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Nintendo DS Review and Internal Pictures
OctaneZ writes "Lik Sang couldn't help themselves, and have already torn open their Gameboy DS. Among other things they found, the DS shares both its power and battery with the GB, and the 802.11b range is 10 to 30 meters, depending on the surroundings."
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/20/ 2351253&tid=207&tid=137
It's the Nintendo DS. Gameboy is a completely different product line.
Duplicated articles!!
"Not to mention the cheating tool it can become... "
How could you pass this off. "Mr. Jones, your Civics test is so easy I am putting myself at the liberty of playing some metroid while taking it."
Then again people used Ti-85 calculators in English class in my highschool.
God spoke to me.
I can't wait for warDriving DS to come out.. It will be the BEST GAME EVER!
The Wireless mode of the Nintendo DS is really impressive. Whether you play VS mode with Mario 64 DS, or if you send messages to each other using Pictochat, the range goes as far as 10 to 30 meters, even passing through walls and doors. We expect kids to go wild with it during boring school sessions in the next couple of months. Not to mention the cheating tool it can become... Nintendo just opened itself another niche market. The technology used for wireless connectivity is IEEE 802.11b, which some of you might already know from Wireless home or office networks. I can just imagine schools setting up jammers for 802.11b just because everyone brought in their DS to play during math class. Or even cheated on tests. On the Other hand, I think that this brings portable gaming another step closer to computers (even possibly further). 3D rendered graphics, and in-game chat? That's awesome. Now we just need to be able to interface the DS with a Computer network for multiplayer that way!
~Ilyanep
To get message, take amount of carrier pigeons at each stage mod 2. Then decode binary.
Heh, so who is going to be the first to make a netstumbler type app for the DS?
but will it have wireless internet access? is it capable of rendering websites via html, wml or perhaps msntv techniques? and can its 802.11b hardware act as a repeater, so wireless games and wireless internet can be daisy-chained?
lol. Only problem is with the limited power output of the console is that by time you find an open network, the administrator will be chasing you out of his cubicle!
_
Free 27" Sony WEGA TV
OK, so I have my Nintendo DS, and so far it's great, but what I was *hoping* for was that Picochat could be configured to go over the internet via 802.11b. Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case.
;)
The graphics are *amazing*. I've been playing the demo version of Metroid. The DS is somewhere between the N64 and GC in graphics quality. Gameplay is a little hard at times with the touch screen. You have to use the same thumb to move that you use to make contact with the screen. Oh well.. I guess it's time to evolve a third hand..
I also got Super Mario 64DS. No surprises there, per se. The split screen does give a nice perspective of the playfield while you're playing, however.
All in all I think Nintendo has the foundation of a truly classic gaming system.
Polymorphism -- It's what you make of it.
is does it run Linux yet?
. there used to be a sig here.....
It can do whatever any other device with an 802.11 wireless ethernet repeater can, as long as you can get software that does it.
... can be daisy-chained?
At this exact moment there is no software available for the DS which uses the wireless to connect to the internet. The only announced software so far which is known to use the wireless to connect to the internet is Nanostray, a shooter by the Iridium 3D people, which uses wifi to connect to an internet high score board.
Nintendo representatives seemed enthusiastic about the idea of a web browser for the DS, so I assume if someone goes to Nintendo asking for a license to make a DS web browser they'll get it.
and can its 802.11b hardware act as a repeater, so wireless games
This can be done; there's a DS game (I think Japan only right now) called "ping pals" that repeats in such a way that up to 128 people can connect to each other over the wireless, so long as there's an unbroken chain of DSes between them to relay the signal. I think most games require all the players to be in a 10-30 yard radius though.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
If you quit Picochat, it shuts the DS down. You can't get back to the main menu once a game has launched, without powering down. Gameboys have always not really cared about managing memory in a conventional way, and it would appear the DS is no more sophisticated in this regard. Makes it difficult to see it becoming more PIM or phonelike (which, with its feature set, would have seemed to be an obvious thing to do).
I'm just curious what the wi-fi communication does to the battery life on this thing. Anybody read numbers on the max. battery life playing with wi-fi and without?
From what I've heard so far:
:(
It seems the shortages are real, not hype, but it is not really something to worry about. Basically there are serious shortages in some areas but no problem whatsoever in others. It seems that outlets of the big video game chains (EBGames/Gamestop) often had shortages, and sometimes didn't even get enough units to cover their preorders, but more general stores that don't generally do the preordering thing (Best Buy, Target) you can just walk in and buy one.
There are also reports of shortages of a couple of the games, specifically Feel the Magic and Mr. Driller. I don't know how accurate these reports are. It's unfortunate it seems there's been a shortage of the good games but no problems getting the EA stuff
Now, whether there will be shortages after Black Friday is another question altogether.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
I never realised the Nintendo DS ran windows
And yet I've noticed that there are already people scalping them through Amazon Marketplace for as much as $269. And Amazon has them in stock for the standard $149.99 price. Sick.
There they were, sitting in the van with all those dials, and the cat was dead. -V. Marchetti, CIA
I had asked the same thing on another Slashdot DS story. Here in north Alabama, I can't find any stores that have any in stock. The Wal-Marts and Target stores got about 6 each and were sold out by midday Sunday. A local Rhino store had two left at closing time yesterday, but had sold both of them by 10:30 this morning.
There is a definite run on them here. The EB stores got enough to cover their pre-orders, but no extras at all. Best Buy got 16 and sold them all in an hour. No stores I talked to had any concrete dates when they would get more, but all expected at least one more shipment before Christmas.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
Can anyone tell me why there is a RSASecured logo on the back of the unit and on the box?
Amazon is no longer listing them for MSRP, but the Amazon Marketplace prices are up to $350. *This* kind of behavior is what causes supplied to run out. It's not that people can't find them for Christmas presents, it's that people are snarfing them up to scalp on Amazon and eBay.
-- stream of did I lock the front door consciousness
/still not regretting getting a GBC on the release day
--
"Open source is good." - Steve Jobs
"Open source is evil." - Microsoft
That may be all well and true(arguably of course), but when your handheld dies by the time it's booted and loaded a game you'll appreciate the NDS's 10 hour battery life. Personally I disagree with everything you said though, you can't appreciate the dual screens until you've used them. The hinge is nice in some cases because you can have you hands horizontal and the screen more vertical so you can avoid having to sometimes hold your hands at awkward angles to play the game. And Sony really screwed up by using discs. But hey... thats all just my oppinion.
Regards,
Steve
That's what the teeny little Pringles cans are for.
I'm returning my DS this morning. It has some major flaws.
I really wanted to like this machine. I *ached* to like it, because I want to see draw/chat becoming a daily thing.
I can sum it all up very neatly. It says that it has an "alarm." You would think that you set this alarm and the machine beeps at the time you've set, whatever you happen to be doing.
No such luck. The "alarm" is a special mode you put it in. While the "alarm" is active, you can't do anything else with the machine. It just displays the current time and the time the "alarm" will go off.
It's the same with every part of the DS software.
Want to PictoChat? The chatting's nice, but if you want to exit to the main menu you have to reset the machine. If you then want to check the time and date you have to reset the machine. If you change any of the user settings, like which screen GBA games will show up on when you run them, you have to reset the machine. If you're in Pictochat and you want to change your background color you'll end up resetting the machine twice!
Every time you reset it displays a several second startup screen and a health warning you have to click through.
What they had described was a multitasking system that would keep an eye out for other players, do the alarm stuff, and sleep when you weren't using it. What they gave us was a system with many modes, but no reasonable integration between them. It's a collection of kludges.
The game functionality is very nice if you just want to pop in a GBA or a DS game and play, but the bells and whistles are refugees from a 1994 handheld PC. So no, I really don't think a PDA card would work. A PDA requires an uninterrupted background OS of some sort to be watching out for your appointments. The DS just can't do that.
Oh, while I'm griping, the sound's got so much interference from two processors and two screens that in a good set of headphones the buzzing is nearly unbearable.
The DS apparently has a feature where if you want to play a multiplayer game, only one DS actually has to have the cart, the others will download it.
:)
Needless to say, such a scheme is going to need some very well thought-out security.
Any bets on how many days it takes before it gets cracked and you can set up your own "DS server"?
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
This is arbitrage. A shortage in a good, such as a game console or a concert ticket, occurs when the price of a good in the market is set at a point where the quantity demanded exceeds the quantity supplied, either because the producer underestimated demand or because some other entity fixes prices below the equilibrium price (figure). Scalpers notice the potential for a shortage and start buying goods at the set price P and then reselling them at the (higher) price P' on the demand curve where quantity demanded equals the (constant) quantity supplied by the producer. Whether you call it "arbitrage" or "scalping" depends on what scope of rights under a government-granted monopoly you are willing to give to a producer.
The wi-fi capabilities are going to sell millions of these things to little kids. Think about how big the IM market is with these guys. Haven't you ever seen the little faux PDA's that actually have some wireless text messenging built in?
Think about it this way. When little 10 year old Johny wants a new handheld cuz his GBA broke, what's his mom gonna buy him? My guess is that a DS would only make sense if she wanted to get him something new. Nintendo sold us all as kids with the NES, and has continued to do so with the gameboy for many years. They really have no competition. The PSP will either sink or become a niche item for 20 somethings with money. I can't see many people spending $200-300 for a portable console, especially on kids. How many times do you think one of those finely sculpted bricks will take a 4 foot drop.....with the drive spinning?
I'm getting nearer to 30 and I love the SP, but I think that is probably not the norm. I really liked the classic SP and seeing the familliar grey lines on black definately imparted some sense of nostalgia. When I get on the bus and I fire my SP up, usually the only other people actually playing video games on the bus are the really greasy fat nerdy kids (oh, no offense intended to 60% of you here) and 5-10 year olds. For some reason adults sometimes try to watch me play because I think it bewilders them that someone other than a kid would be playing video games in public.
The gameboy will certainly take this round because Nintendo knows its market so incredibly well and have always pushed for what it considers the golden pricepoint. >=$100
While the DS is $150, remember that the SP and maybe even the GBA started out at $120 or so and has slowly fallen to $100.
Clamshell is a great design too. It protects the pricey LCD screens that so easily scratch and break.
I mean really. Is there any debate over who will end up with the lion's share of the market here?
zosxavius photography
"The PSP is quite a bit more powerful than the DS,"
It can throw a few more prettier polygons on the screen. That's not a clear indicator that you can do 'more'. Compare the N64 to the original Playstation. The N64 could push prettier polygons, but the Playstation could throw more 'ugly' ones on the screen. About 3x the amount the N64 could. Sadly, niether system was really capable (graphically) of a game that the other couldn't.
" has a larger screen (I don't need a separate screen for maps),"
Funny, if you're ever pushing a button to pull up a map, then yes you'd actually be quite happy to have that second screen. Never mind what the stylus interface on the second screen adds to the mix. Again, not sure why you'd want less here.
"supports MemoryStick"
BFD.
" and uses UMD media that has a higher storage capacity."
The cost of that 'good' is battery life and durability of the machine. Though I'm a Nintendo zealot/fanboy, I'm envious of this simply because I think it'll instantly mean better audio for the PSP. However, for a portable, I'm not impressed with this media. I loves my battery life. I loves my no-load-times. I loves my portable stuff not having moving parts to break.
"Anyone who plays on a handheld gaming system for more than 5 hours at a time, needs to find something else to do."
You realize that comment sounds really stupid to anybody who's ever flown internationally or ridden in a car for 4 days straight driving to WallyWorld?
"Derp de derp."
I'm not returning it because I expected it be a PDA. I'm returning it because the UI is very bad and the sound quality is poor. There's no way that I should have to reset the machine this often.
Half the functions on the main menu are a trap. If you just want to play a game, you start up in the menu. That takes 2-3 seconds, yes. 40% of the screen real estate on that tiny touchpad is taken up by functions that involve submenus. If you go into *any submenu* by accident, you will have to reboot the machine.
Let me repeat. Exiting any submenu to the main menu reboots the machine. That is NOT the same as any console. On the Gamecube you can access the clock, the memory menu, and the television settings menu without individually power cycling to switch menus. You can then exit those settings menus and select your game. Ditto the X-Box dashboard. The way the DS is set up is archaic and reminds me of my Apple II.
My comment on the PDA was only in relation to the comment to which I was replying. He suggested a PDA cart. I wanted to give him a heads up that it's impossible. I tucked the UI gripes in as an aside.
As for "was that just what I wanted it to be" they did in fact describe a sleep-mode that would wake you up if another DS was nearby in sleep. They said Pictochat could then be used to discuss with the other owner what game to play. The sleep mode is present. It is documented in the manual, so I'm not just spinning in the world of hype. It's just that the implementation is very poor.