RJ Mical On The DS, PSP, Current Game Hardware

Thanks to 1UP for its interview with Amiga luminary and 3DO and Lynx co-creator RJ Mical, discussing many facets of portable gaming, including his views on the Sony PSP ("Well, the thing I dislike most about it is that I didn't get to do it"), possible disadvantages for the Nintendo DS ("The running joke in the [Fathammer] office [when touchscreens and styluses were being tested] was that we were actually funded by the screen makers; they could increase their sales, because indeed, people were always breaking their screens"), and lessons learned earlier in Mical's career ("Probably the most important thing I learned from the Lynx: never trust focus groups... They all told us to make it big, so we made it big.")

Comments

Toughness

[tprime]

Up until this point, only the PSP has been questioned with respect to how well it will fare with a 12 year old tossing it around. People have said that the screen might not be able to last.

It might not be the first time that it has been mentioned, but it is the first time that I thought about problems with the DS holding up. Giving a 5th grader a pointy stick (stylus) and telling him to "gently touch" the screen is probably that will result in a lot of DSs with holes in the bottom screen. It probably won't happen, but Nintendo could create a solid secondary market of selling replacement LCD screens.

Re:Toughness

[cowscows]

I wouldn't give a five year old something that expensive to play with anyways.

I think most of the concern about the PSP's screen is that it's generally unprotected by the design of the device. The clamshell on the GBA SP and DS makes both of them far more suitable for tossing into your bag, pulling them out for 10 minutes while on the subway, and then tossing it back in when you get to your stop.

Outside of Japan maybe, noone's going to wear their PSP around their neck like sony's be showing off. So you'll have to buy a bigass case for it (which will also have to protect disc media I guess), and that just adds a whole other step that makes it less convenient.

I've got a case for my GBA SP, I use it to organize my stuff when I'm going on long trips. But for day to day usage, the thing just sits around, floating from between my nightstand, my desk, and my living room. The casing shows some evidence of all that movement. The screen, fortunately, does not.

Re:Industry insider.

[sammaffei]

The Lynx failed due to lackluster advertising and pitiful developer support from Atari (i.e. Tramiel Co.). The Lynx was a great handheld and wasn't truely outdone until the TurboExpress showed up in the market.

I personally used one for about 10 years (until it finally gave out).

Re:Focus Groups...

[gmezero]

They probably hired the same focus group that told NEC to make make the PCEngine/CD system larger in the US, hence the monstrosly sized TG-16 with CD base. Remember, "bigger is better" cause it's all about the size of your p3n1s :b

Re:Industry insider.

[Taulin]

The Amiga was pretty successful here (US) too. The problem was the 'war' that was going on between PC lovers and Amiga lovers. PC lovers would always say 'I need it to do word processing, so I got a PC'. Meanwhile, Amiga owners just said 'whatever'. This lack of app support is one key factor that the Amiga did not do better in the US, but it is still a success. The Amiga 3k and 4k would have been a real contender if Commondor didn't screw up.