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Rare Working On The Nintendo DS
Sean O'Neill writes "Ken Lobb mentioned to a GCAdvanced writer that Rare is already working on titles for the Nintendo DS. "After him mentioning that, I began to speak to him about the Nintendo DS. He loves the DS and confirmed with me that Rare does have DS development kits and that two titles are in the works for the DS."
This would certainly be a deal breaker for me but where do Rare stand? Can they release the game again, would there be issues with the Bond license and EA?
I would love to see a DS version though.
According to this month's Edge, Diddy Kong Pilot for the GBA has been resurrected post Nintendo-split as Banjo Pilot.
So its definitely looking like we're on target to see more Rare releases on Nintendo hardware this year than we are Microsoft (with GBA Sabre Wulf already on shelves). Oops.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
You know, originally I thought that the PSP was the most awesome handheald ever for being able to play movies.
Then it occured to me, the UMD is not going to be a writable media and any movie you're going to play on it is going to be purchased. That means I don't get to toss my divx movies onto my handheld and watch them while waiting in the dentist office. The PSP won't be the new walkman without a harddrive or writable media, maybe the new gameboy, but not the walkman.
Virtual Boy control wasn't bad. Most Nintendo controllers haven't been bad.
The only ones that really were bad were the IR controllers(which all sucked) and the Powerglove(which worked ok with precisely ONE game, which was pretty much standard for peripherals[super scope, powerpad, etc.]).
As to system control, well, I haven't seen a bad one yet. Gameboy, NES, Virtual Boy, SNES, Gameboy Advance, N64, GCN. All of the included controls have been useable.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
"Is it just me or am I the only one not sold on the whole 2 screen thing? and The product pictures I have seen look really plasticky"
You don't like having an extra PocketPC'esque dedicated touch screen for interface doodads, on-line chat, etc? Sorry to be blunt, but I think it is just you. Try imagining taking the PSP on-line and tell me you wouldn't miss that screen.
Can't comment on the 'plasticy' bit, though, other than Nintendo's stated that the design's still being worked on. The basic design is the same, but like they don't have room for a stylus yet.
"Derp de derp."
What's the problem with that? If someone else designed that G&W, that might mean something, but it's a design by Nintendo. People don't complain about the Gamecube being built in a 4 controller, 2-memory cards, top loading drive standard fashion, why complain about the layout of the DS?
The G&W didn't use the screens in the same way the DS does, the G&W's screens were just extensions of the playing field and essentially one big screen split up for cost and portability reasons, for the DS one screen is a touchscreen and since they're real screens, not those pre-printed LCD screens, they can be used for many different things.
Also, part of the innovation in the DS are the new means of control, which cleary weren't present on the Game and Watch series.
Well, if you think it's bad the device has roughly the same shape as a really old machine that's not even close to the same ballpark, how would you have designed the sysem instead? Make the top part smaller for no apparent reason, or what?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Think about it, raised bumps would get in the way of using the stylus.
The flaw in this logic is that Nintendo is about even with Microsoft in the home console business. MS might be pretending that their only enemy is Sony and loves to forget about Nintendo, but they are down to Earth enough to know that they can't do jack about Sony and are struggling to surpass Nintendo. The only one who can apply monopoly tactics in this market is Sony, MS is just a "niche player", as you put it, their quasi-monopoly on operating systems and office software doesn't mean anything in the console market, except that they can survive bigger losses than their competitors.
I think Microsoft looked at the bottom line of their entertainment division and decided that it should turn in profits or at least smaller losses before joining the handheld market and having two different products to support (and, if their behaviour in the console market is any indication, lose lots of dollars on).
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
First off, read my post above. (link)
I think you and tprime fall into the common error of overestimating Microsoft's strength in one market because of both their size and their performance in an unrelated market. Yeah, I know, what else is new, but to think that Microsoft has a strong hand on Nintendo in any way (and that the hand is supporting Nintendo as opposed to trying to fight them off) is quite distant from reality.
The situation is simple, and there seem to be no cunning undertones to Rare's support of Nintendo platforms, other than perhaps Microsoft's long-standing modus operandi of being the first to hear about the competition's movements by way of their licensed developer status. But even that has nothing to do with "propping up" the competition. Particularly when Microsoft's HE division hasn't had a single profitable quarter, while Nintendo has had, what, one unprofitable quarter in their entire history of producing games and game-related products (which has been Nintendo's entire reason for existence since 1889).