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E3 - First Nintendo DS Pic
Ravi Hiranand writes "Steven Kent has a look at the Nintendo DS -- along with what appears to be the first picture of the unit (which doesn't look anything like any of the wild rumours suggested it might!). It's still unclear whether the game pictured (a Mario Kart title!) is really a DS game or whether the whole thing is just a render, but the image is credited to Nintendo, so it appears to be genuine..."
It looks kinda big... how's it going to stack up compared to my deliciously pocket size SP?
Best read in good ol' Monaco 9 point.
This looks like a weird idea, but it could also be used to make a lot of really interesting games. The two displays have a lot of possibilities. In an RPG or something, one could display the dungeon map while another could contiunally montitor your characters' status, or give the player other useful information in some way. Is this idea really gimmicky? Sure. But it might lead to a couple of neat games...
Well, as a confessed Nintendo fanboy, the look of this reminds of the old LCD dual screens I played when I was growing up.
I LOVE the look. It reminds of nintendo when they were really big. Way to go!
1. Is it compatible with GB, GBC and GBA games?
2. Battery life?
3. Did they fix any of the annoying problems from the GBA (more SRAM, wider data bus, faster cpu, larger screen pixel count)?
If all they did was tack on a touch sensitive screen to the GBA SP then we're gonna be stuck with the same SNES re-write lame-ass side scrolling games...
Sure PocketNES is fun er... I mean e-reader but I would love to be able to play quake or something on a portable [other than a 500$ PDA].
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
So, Nintendo is going to continue selling GBA's, claiming these two systems compliment each other instead of outright replacing the GBA? You know what that's going to cause: confusion in the marketplace. Let's not forget the rumour that there's a complete GBA replacement in the works for sometime next year.
Anybody remember the Sega Genesis, Sega Saturn, 32x Extension, and CD-Drive extension? Nobody knew what to buy because nobody knew what games were going to be made for which combination of hardware. That along with the prices deep sixxed all of the above hardware.
Nintendo should make the DS 100% compatible with GB and GBA games, and stop selling GBAs. What they're doing now is simply confusing the market and giving Sony prime oppurtunity to come in and clean up their mistakes.
And the dual screen? It's a gimmick. Anything the Dual screen can do could also be done by a bigger or wider screen.
What is Nintendo thinking??
It's worth pointing out that the DS is expected to be more powerful than the nintendo 64. That means 3d becomes not only a possibility, but a reality for this system.
Goldeneye on the tube via bluetooth anyone?
Wathch out.. the early eighties are back, at least as far as casedesign is considered...
Mind you, there isn't too many ways to pack dual screens into a handheld unit in - and the clamshell will help protect the screens, unlike on my GBA.
As for wether it'll flaot or sink... it depends on many factors, not least price and avilability of games that require two screens.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Yay, X and Y buttons.
...where are the shoulder buttons?
... homebrew software is developed for it :D (*cough* SNES emulator~@#~@#$!@#$)
...but...
Damn.
This thing does look pretty sweet, though. I wonder how long it'll be before some type of
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Being a techie and a geek for a very long time I have to say I'm buying into this overall-consitency thing Nintendo and Apple like to emphasise.
I bought a GB SP earlier this year and just got a new iBook the other week. And their overall desing and feeling makes the extra money worthwhile. And that's a former Linux-only user saying this!
This dual screen thing seemed stupid, but now I understand what they where talking. It's not about a screen but about coping with the lack of GB buttons!!! That's why the bottom one is a touchscreen. And a touchscreen where you can change the writing size and amount of buttons instantly is the next best thing to a mechanical keyboard. IMHO this has all the chances of becoming a neat engineering/solution stunt.
For my part I can say that I'm sold. I'll definitely check this gadget out when it hits the shelves. I hope it has enough ooomph and controlability to get some neat RTS and FPS games on it. Duke Nukem GBA is neat but not really stunning.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I am 23 and love my GBA SP. There are oodles of games that are not geared toward 5-12 years olds. I have Final Fantasy Tactics Advance, Breath of Fire II, Tactics Ogre, Phantasy Star, etc. These games are definitely for adults. Especially BoFII, which deals heavily with organised religion. Both Metroids were classics, short, but classics. I have big hands and fingers, and the controls are just fine for me, the shoulder buttons are a little bit of a stretch, but you figure out how to hold it for maximum ease of use pretty quickly. And don't call me Shirley.
I hate sigs.
I think you fail to realise that handhelds and consoles are two different marketssegments alltogether.
Yes, the screen on my GBA is tiny comprared to me 30" WideScreen TV thats hooked up to my PS2. Yes, the graphics kinda sucs compared to the PS2 as well, beeign (roughtly) on the same level as most PC-games from a decade ago. Yes, the whole shebang is in a tiny package, making the controlls akward if you got huge hands.
BUT I can slip my GBA in my pocket and take it with me on long journey, and the batteries last all the way across the atlantic. Hard to do that with my PS2 and the widescreen tv, right?
You may not like them or be able to use them for recreation, but that do not mean they are useless. As for the agebracket... well, I'll admidt that my Pokemongame might be aimed (mostly) at kids around 10-12, but I can assure you thats there is plenty of games around that any adult might find fun too.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
Right next to the "Post Anonymously" checkbox, we need one for "Post Cliché Joke", like the subscriber asterisk. Then all of the folks who have nothing interesting to contribute except cracks about Beowulf clusters and BSODs in Soviet Russia (you insensitive clod) can have their fun, and I can set it to "-6" in my preferences.
;)
Who's with me?
Auto-reply to ACs: "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect."
Like most /.ers, I think we've all been following this story about the DS for sometime. I was skeptical at first, but now that I've had the opportunity to see the device, I am really not that overly impressed with the design. It looks like an old Compaq Pocket PC!
This format just gives game developers opportunities to make more gimmicks into their games. It's a new paradigm, and so the games will fundamentally change to accomodate this. I bet you only 25% of the games that come out in the first year will use those two screens effectively. Let's look at the numbers the other way. That means my estimate is 75% of the games that come out in the first year for the DS will get the dual screen WRONG. It's a new platform, a new paradigm. I hope for the best, but I expect the worst. And I am not even going to shell out any money for this gimmick device.
I think that if they wanted a shot at attracting an older market, they should have made a screen that was like 4"-5" wide and have built in APIs to split the screen side by side into 2"-2.5" halves. Give gamers the opportunity to see handheld games in a wider format. Maybe use a 16:9 ratio, and give your device half a chance of succeeding outside of Japan...
Honestly, I smell another Virtual Boy on the horizon...
I know this will make me sound like a fanboy, but after playing a lot of the GBA versions of the same basic SNES games, the large majority of the games didn't NEED the extra buttons and, in my opinion, dropping the useless buttons was an improvement. The GBA Metroid games are the best example. Got rid of the annoying dash button and implemented an autodash, and the missile system and the aim up/down system are also superior. Zelda wasn't harmed at all in my opinion. And look at Aria of Sorrow Vs. Symphony of the Night. Aria's spell, ability, and equipment systems are much easier to use. One game that I think suffered is the Megaman Zero series, but I think that's more due to their two-weapon system which, while fun, wasn't really necessary, I think. If you were playing a straight Megaman X port instead, the only thing you'd be missing is the cycle backwards function for boss powerups (probably, depends on what they wanted to do).
But I've always been a fan of simple/minimalist interfaces.
It is pretty amazing that the original GameBoy stomped the rivals from NEC, Atari, and Sega. I personally own a TurboExpress, which is a fantastic portable, even though it is a battery hog. Even today, the GBA is now finally topping the TurboExpress' capabilities of more than 10 years ago. The dot-matrix monochrome display of the original GBA didn't stop it from being the number one portable in the world though. It simply had the best portable game library of any of the systems, for that era. Sure, Gamegear had a few good ones. TurboExpress had an incredible library of excellent Japanese games that never made it to the US or Europe, but the handful of US game releases were often pretty fun. Nobody could ever top Nintendo's selection of quality games though.
Backwards compatibility is probably the key feature of the GBA that's also made it hold up to more recent competitors, like the Wonderswan and NGP Color, both of which are very capable portables, but never seemed to really take off or get the same library of games. Newer things, like the GP32, still haven't caught on in most parts of the world.
Apple and Nintendo seem to have fallen into the same hole. Both make excellent and fun to use hardware. Both are very innovative. Both make things we may not like at first, but grow to love. And both share the same competition. Microsoft and Sony are both making products to shut down Apple and Nintendo. I can think a hundred examples where Apple comes up with an idea, and Sony and Microsoft use that idea to make more money than Apple. You can almost say the same for Nintendo.
Now why don't these two companies merge? Think of the great ideas that would come out of such a merger! The iPod would be even more kick ass because it would have a GBA cartridge slot and you could play games on it (and maybe copy them to the iPod's hard drive?). The next Nintendo console would look so cool that everyone would have to have one, and the Apple guys would be smart enough to make it play DVDs or whatever new media is out at the time (Nintendo foolishly made their game Gamecube discs mini-dvd, so you cannot play movies on it).
I may not be the first person to think of this, but I feel like it almost doesn't make sense as to why this hasn't happened already.
geek n performer who performs morbid or disgusting acts, as biting off the head of a live chicken
I agree, and one of the things I like so much about Nintendo's hardware and software is that they act as though there aren't other big players out there, they come up with stuff they think will be fun and interesting.
One of my favorite "games" ever is Mario Paint on the SNES. I can only imagine how cool a modern, portable, touch-screen-enabled version of that would be.
Plenty of developers might not "get it", as has been discussed here, but I think those who do will start putting out really creative and fun stuff. Truly new ideas are, I think, sorely lacking right now in a game industry that's been MTV-ized by Sony and Microsoft.
Sure, I'm pumped about seeing a portable Goldeneye- or Zelda-type game in 3D, with a full screen to play on and another full touch screen for picking weapons/items and viewing maps/radars. That's innovation enough for me to want one of these. But what really interests me is that this opens up some new dimensions to gaming that haven't ever been explored.
Drawing clouds under a falling baby Mario to help him slow down is a simple idea, but it's a fresh and clever idea. Maybe spells get cast by mouse-gesture-like movements on the touch screen. Maybe a future WarioWare game mischieviously swaps screens on you, just to mess with your head. Maybe Monkey Ball DS uses the touch screen to give you more accurate tilt control than even the Gamecube's analog stick. Maybe you can draw on your buddy's point of view to guide him in a co-op game.
There are all kinds of ways to make a second, touch-sensitive screen an integral part of a game's experience. Even if it doesn't catch on and make it big, I just know there will be some real gems of gaming created for this thing.
Just want to point out that this was, according to my girlfriend, on the front page of the dead tree version.
Glad to see the world is finally sorting out its priorities to my satisfaction.