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Europe Sees Launch of Nintendo DS
Eurogamer has coverage from last week's launch of the Nintendo DS handheld in the EU. The article covers the improving opinion of the handheld in Europe, and sales are reportedly already going quite well. From the article: "The dual screens were sensibly sized, the touch screen robust and responsive, the stylus well kept, the buttons pretty well distributed, the size and weight of the thing surprisingly comfortable, the list of games as long as your arm and the technical gubbins and service potential far greater than any other handheld." The BBC has details as well.
They must have gotten an entirely different set of games. Last I checked, there were about 15 or so games for it here in the states, which even in a large typeface would make a list roughly the length of my hand.
This flies in the face of science.
Its the first handheld i've bought. The touch screen really had me interested. Just thinking of how they could use it. The battery life is great too. Its been lasting a day of a lot of play since i got it.
Which was one of my reasons for getting it instead of a psp. I wanted a handheld game device. Not a dvd playing, graphic intensive (read: battery hog) handheld. I already have a dvd player and would buy a portable dvd player if i felt the need for one. I doubt the psp will gain the support of the film industry. How many films are actually going to get released on UMDs.
I'm very happy with its features; wireless multiplayer + single cart multiplayer, touch screen and the microphone. I have an xbox for the more graphic intensive games. When i'm playing a handheld gameplay is much more important.
Now i'm looking forward to the proposed internet play with Animal Crossing DS.
My only quibble is the launch games are a bit lacking. Only mario 64 ds and wario touched interested me and wario was sold out.
"The dual screens were sensibly sized, the touch screen robust and responsive, the stylus well kept, the buttons pretty well distributed, the size and weight of the thing surprisingly comfortable, the list of games as long as your arm and the technical gubbins and service potential far greater than any other handheld."
What a crock of horseshit. List of games as long as your arm. How much did Eurogamer get paid for this article, and why is that kind of blatent shilling on slashdot? Even if Ping Pals was released in Europe, wouldn't it still have something like 13 games (not counting the 2 games supposedly being released this week)? Also, isn't the Gizmondo already released there? Even if not, the NGage has more service potential than the DS (as much as it pains me to say so). In retrospect, I'm not even sure why I'm responding to this terrible whoring. Bad Eurogamer, bad.
schild
editor, f13.net
Finally I can try it out ; So I went into A CD/game store today, only to find the DS that is there for general play (in a booth) was just totally f*cked up by damn asshats : :/
The stylus seemed to be used to permanently make engravements into the bottom screen, and one of the buttons was broken
..but boy is it ugly. the hinge feels unsturdy and will doubtless be the first thing to break...it's almost as if nintendo got Clive Sinclair to design this thing....i hate it.
Hmmm... In the console business Nintendo was on top. Now they're on the bottom and Sony's on top. Nintendo was the handheld king until just recently. Now Sony's trying to slide into the business.
;-)
Perhaps Nintendo should be worried.
I believe that Nintendo needs to shakes things up. The Gamecube just wasn't good enough to be the leader. Now Nintendo's handhelds need to be better then good enough, or else they'll fail too. Luckily, creating something different seems to be just what Nintendo is doing. And since I like Nintendo, I can only hope it's enough.
They say there can only be two major consoles. Nintendo needs get out of the console business and get in to the handheld business. Before they're thrown out of both.
Meanwhile, I need to get me one of these DS gadgets.
I saw one at my local GAME store and it was toally borked. :/
Started up, obayed a few touch screen/button presses, then seemed to 'crash' at the same point and wouldn't go beyond that, couldn't play any games (it seemed to be a demo system with a few games, but of course I don't know as I didn't work).
For me the unit is far too bulky considering the screen size. I would rather have one large high res screen, than two smaller low res screens. I think the PSP will kick bottom when they finally release it here (and it will be Nintendo's fault for clearly dropping the ball on this one IMO).
I really don't get Nintendo were thinking with this design. Clamshell design can be good (as Sonys Clie range has shown) why didn't they just build a product with a single large screen and 3D support?
I can see having two screens give potential for interesting gameplay (but it sill seems silly to be me that top one is still so small and no serious 3D support AFAIK). However, I can see almost no value in touch screen on a gaming system as using a pen on a system like that is not as nice an input for gameplaying (and I think the screen is only more likely to break and the pen get lost, so worse overall than no touch screen IMO).
Really, although I can appreciate the idea behind the system (touch screen seemes gimicky still, but 2 screens - cant wait for a developer to take advantage of it. Advance wars ds anyone?) I fully believe that Nintendo is shooting themselves in the foot developing for 2 handheld platforms. The only redeeming grace of the DS right now is that it plays GBA games, and Backwards compatability should be a feature, not the reason a system sells.
There is still no real reason to grab a DS right now. The games are all still-to-come, and from the demo unit at the local eb, the touchscreen has the resiliance of day old pudding. The manager is trying to sell the first 3 demo units, at like half price, and no one is grabbing them because there bloody unplayable. Sign me up for a PSP with Lumines, Untold Legends, and Mercury, and I'll grab a DS when I see software worthy of consideration (post E3 this story will change, but so will the DS's price point!)
Physics is nothing like religion. If it was, we'd have an easier time trying to raise money!
on releasing the "Technical Gubbins" for the US model? I hope so! That's the mega-ton announcement I've been waiting for!
From Eurogamer article:
So I wasn't the only one who has the automatical reaction of playing GB Tetris on any new GB hardware? =) That certainly was the first game I played with my original GB, the GBA and GB Player.
Due to my personal distinct lack of any and all GBA versions of Tetris, I had to settle for Rampage Puzzle Attack, which indeed had unprecedented picture clarity on this amazing backlit screen.
There's still one original GB's accessory that I use: the headphones. =) And if I can't find a proper carrying bag for DS soon, I may need to use the original GB bag too (which isn't too good for carrying around GBA/DS games, though...)