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State Of The Handheld Industry 2005

Posted by Zonk on from the i-heart-my-ds dept.

Jack writes "The State of the Handheld Industry 2005 is back. The yearly feature includes roundtables with journalists and handheld developers. A report by GCAdvanced indicates that this year it is a 4-day feature at Nintendo Insider. The developer roundtable is already up. It talks about not only the GBA, DS, and PSP, but the Gizmondo, N-Gage, and mobile phone gaming. GCAdvanced also reports there is an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan. Although she seems to dodge some questions, it gives new information about the Game Boy Micro faceplates and Nintendo DS online with the Wi-Fi connection." To provide some first hand opinions, The Game Chair has a piece on the meaning behind handheld gaming.

2 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. Nintendogs is a killer app by LKM · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Lumines, Nintendogs, Electroplankton, etc. are just not killer apps.

    You may not think that Nintendogs is a killer app. That's because you're a gamer. Nintendogs is aimed at non-gamers, and in Japan, it's definitely moving loads of DS consoles. Nintendogs is very much a killer app for the DS, because it makes non-gamers and casual gamers buy consoles.

    If you think Nintendogs is not a killer app, you're fooling yourself. It may not be a hit among traditional gamers, but it's definitely shifting DS boxes in huge numbers.

  2. Handheld gaming's future never looked brighter by alvinrod · · Score: 3, Interesting
    Up until now consumers have had one choice for the most part, and that was the GameBoy. Everything else that was put up against the GameBoy was slaughtered by it. Now Sony has come with deep pockets and the ability to support something else.

    Personally, I really don't like the PSP (it's just an expensive portable PS2 for the most part), but I can see the advantages that it brings. The graphics on the GameBoy have never been all that great. Many games have looked good despite the GB or GBA's inability to throw out high polygon counts. The PSP makes 3D gaming possible on a handheld in ways that it has never been before. However, it seems as though most companies are intent on throwing rehashes of PS2 games on it. I really haven't seen any originality on the system. It has a lot of potential, but right now it seems a lot of that potential is being wasted. The only reason I'd buy one is Lumines, but I'm not paying almost $300 for the experience.

    The DS on the other hand is really an odd duck. Like the PSP there is a lot of untapped potential on the system that's going to waste. However after playing games like Kirby's Canvas Curse, I've been blown away by some of the possibilities of the system. The DS is just begging people to think outside of the box and come up with something new and innovative.

    The most important thing though, is that consumers have a choice in what type of gaming philosophy they want to subscribe to. You can buy into the innovation and new style of gaming brought about by the DS, or you can get the mainstream rich-graphic games that the PSP has to offer. No matter what your preference is, consumers have more of a choice now.