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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."
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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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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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?
Penny Arcade's a respected gaming site, now?