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Nintendo Researchers Talk Next-Gen GBA
Thanks to an anonymous reader for pointing to TotalVideoGames.com's report that initial details of technology for Nintendo's GameBoy Advance successor have been revealed - specifically, the screen design for future Nintendo handhelds. According to the report, Takeshi Kiyuna of Nintendo discussed his research at a recent technology seminar, and "..it's expected that the screen will offer a resolution of [at least] 300x200, supporting a color palette of over 260,000." Additionally, "..comments made later in the seminar suggested that Nintendo were looking into the possibility of implementing an organic electroluminescent (EL) screen, which allows for superior definition screens that require lower power demands on the battery."
Although the gameboy line of products from Nintendo is pretty good, a little competition can't hurt. Sony is now venturing into uncharted waters for them, and Nintendo now has to work a little harder to compete with the new handhelds that came/are coming out.
Nintendo currently has a huge dominance in the handheld arena, in large part because of the huge number of games available due to backwards compatibility. However i'm worried that what we're looking at seems really similar to the end of the SNES era.
For better or worse, i think Nintendo is eventually going to have to switch over to optical media, unless the PSP completly bombs, but even then i think it will just delay the inevitable.
If the PSP maanges to get a foot in the door however due to a large amount of third party support, and Nintendo sticks with cartridge format, Nintendo is going to have set themselves up for a fall.
They could continue to stubbornly stick to cartridge format, just like the N64, and they'll slowly see their share start to slip. (Not as quick as with teh N64, because backwards compatibility will still do them some good.) On the other hand, they could decide to follow Sony's lead and switch to an optical disk format, at which point they're going to get slammed because the second generation PSP will presumably be backwards compatible and have a huge library of PSP games to draw on, while the new Nintedo optical handheld will have just lost it's backwards compatibility with the previous cartridge games. Sit back and watch the PS2 vs Gamecube situation happen all over again.
The second best solution to this problem that i can see is for Nintendo to switch over to optical disk format for the GBA2, but make sure that the disks are the same size as the Gamecube's disks. They'll be going head to head against the PSP, each with no backlog of playable games, but it will be better than waiting to make the switch. When the next generation comes out they'll hopefully have improved the design enough such that Gamecube games can be played on it directly. At that point the new GameBoy would have two large sets of games that it was backwards compatible with and hopefully crush the PSP.
The _best_ solution would be to bite the bullet, and spend a lot of money and research figuring out a way to make a system that could play both cartridges and optical disks without costing a fortune. The physics would be simple, at least if they did the intelligent thing like Sony and packaged the optical media in pseudo-cartridges like 3.5 floppy disks. Make the slot wide enough to hold a cartridge the size of a GameCube disk, with a notch cut out of the "bottom" edge to fit a GBA or GB cartridge. The optical media reader would be in the "top", and the cartridge interface would be at the back.
The complicated bit would be reducing the size and cost of having both types of hardware in the same machine.
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Personally, I'm most interested in the sound department. The GameBoy Advance's sound capabilities were underpowered, even by the standards of the time. Even Sonic Advance 2 (fairly recent) has the sound effects stomping on the music.
I'm hoping that they get something up to at least a wavetable type of sound with some decent number of channels. And panning that has something between "hard left", "hard right", and "dead center". And maybe a few effects tossed in... doesn't have to be some sort of full EAX, but you know, some cheap chorusing or reverb.
Both graphics and sound quality are asymptomptic curves to increase quality; the GBA is doing pretty well for its screen size in the graphics department, even in 3D now (it's never going to look like a Playstation 1 at that resolution), but the sound quality is so early 1990's. Giving the sound system 10 or 20 times the power of the GBA would really add a lot to the system, IMHO.
1. Keep the backlight. (Unless you want people hacking your systems again.)
2. Add more buttons.
And.. umm... that's about all I can think of.
I don't see Nintendo going the way of Sega anytime soon. Definatly not with this generation of consoles and probably not with the next.
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The chip in the GBA is 8-bit, and requires you do a lot more with software mixing before handing it off to the sound DSP. This is why most of the GBA titles sound like ass, even though there are a few that sound great. Those that do sound great are still limited by the fact that it uses 8-bit sound sampling, which is why games like Metroid Fusion are a joke (auditory wise) compared to master pieces like Super Metroid.
Nintendo was hoping developers would use the amazing ARM CPU to do wicked sound processing, but in the end it didn't work. I hope they use something like the sound DSP in the SNES. Full 16-bit wavetable, proper sound fonts, etc.
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Discs are great at storing large amounts of data cheaply. However, there's plenty of feasible reasons to opt for cartriges.
1)Bulk. With a optical disc you have a rotational engine, a laser reader, the disc itself, and some way of removing and inserting the disc. On the other hand, a cartrige only needs a bus connector.
2)Laser. Adding a laser complicates the system, since many countrys have regulations on the usage and protection from lasers. For example, in the US, they must be completely contained for use in electonical devices.
3)Batteries. Nintendo has repeatedly chosen longevity over performance. The longer batteries last the more likely your customers are to continue playing and maintain interest in your other game products. Optical media spins, thanks to a small engine. This rates among the largest consumers of power, just like regular hard drives. You can add in some hardware to help predict and cache the disc, and you can instruct developers on how to organize the disc so that latency and spin times are reduced, but hardware means more bulk and cost, and developers are typically focused on time to market and overhead costs (thus not likely to spend much effort reducing battery consumption).
4) Current investments. Probably the most compelling reason for Nintendo to select cartridge format is a current investment in cartriges. Its become less of an issue with the investment in optical media they made with the gamecube. You might also consider backwards compatibility as a current investment, something which Nintendo should be wary to break. Every dollar Nintendo spends it plans to recoup from the consumer, which counts hardware costs and research and development fees. Believe it or not, Nintendo is making money from GBA sales alone. Its not as high margin as their software, but its still profit.
5) Latency and throughput. Its a hard balancing act between load times and power consumption when you choose optical, and "Loading" screens are often a liability. The current GBA cartridge is designed to minimize latency and maximize throughput, without such a huge hit on power consumption. It takes like 4 cycles to give it an address, and every subsequent poll advances the address 1 while returning data.
There seems to be a vocal yet very small group of people clamoring for 3d geometry and optical media, but honsetly, I don't think there's a need, or even much use. Camera issues have always been a liability rather than a feature; until developers can figure out how to make the camera emphasize rather than detract from the gameplay, I doubt it will see much popularity in the handheld.
In a similar vain, optical media is best at storing large amounts of data, yet the demand for data is minimal. Successful portable games are designed to be fun at 5min+. If you've got at least five minutes, the game will be fun. The mario series with its short levels is excellent for this, and Nintendo has recognized this, by offering a save mechanism. If you're required to sit and watch a video for 3 minutes, that video better be fun. The other use for large amounts of storage space is 3d geometry and textures. Each polygon takes at least 9 numbers, probably more. And each polygon will need at least some sort of palleting, and probably a texture. Probably the largest problem with 3d is the small screen size. Until Nintendo ramps up the resolution, high quality textures are mostly irrelevant.
More importantly, the GBA (and presumably successors) allready feature scaling and rotations that allow for reasonable 3d. Look at Golden Sun's battle presentation. Its completely turn based, but its an immediate cinematic hook. The camera system is dynamic and the characters and enemies look fine (compared to a SNES or PS1 polygon title).
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Seeing as how the PSp uses UMDs and not CDs, there is a near zero chance that it will play PSone games (not to mention the increased cost in supplying that backwards compatibility).
Not really... there is just a correlation between 2D vs. 3D games and time, and a correlation between cartridge vs. optical media and time. Polygons became a viable option about the same time CD-ROMs did.
Myself, I'm waiting to see how Sony will pull off their supposed list of features in a portable package that doesn't cost $300, doesn't suck batteries, and doesn't skip.
(And memory cards for a portable? Ugh!)
I've moved on.
From Nokia publically slamming the GBA, to respected gaming sites giving the N-gage the thumbs down. I mean, the thing's going to cost $299! You can buy a GameCube with GameBoy player AND a GBA for that.
Nokia has no idea what it's doing so far as the N-gage is concerned.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
First of all, i was speaking in generalized way about the type and quality of games for the system.
Despite that however, i see no reason to assume 100% that it can't play PSX games. Given the large amount of research they've put into emulation for the PS2 (note that Sony has said that one of the reasons for the projected low price is "the unit used a lot of the technology that has already been researched and manufactured for the Plasytation2") there is no reason why the PSP wouldn't be able to run PSX games reburned onto UMD disks. However given that that might make piracy too easy in Sony's opinion they'll most likely make it necessary to make at least a few changes to the code. (i have little idea how much UMDs differ from DVDs and how likely it is that people could burn their own, if it turns out to be fairly difficult Sony may not bother with making direct transfes difficult.) However i would be suprised if Sony didn't make it as easy as possible to port PSX games to the PSP (piracy issues aside) since it would be their best weapon again the GBA's huge back-library.
(And memory cards for a portable? Ugh!)
What's your rational for this? You think it will be too annoying to have to carry around pieces of plastic that you have to insert into your handheld system? :)
That's one thing i'd be quite happy with, regardless of whether the system in question was using cartridges or optical media. The memory in cartridges eventually dies. I can't save games on my original FF for the NES anymore. Eventually almost all my GBA cartridges will be useless for the same reason, and there's no easy way to get the data off them and onto a new cartridge even if i was willing to pay for a new one.
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Penny Arcade's a respected gaming site, now?
Still, I honestly beleive that the GBA SP has a LOT of untapped life still left in it. Look at how long they supported the 8 bit line of Game Boy's and all the stuff coming out of it right up until the GBA came out.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion