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Nintendo DS to Launch November 21
mcc writes "PlanetGamecube is reporting the upcoming Nintendo DS handheld has been given a launch date of November 21st and a price of $150 ! It is also being reported that the Nintendo DS will ship with PictoChat (a sort of chat/whiteboard software) and some form of the Metroid Prime Hunters multiplayer FPS bundled in. A fact sheet is also available."
Nowadays, these things are fantastically cool, and I love them, but man, do I not need another video game platform. Now I drive myself places. My only video game time is at home, where I've got a 65" TV, a PC, and six different consoles. I want a GBA, I'm sure I'll want the DS, but I know I'd never play them.
It's really kind of depressing.
Reality has a conservative bias: it conserves mass, energy, momentum...
Doomed like the Gameboy which DOMINATES the handheld market? I don't see a changing of the guard anytime soon.
And one screen is touch-sensitive; that could certainly lead to some novel applications--er, I meant games, of course ... :-)
... built-in WiFi ... tempting ...
I wonder if you can run Linux on it? It sports an ARM9 and an ARM7
But, the one place Big N has dominated has been handhelds... Let's see launch price of the PSP, but the DS looks like another home run!
'Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?'
Nintendo dominates the handheld market, and will probably continue to do so. And the handheld market is what this article is about.
"But is it doomed much like Nintendo's previous hardware? PS/2 and XBox are royally kicking Nintendo's ass at the sport that Nintendo once ruled." Actually, XBox is losing to Nintendo. The GameCube sold more units and Nintendo raked in more profits than the XBox. But yeah, the PS2 is beating the GameCube and XBox put together. Not only that, but Nintendo still rules the handheld market. The GameBoy Advance SP is utterly unrivaled. And the only competitor to the Nintendo DS- the PSP- costs twice as much ($300), and requires you to buy the same games you might already have on playstation 2 on minidisks. I predict Nintendo will remain in dominance in the handheld market. " I, for one, still find the best games ever to be ones that came on the NES and SNES. Final Fantasy series up until 6 (3 in the US), etc. FF aside, Nintendo is still home to some of the best RPGs ever made. Lets hope the DS does the same." I expect it will. I hope we see a Zelda DS :)
Yeah, they said 6-10 hours. Takes an hour longer to charge than the GBA, but still kicks ass.
The GBA never had NES, SNES, N64 or Gamecube compatibility. But the GBA did have GB/GBC compatibility, and the DS will have GBA compatibility (at least). That built-in library, along with low cost and good battery life give Nintendo the same huge edge they enjoyed when the GBA first came out.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
That are from 30 to 100 feet away! Save the energy of actually looking at people, or raising your voice slightly.
Is there some aspect of the chat feature that I'm missing or not understanding? If you're playing a game with someone within 100 feet maximum, shouldn't you be able to see and/or holler (holla for all you kids) at them?
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I think nintendo should make a cartridge with emulations of a couple of those old multi screen game 'n' watch games they had. If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's an example. You can see others on Gameandwatch.com, just click on "multiscreen" on the menu.
Hell, if they don't do it, I might just have to waste my time programming it myself once somebody gets together a free dev-kit for the DS.
PS/2 and XBox are royally kicking Nintendo's ass at the sport that Nintendo once ruled.
If I had a nickel for every time i've heard this...Look up the sales figures.
The PS2 is slaughtering the other two, but in the US, figures put the GC and XBox running either neck-and-neck in 2nd place or with the GC slightly ahead. And that's to say nothing of Japan, where the GC is beating the XBox by something like 20:1 in total sales atm.
The battery life is estimated to be about 10 hours. (I looked on a few forums and they were consistently saying 10.) My GBA SP has exceeded my expectations in terms of holding a charge, so I hope that the DS will do the same.
Maybe... a lot of those games are available elsewhere now, however. FF Anthology & FF Chronicles available on the PS (and hence on the PS2 as well) give us access to FFIV, FFV, FFVI and Chrono Trigger. I also don't know how doomed its previous hardware is... the GBA is the dominating force of the handheld market. I guess we'll have to wait and see how Sony's PSP does, which I'm personally rooting for.
Of course I remember when the PlayStation was first announced and thinking to myself, "Sony? Sony doesn't make video games who are they trying to kid?"
Here's a page with some pictures of the DS, if you haven't seen it.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Bullshit. Many people have tried to enter the handheld market (at least 4 large companies have launched handhelds in the US that I can remember).
The reason Nintendo owns the handheld market right now is the same reason they ruled the console market until technology passed them by by a full generation - they are a game company, not a software company, not a video game company, not a consumer electronics company - they make games that hook kids like crack cocaine.
[Set Cain on fire and steal his lute.]
in the game market, because the PSP, with it's higher price-point, and moving parts is not really something you're going to want to buy for a kid. The PSP is a portable home-entertainment-center for the idle-rich geek, and that's where it will find it's audience.
Nitendo knows kids, and knows kids games. I expect the DS will clean up there.
Disclaimer: I work for a DS developer...};^)
What were you expecting?
...for your 5-yeat-old right?
My largest rant about games nowadays is that companies seem to spend so much time/money on graphics the contents is, well, lacking. This seems to be slowly changing of late. But, heh, I always get suckered into buying Nintendo stuff because I am a huge fan of the few genres that they have come up with. Zelda and Metroid, even with good graphics, still maintain good game content, and I still buy one after another.
To iterate is human; to recurse, divine!
Since it also runs GBA software...How does "now" work for you?
"Mod, mod, mod...and another troll bites the dust."
As others have pointed out, nintendo is FAR from getting spanked in terms of actual sales in the market, especially in terms of handhelds.
While it might come as shocking, not all video gamers are rabid 20-something zealots who think the kiddie gamecube games aren't manly enough for their elite skills. Even more shocking... VIDEO GAME SYSTEMS TARGETTED AT CHILDREN STILL SELL. There is, in fact, a video game market outside of the "living in mom's basement" niche.
I don't know who are worse, xbox fanboys or playstation fanboys. The gamecube crowd seems to mostly shut up and just enjoy their games. Maybe because the gamecube crowd is mostly children who go to school all day instead of posting to seven hundred online message boards while "looking for a job" in the aforementioned basement.
My point: stop your silly video game prick waving. All three systems have good and bad games. All three systems aren't going anywhere. And all three systems are going to continue make a shitload more money than you're ever going to see.
From earlier this month: Running Ancient UNIX On Nintendo Gameboy
It seems rather odd to me that something by Nintendo would be released in the US first. Is this normal for their handheld systems?
Oh, other than the crappy Ngage? I guess you mean handhelds like Sega Gamegear, Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket, Turbo Express? They all went up against the original monochrome Gameboy and failed. You'll soon be able to add the Sony PSP to that list.
Support the First Amendment. Read at -1
Launch Date and MSRP: Nov. 21, 2004, in North America ($149.99), Dec. 2, 2004, in Japan (15,000 yen), Q1 2005 in Europe and Australia
Size (when closed): 148.7 millimeters (5.85 inches) wide, 84.7 millimeters (3.33 inches) long, 28.9 millimeters (1.13 inches) tall
Top Screen: A backlit, 3-inch, semitransparent reflective TFT color LCD with 256 x 192 pixel resolution and .24 mm dot pitch, capable of displaying 260,000 colors
Touch Screen: Same specs as top screen, but with a transparent analog touch screen
Wireless Communication: IEEE 802.11 and Nintendo's proprietary format; wireless range is 30 to 100 feet, depending on circumstances; multiple users can play multiplayer games using just one DS Game Card
Controls: Touch screen, embedded microphone for voice recognition, A/B/X/Y face buttons, plus control pad, L/R shoulder buttons, Start and Select buttons
Input/Output: Ports for both Nintendo DS Game Cards and Game Boy® Advance Game Paks, terminals for stereo headphones and microphone
Other features: Embedded PictoChat software that allows up to 16 users to chat at once, embedded real-time clock, date, time and alarm, touch-screen calibration
CPUs: One ARM9 and one ARM7
Sound: Stereo speakers providing virtual surround sound, depending on the software
Battery: Lithium ion battery delivering six to 10 hours of play on a four-hour charge, depending on use; power-saving sleep mode; AC adapter
Languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, Italian
Color: Silver and black
The ds is a cool concept, but the handheld market really caters to kids. The gameboy advance, with a cheap price and cheap games will still be more popluar among kids because they are half the price. For christmas, console systems are the same price as the ds, and many kids(read: parents) will choose the $99 gamecube (with metroid prime, the FULL game), or $150 ps2/xbox over the ds. If your kid drops the ds, you're out $150. I hope this thing comes with a parent's guide because: -it has a touch lcd screen which kids seem to love to hammer on. -kids tend to want to use a regular writing device on a touch pad, like a pen or crayon. So its wireless. Can you not use them on planes? Now, if you can hack them, the possibilities are endless.
Officially, the DS is meant to be a third platform to go alongside the Gameboy and Gamecube lines. Unofficially, the DS is the GBA's successor and will soon take its place in the market. Though I have a feeling a lot of people will cling to the GBA-SP's svelte form-factor for as long as possible.
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
And GB/GBC compatability has been confirmed. :) I think the first game i'll play is the old school pack-in tetris when I get my DS. :)
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. - Anais Nin
All I want are battery life figures that aren't coming from the manufacturer. From some game mag or game site that actually has the thing in hand and has been playing games with lots of bells and whistles, not some basic settings with the backlights off in some crappy "battery save" mode or something.
Why? Nintendo historically has said the truth; They said the SP would have 16-20 hours of battery life with the backlight off, and half that with the light on. It does that. They said the gamecube would move 7-12 millions of polys for second. In fact it moves more.
If Nintendo said that the DS will allow you to fly between countries, I would start making the paperwork to get a passport.
On the other hand, Sony and Microsoft, well, they aren't very reliable about their numbers. PS2 would move hundreds of millions of pollys. Yeah f&cking right...If they say the PSP will have a decent battery life, it means "you will be able to walk from one plug to another, and your battery will last just that".
Yup, it seems that Nintendo is much more comfortable underhyping the capabilities of its systems. You can also see this back when they presented the Gamecube, they didn't use the inflated possible poly per sec stats and instead noted what they thought it could reasonably put out under game conditions (numbers which have been bettered in actual games since then).
Frankly, with Sony refusing to properly clarify how many hours the PSP can be played on a charge with an actual game, I'm guessing that the DS is gonna last significantly longer than the PSP. And that has been a key factor in the Gameboy systems beating all of its technologically superior competitors. Sony can talk all it wants about the PSP's capabilities but if I am charging for 2-3 hours to play less than 4-5 hours...
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
According to TFA (which I read long before this story was posted), the GB/GBC support has been officially dismissed. They said that the DS will only play GBA games and not even have multiplayer capabilities for those.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Sega dominated the console market, and just couldn't pull it off in the handheld market. Heck, some people say their efforts with the Game Gear and Sega CD sank the Genesis and let the SNES win out in the long run. Sony's got a fragile design behind them right now. I don't think they're going to end up with a system that can withstand the punishment a GBA can withstand (and gets inflicted on it regularly). I don't think the PSP will do nearly as bad as the N-Gage did, but ten years from now, I expect we'll all be talking about it like we talk about the Game Gear now. It was around for a while, it was kinda cool, and the Gameboy is still going.
I look at the PSP and all I can think is "Oh god, the scratches!"
I love the clamshell design. I once dropped my GBA SP on the street and it was RUN OVER BY A BUS. Picked it up, popped the game back in and aside from some wicked-awesome battle scars, it works great.
Given their reputation with the PS and PS2 lasers etc., I doubt very much that Sony will ever make hardware that sturdy
I have a lot of opinions about Cyborgs and Architects
This is very easy to explain. The Game Boy and Game Boy Color used an ~4MHz 8-bit CPU similar to the Zilog Z80 (which was itself based on the Intel 8080). The Game Boy Advance uses a ~33MHz 32-bit ARM7 CPU. In order to make Game Boy backwards compatibility as fast, simple, and (yes) cheap as possible, it's got a second processor: a Z80. They can't be used at the same time, because they're for different architectures for different cartridges.
Since the DS uses a ~67MHz 32-bit ARM9, they either had to 1) have three processors in the thing, 2) abandon the legacy games, or 3) write emulation software into the console. $150 is already fairly expensive for a Nintendo device, portable or not, so they chose option 2. Accordint to the Wikipedia article, there are emulation projects for the ARM9 underway.
I honestly just think it's been their price point, every competitor that tried to touch them came in with an overpriced platform that was vastly superior in nearly everyway but was totally impractically priced. Sony is going to pull the same thing with the PSP, but being Sony, they'll be able to keep the thing alive indefinitely (like minidisc) until it finally comes down in price enough to actually get people to buy it.
It will be interesting if the PSP is finally able to infilitrate the ranks of people too embarassed to buy a gameboy the way the playstation one hooked huge amounts of new customers. By making it more of a gadget, capable of playing movies and such, they stand a good chance to get those kinds of customers to rationalize the purchase..
The following business reasons might explain why they are releasing the Nintedo DS in North America first:
Apologies for the cross-post but it seems relevant here.