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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.
Now if only they still have that ear-piercing tone that nearly drove my parents insane, we're in business!
(better still have the alarm too!)
Honestly, it doesn't look too dissimilar to the GBA SP, and that's one of the best selling consoles of all time.
Looks can be deceiving. Or CAN they?
At least Nintendo finally decided to give their handheld four face buttons. I couldn't believe they chose to leave them out of the GBA design. Especially considering the mass amount of SNES ports it received.
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
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...
Is it just me, or does the mini-map of the race track look like a dinosaur (barney) that needs too pee (the crossed legs at the bottom) ?
It looks very Nintendo. It sounds like Nintendo has no plans into getting into a computing power/graphics race with Sony, but intends to focus on their dominance in innovative game design. Consider this is the company whose original low-resolution original black&white GameBoy stomped color portable systems into the ground, I wouldn't dismiss it. A Zelda or Metroid game with N64 quality graphics on one screen and a map display on the other would be very appealing.
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?
1) The article said there would be a separate
:)
cart slot for GBA games, dunno if they'll still
support GB/GBC games (there's no reason not too,
other than adding a Z80 somewhere...)
2) I would think that it would be around 10 hours
or so if they do it right. I for one liked the
SP scheme of recharging every once in a while
instead of having to find batteries (easier to
find an outlet).
3) If the leaked specs are to be believed, the
main processor will be an ARM9 (I forget the
speed, but much faster than the GBA's ARM7).
According to the same specs, there'll be a
ARM7 co-processor as well.
I can't wait to see it RE'd and homebrew tools
come out!
if you had bothered to actually read the article, you'd have seen they clearly state the unit has a slot for gba carts, as well as new DS game cards.
Also- the GBA was created to allow more time for the DS to be completed (it was code named Nitro, and rumors have been going around for EVER regarding this name. originally it was though the GBA was nitro, but well, it wasn't).
I googled after some specs for nintendo DS
[...] the system will have two processors, with an ARM-9 CPU running at 67MHz and an ARM-7 unit running at 33MHz. Retail DS devices will have 4Mb of main RAM (while debug development units will have double that), with additional chunks of cache and shared RAM for the processors and 656Kb of video RAM. [...] The system will possess decent 2D capabilities, but it also has a 3D graphics system which, the spec. claims, is capable of drawing 120,000 polygons per second, representing a fill-rate of 30 million pixels per second. [...] Wi-Fi [802.11] and, touch panel input device.
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
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
</delurk>
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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 think I'm still finding it hard to catch that freaking Pikachu.
Seriously, though, I'm a college student with a full time job at the moment, but I still love my SP dearly. Not just for the abundance of games, but for the compactability and portability. I can play it anywhere. Not that I have a lot of time now, but I still get a chance.
Sure, the screen is 'tiny' (bigger than most cellphones,) and it can't do amazingly wonderful graphics like the XBox or Gamecube. But, then, if I wanted to play XBox or Gamecube, I'd first of all own one, and then I'd get a portable screen for them and lug them around in a cooler.
One of the reasons Nintendo's 8-bit hand held stood above the colorful and vibrant competition was price. Price price and more price. That, and it didn't eat batteries like some... battery... eating... monster. Yeah. It's a reason Nintendo survived for some time (N64's pains were not because of price), and a reason they will still survive.
I mean, yeah. Handhelds are marketed towards the younger demographic. But will a parent be more willing to buy a $150 handheld with N64-like graphics or a $300 handheld with useless features that has PS1-like graphics when the kid doesn't really care?
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."
It has bluetooth. That means you can connect it to the internet via a bluetooth cell phone. That means you can play game on it against anyone on the internet. That means I can play advance wars with people in cars in CA while I'm in a car in NY. If Nintendo makes a move on that technology they'll be the first to have multiplayer online gaming that is also portable. If they emphasize this feature they will rock the house. Two screens only helps this out. Put the score and the chat on one screen with the action on the other. I'm buying this no matter what, poo poo to all you naysayers.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
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...
At 25, I still enjoy portable games on occasion. The problem is that the GBA's screen is way too small for me, and requires a damn floodlamp to be able to see the screen. The GBA SP fixed the light issue, but I've been waiting until the "Nes version" is released in a month or so.
I finished playing Golden Sun a few days ago and wanted to transfer my character data to Golden Sun 2, but the silly 6-page password wouldn't work. It takes about 20 minutes to type the thing in. So, I killed two birds with one stone and picked up a Gameboy Player for my Gamecube. Now I can play my games on a 32" screen, and it supported the link cable which allowed me to link Golden Sun to Golden Sun: The Lost Age to transfer my character data.
Let's just say that I am very happy with my purchase of the GameBoy Advance Player. Graphics are largely on-par with the SNES and Genesis of old. They might be, perhaps, a bit blockier in some respects, since they are games that are designed for a portable, but it's entirely possible that I am just used to flashy 3D graphics these days.
The graphics aren't the issue though. These recent GBA games are some of the most enjoyable games that are being released on any system. Graphics can't change that. There is something special about the games of the SNES era. They were generally quite fine. A lot of that is lost today, when companies try way to hard to make games as glitzy as possible on game consoles.
If you base your game buying decisons solely on the quality of the graphics, you are missing out on a lot of great games. It's your loss though, not mine.
What will happen in 10 or so years when this system dies? Will the games, obviously designed with dual screens in mind, be able to be emulated on any future hardware? Or will the games that appear on this system be lost forever once the system gets superceded!
Guy 1: Hey Mark, when did you start carrying a purse?
Guy 2: Oh. I bought the new Game Boy. This is the battery.
The government's moral compass is controlled by GPS.
In times of crises, they alter it to suit their needs.
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
"Run faster, damn you! Faster! FASTER!"
*CRACK*
Congrats! Nintendo found another way to make you buy their handhelds more than once!