fun, but a little too short. I wish they would bring it out on Gameboy advance...

SoftwareToGo reminds me of the Nintendo Disk Writer systems or the "Game Kiosk" idea for the SNES and GameBoy. (If only in terms of overall concept. I also seem to have this misconception that I was able to reuse old cartridges in the DiskWriter system . . . )

I thought it was a good idea then, and I still think it's a good idea now. Now if we can only get movies and music this way :-)

nintendoland.com has a good explanation of the events from 1991 onward. The article is devoted to the SNES CD which was a separate project. The Playstaton was always an independent console that Sony devloped on their own to play SNES and CD games. The SNES CD or ND and it was sometimes called was an add-on to the original SNES console but their were a lot of problem incorporating the Sony version of the add-on. That is why Sony started the Playstaion project. They could not make their CD system work with the pitiful processor in the SNES.

The trouble is that they were then trying to prevent French consumers from buying in Britain and importing directly into France. Now, the EU is an internal free-trade area, so controlling imports between member states is a big no-no.

Hmmm. I'm confused. How do you "prevent" people from doing that, if there's no law? I'm assuming Nintendo didn't have these guys swimming the English channel forcibly preventing people from carrying consoles across. What exactly were they doing?

Damnit, it is right between just right and a tad wee bit to small.

Since when the heck did midgets become the number one player of console games? Yeesh.

Now the one fault that I _DO_ have with the X-Box controller (and all of the other next gen console system controllers for that matter) is how few buttons the player can access at once.

I remember on the SNES controller that you could push any of 4 out of 6 buttons, not half bad. On the N64 controller it was (uh, 1,2,3,4,5,6) out of 8 buttons at once. Kick ass.

On the X-Box it is like 3 or 4 out of how ever many. Yah I know the main analog joystick also presses down, but it is SOO awful that you likely change the joysticks heading at the same time. NOT a good thing, sorry, doesn't count. Not to mention how fricking dinky some of those buttons are, yeesh. Talk about all pad and no buttons!

The PS2 has the same problem that the PS1 did, dinky ass controller, makes me feel like I am using a Pocket Gameboy to control my Console with. Ick. Cramped as hell.

The original N64 controller SEEMED like it was a pain in the ass, and indeed I got an alternate controller and used it for quite some time, but after awhile I was forced to go back to the original pack-in controller and I then realized how kick-ass it was. Yah! :)

The GameCube has a similar problem to the X-Box, not nearly enough buttons can be pushed at once. But then again Lord Miyamoto says that he plans on designing games that require less buttons to play, so I am not going to complain too much about that one. If the entire console is designed for fewer buttons then OK, but the other consoles out there seem dedicated to using all of the buttons on the control pad but just bunching them up in remote clusters around a pad and making the whole entire thing horribly unergonomic. Yuck.

On the plus side, 40 key gamepads will be quite nice. When I was well into playing Half-Life (since given it up, CS is so painfully slow compared to the frantic strategic action of HLDM) I had at least 20 keys bound on my keyboard and a nine button mouse. . . .

;D

(I still have my two original NES advantage joysticks, yes, two of them. Now THOSE where some well built controllers! :) )

"First console system to successfully implement a subscription service"

And now I've read the article I have two specific comments

• Anything this dependant on digital TV is doomed -- HDTV/DigitalTV is DOA. We have it running in Australia and there are no sets or set-top boxes available
• It's too hard. Take MP3s for example. Joe average can wander into a store, buy a CD and play it, but ask him to download to a hard drive, manage files, make playlists and upload to his player and he's lost.

for $28 Million but remained on the Atari board. Don't know if anybody could have brought Atari out of the '84 crash, or the Tramiel rein; maybe a successful partnership with Nintendo, but it's all just speculation over what 'could have been' now.