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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."
(Then again, I'm curious to see how twisted they'd get with those....)
Rare are owned by Microsoft. Does this pretty much confirm that Microsoft are not considering entering the handheld market with their own console?
I'd like to know if they (or other MS studios) are also working on PSP games. It could be significant if they are supporting Nintendo only. Tactical?
I'd kill to play Golden-Eye on Gameboy DS. I mean, seriously. 4+ players duking it out? That'd be friggin' amazing.
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
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?"
No more than a few days ago I had a nice little discussion about PD:DS. It sure would be nice to see this come true.
To this day I still play Perfect Dark quite a bit. It's about the only N64 game my friends and I still play. One thing the GC lacks is a good multi-player shooter. The EA shooters just aren't as good as what Rare has made in the past. EA has really butchered the Bond games, Golden Eye is by far the best Bond shooter.
"Armed forces abroad are of little value unless there is prudent counsel at home" - Cicero
Could it be that Microsoft is realizing that Rare is just too much like Nintendo (family friendly, quality over bottom line, etc.)???... or that it was really Nintendo that made Rare strong? Remember that some of their best games were Nintendo properties. It could be that Rare is better at bringing the ideas of others to life than bringing the ideas themselves.
Perhaps this is just Microsoft making the most out of a potentially failing investment... perhaps Nintendo knew that Rare's image would be hard to re-shape... and knew getting rid of them would kill Rare... perhaps I'm just rambling.
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor
Square-Enix is doing 3+ DS titles and 1 token PSP title.
Konami is still TBA/TBD for the DS and is doing 1+ PSP title last I heard.
And yes, who cares about Rare? The only property I think they own is Conker(who has had one good game thus far), and it looks like they're wasting that by doing a mindless shooter. Nintendo retains the PD property, the Donkey Kong property, and pretty much every other bit of IP that rare used to make good games.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
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.
The touchscreen is center mounted between the controls, so it could be programmed to be a customizeable control pad. Supposedly it has little subtley raised bumps on it so you can work it by feel.
Of course that means you'll have to muck it up with finger prints, but that's not too big of a deal.
The interface to Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS) is as follows. You can use either the D-Pad + L button for some basic control and then touchscreen/stylus to complement or rather than using the D-Pad you can use XYAB/R for the same thing.
The control has been thought through. Trust Nintendo, you have reason to.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The device you're looking for is the tapwave zodiac. If you haven't already heard of it, it's a PalmOS device designed for gaming-- layout similar to the PSP, available now, 480x320 screen. I'd give it a little longer if you want it for movies-- SD cards will only get cheaper. I'm oh-so-tempted, but I think I'll wait for SD prices to come down a bit more.
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.
Possibly. Or it means that said rumored handheld isn't expected to make it to market any time near the release of the DS or the titles that Rare's developing.
Personally, I find the prospect of a Microsoft-designed handheld to be a little scary, considering what the original XBox controller looked like.