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Microsoft to Introduce GBA-competitor?
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Nintendo will have a competition in the handheld market soon. ZDnet has an article that says Microsoft's plan to introduce a 'Media Pad' which includes among other things 'serve as a portable game player in conjunction with Microsoft's Xbox video game console.' So I guess the news I heard regarding their interest in the portable industry will soon come true, the question is, can they take the crown from Nintendo?"
This is just a brainstorm-produced idea, not based in reality, but imagine if Microsoft found some way to interface their portable not only with the Xbox, but also with PS2 and GCN? I think the best thing about the GBA is that if you go to a friend's house who has a GCN, you can just plug in as another controller with your portable. Imagine if MS's new device could plug into them all... it's not like the consoles don't already have 3rd party controllers...
~ now you know
Intel got exclusive rights to StrongARM
since GBA is just a ARM7 + custom sound off the APB then it would not be hard to do the same sort of thing
differant enough that nitendo cant sue and developers have to recompile
but easy enought that you could have a compiler switch do all the work (except the sound and that could be redone easy enough)
really its just a way for intel to push StrongARM and StronARM2 aka Xscale
regards
john jones
While Nintendo currently have the hand-held crown it stopped accepting developers for the GBA a long time ago claiming that 400 was enough. From the handful of decent titles I'd guess it isn't.
Microsoft will at least get those developers wanting to do handheld games but blocked-out by Nintendo.
Like the GBA it would almost certainly use an ARM chip as that's the only supported processor for Windows 'CE' 2002.
[)amien
...handheld emulation. I've got some of that on my Jornada 720, but not much.
I'd love to see Nintendo/Sony/Microsquish/Whatever come out with a hand-held unit that runs a version of Mame, and the company goes out and buys licenses to all those old arcade games I love. Package'em half-a-dozen to a cartridge (yeah, you'll get one popular one [Pac-Man], a couple of so-so, then three scrubs, but it'll get the cash revenue going). Think: zero development costs, small license/media costs, and profits all around.
That would be sweet. Now throw in GB/GBA/NES/SNES emulation as well - hoody hoo! (Ok, why should Nintendo license their old games to MS? Because they aren't selling many of the old ones nowadays, are they?)
Anyone think this has a chance?
Given the size of the X-Box controller, will this be another controller that only works for people with hands the size of Andre the Giant's hands?
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
The GBA has a beautiful (if dim) display, fantastic graphic capabilities for its size, runs on 2 AA batteries, and cost me $90. This vaporware device from MS isn't even close, and I don't think it's intended to be.
:-( And profit margins can't be too great with Visor units nearing the $100 mark. Then again, we know MS isn't always interested in short term profitability--not that they should be. If taking a loss for a couple years rewards them with 75% market share 3 or 4 years down the line, it's worth it. Witness IE--they provided it for free simply to blow the (admittedly poor) competition into oblivion. They've been >80% successful in this endeavor.
I have to agree that it looks like an attempt to get into the PDA market. Honestly, I'm surprised it's taken MS this long to make a push for it. A device like this would be convenient, popular, and completely proprietary. One has to wonder if they're a bit late getting into the market, though. Most people who want a PDA already have one--except me.
Wait and see, wait and see, I s'pose...
One of the reasons that I became a lawyer was to avoid ever having to hire one. -SPYvSPY
The gamegear was not technically superior. It was merely the sega master system (competitor of the NES) retrofited to a handheld with a backlit color screen.
Yes it had light, good color, and a faster CPU with more memory (the master system was a better system than the NES in almost every way), but it made a terrible portable device because it ate up about 8 AA's less than 2 hours.
You could barely finish a game.
What could Microsofts weakness be? What do SONY and Microsoft have in common that Nintendo does not?
Their first priority is to DRM and content control. Microsoft is betting on BIG deals with the RIAA and MPAA member companies. Put simply they can't piss them off.
So what should Nintendo do? Simple. Modify the gamecube to play DVDs from any region. Make sure the DVD decoding is totally controled by one EASILY removable chip that is accessable by simply lifting a simple panel.
Won't the MPAA sue? You bet they will and it will be great for Nintendo. When the MPAA sues Nintendo they should convert to region based chips to signify cooperation.
This is a quadrupal win for Nintendo.
- They get free advertising as the "hackers" console
- They have an easily upgradable (to region free) chip
- They have a referance chip to reverse engineer. If Nintendo does it right there will be a half dozen aftermarket upgrades in a month.
- They have plausable deniability.
Now the DVD argument is moot. And the vaster game base from Xbox is countered by a hassle free, region free, dvd player built into Game Cube. Kick in the name recognition and Nintendo can relax and watch Microsoft DRM itself out of existance.I'd buy a GameCube DVD, wouldn't you?
Novel theory: Modern Man evolved from psychopath
I dropped my $30 or so for Super Mario Advanced, which is a graphically improved Mario Brothers (yeah, the OLD arcade game that got rereleased on the NES later), and a slightly tweaked Super Mario Brothers 2.
Super Mario Advanced is the same Mario Brothers game for multiplayer, with Super Mario World as the mario game.
Mario Kart Advanced is a rerelease of the SNES Super Mario Kart.
I bought Dragon Warrior I & II for the Game Boy Color (to play on my GBA), rereleases of the old NES games.
The NES/SNES games are being rereleased for the GBC/GBA. Some GB (pre-color) are still on the market. I almost grabbed my first generation ones when visiting my folks, but figured I'd rather not sour their memory by replaying them. (Some NES/SNES games have had their memory ruinned for me by emulation)...
Unlike other companys, Nintendo doesn't truly abandon software... they rerelease it for handhelds later on. I'm sure that the Game Boy Super Advanced will be 3D and have N64 ports, and the Game Boy Super Duper Advanced will have some Game Cube ports.
Regardless, as another post set, the GBA is a great handheld for older gamers. It has 2D side-scrollers, RPGs, etc. All the games (and STYLE of games) that you loved on a NES/SNES are being released here, while the gaming market has moved on.
My parents loved the Atari, and would play my NES while I was asleep and found it frustrating. They couldn't handle the finger twitching of the NES.
I find that my Gamecube pushes my reflexes, and I doubt that I'll be able to keep up for much longer. When my kids are playing their systems 2 generations from now, I'm going to feel over the hill, while I did really well on my NES/SNES/SMS/S-Genny... N64 I was average, and now I'm over the hill.
Oh well,
Alex
P.S. If you live in a city and commute on a subway... GBA is great.
At this rate, we'll need another dozen years or so before appropriate legislation is forthcoming. Bill Gates as the Rockerfeller of the Desktop is not a pleasant a picture as some would like. And yet there are many who are sentimental and nostalgic for those times, which were not bad if you were upperclass.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Nintendo has already sold several million gamecubes both in the USA and Asia, the launch sales alone have ensures that Nintendo will do well from the cube.
Why on earth would nintendo redo the cube from the start to include DVD playback (everything from a new box up), bringing with it the rampant piracy problems the ps1 did suffer from the and ps2 is starting to have.
Nintendo need only one thing to carry on doing well for years to come - games, and they make great ones at nice profit margins for them.
Microsoft are spending $500Million at marketing the X-Box? Sony are still out-selling them today with the 18month old PS2 selling at the same pricepoint as X-box, and the Gamecube is outselling it worldwide too im sure since Nintendo successfully carried out a launch in both Asia and the USA when Microsoft obviously hasn't heard of other continents yet.
People forget the largest computer games market in the world is Japan, and there the X-box hasn't made a scratch yet. It will be 2 years or more before anyone knows the real winners in this round of the console wars, but right now the winner is Sony - profitable with PS2, everything from this point onwards is just extra cash for them. Whether Microsoft managed to scrape back the initial outlay they have done is probable, but not a certainty.
"The barrier to entry is very high, so new competitors will be few and far between"
What about Indrema?
(see subject of this post)
Though this device appears to be more of a PDA than a game machine, it makes sense from MS's pov to come out with sich a thing.
I'm betting a version of this, configured more as a game handheld will follow.
Microsoft's domination of the software industry depends on their being able to cut off the "air supply" of compeditors. Leaving the handheld market to Nintendo gives them revenue that they can use to fund their competition (game cube) to the MS X Box.
It's just an application of MS's playbook in the PC industry. This is why MS makes Mac apps, since people DO use Macs, they MUST have them using MS Office, not another app that might end up ported to `Doze and compete.
This is why MS is fighting Linux tooth and nail. They can't afford it getting too large, so that it's a big enough market to fund non-MS app software development.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
I'd buy a plain old GameCube too, and already have. A surprising number of people don't give a rat's ass about DVD on a game console. Nintendo is still doing what it has always done, build a solid gaming console. Nintendo knows their market and caters to them.
While Nintendo currently have the hand-held crown it stopped accepting developers for the GBA a long time ago claiming that 400 was enough. From the handful of decent titles I'd guess it isn't.
Just because you can't sign up for Wario World (Nintendo's official developer support program) doesn't mean you can't develop GBA games and get published with one of the Tier-B publishers. If you want to get into GBA development, get yourself VisualBoyAdvance and GCC targeted for ARM7TDMI and start hacking. Then you can try your games on hardware with an MBV2 cable or Flash Advance Linker from Lik-Sang
Like the GBA it would almost certainly use an ARM chip as that's the only supported processor for Windows 'CE' 2002.
ARM or MIPS or PowerPC or x86 makes little difference compared to the graphics chip. Nintendo's GBA supports up to 128 sprites on top of four layers of scrolling, two layers of scrolling and one layer of rotation, two layers of rotation, or a bitmap. IIRC, Windows CE devices have only a bitmap and no hardware sprites, not even one for a mouse pointer because most of them are pen-based.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Nintendo has been in business since 1891. They originally made playing cards. ( and yes I'm picking nits).
11 was a racehorse
12 was 12
1111 Race
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The question is, can MSFT deliver the functionality of the Game Boy Advance?
They can crank out a box that specs out as a GBA competitor. But it won't BE a GBA competitor, because they don't grok kids gaming.
This is why Nintendo does well. They do grok kids gaming. You may hate Pokemon, you may not like Pimkin, but kids love them. The buttons are where they need to be - you don't get tired - the carts work easily.
The people who brought you xBox are giving you a PC solution for Game playing. And that's why it's a distant third in the game title sales. And why it will stay that way. They don't grok gamers. They never have.
And they lose money each box they sell. Nintendo makes money on every box they sell, which means they can sell games cheap. Cause the games are where the bucks are - so kids can buy more games. You may think it's nuts to buy the Pikachu Yellow version of Pokemon, the Red, the Blue, the Crystal, the Silver, the Gold - but it means they make money on each sale at Nintendo.
Microsoft thinks they'll get it all in one (flawed) release. And fix the bugs later. Nintendo thinks they'll make sure it works first, and save the extra things for future releases.
So, in short, MSFT will fail at this one too.
Of course, what do I know, I hold stock in both MSFT and Nintendo, among other companies. MSFT makes money due to dominance, holdings, and cash flow - the game business is not profitable, except with pro forma (fake) accounting methods. Nintendo makes money with this.
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--- Will in Seattle - What are you doing to fight the War?