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RJ Mical On The DS, PSP, Current Game Hardware

Posted by simoniker on from the old-guard dept.

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.")

3 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Durability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    From what I gather, talking to people who were actually at E3, the DS's screen is a type of touchscreen noone has seen before... its like noone knows how it works, but it's really durable. Check out the forums at http://www.n-sider.com/ for stories of people really trying to damage them and coming up unsuccessful. I don't belive Nintendo has anything to worry about in terms of durability of the system. They've never released anything that was prone to break down, whereas Sony is on what? It's 3rd or 4th version of the PS2? They couldn't make a durable product even AFTER going through a whole previous generation of console manufacturing? I really hope the PSP does come with some kind of protective case. And I don't doubt the DS will survive something closer to a nuclear blast.

    1. Re:Durability by Allison+Geode · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Sony is on what? It's 3rd or 4th version of the PS2?

      sony's on their 10th version of ps2, actually. i just bought one, myself, and the biggest difference between mine and my friend's first-gen, is that his makes a grinding noise while reading discs (from age) and mine has no iLink port, but it does have an infrared port between the reset and eject buttons for use of remote control without needing a 'plug-in.'

    2. Re:Durability by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      Lately? Nintendo's hardware is notoriously resilient. I remember that Nintendo Power used to print letters from people that had seen their Nintendo stuff withstand monstrous violence unscathed. My favorite was the Gameboy (the old brick-like version) that flew out of a car window that was driving over a bridge at 55 mph. They found the Gameboy by listening for the Tetris music. It was barely even scratched.

      After reading that, I always found it amusing that that version of Tetris was made by a company called Bulletproof software.