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Free 3G Wireless For Nintendo's Next Handheld?
itwbennett writes "'Nintendo is feeling the sting of competition from the iPhone,' writes Peter Smith in a recent post. 'At least, that's the feeling one gets when reading Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's thoughts on the future of Nintendo handhelds. According to a Financial Times piece, Iwata suggests the next Nintendo handheld (and to be clear, he isn't talking about the big screen DS launching in Japan next month) might include free 3G wireless, much like the Amazon Kindle does. The challenge is to offer the immediacy of downloading an inexpensive new game, anywhere, anytime, without forcing the user into some kind of monthly data plan.' From the FT piece: 'Only people who can pay thousands of yen a month [in mobile phone subscriptions] can be iPhone customers. That doesn't fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products,' Mr Iwata said."
The ebook readers can get away with this cheaply because ebooks don't take up much space. Games on the other hand can be quite large, and I imagine the next-gen games meant to compete with the iPhone 3GS (which has more powerful hardware than both the current DSi and and PSP Go) will be even larger. Can Nintendo really front the costs to provide access to this service without increasing game price?
While it might not be revolutionary (the Kindle DID do it first :P), it is certainly something I would be interested in. I would never buy/use an iPhone (ridiculously overpriced, and the way Apple handles apps pisses me off), and I'm not a big one for ebooks (I like to have something with pages, that smells like paper and glue :) ). However, I do like having a portable gaming system for long drives/flights, or just waiting around. One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play, or you have to be happy with one/two, and if you finish them or grow bored, you're SoL. The ability to DL a new game on the fly would make the purchase of this system a no-brainer for me... even if I only used it once every few months, I feel like I would be getting worthwhile value out of it.
Who knows. Probably Japan at first.
You have to bear in mind that none of this will really be free. The 3G connection will be used to download content, which will cost money. Some of that money will go to the 3G network provider.
Just like with Kindle, where a ebook sales provide Amazon enough money to pay for all that "free" browsing.
What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone.
A lot of DS and PSP fanboys on Slashdot prefer the tactile response of the directional pad and physical buttons on the "traditional" handhelds over the flat multitouch screen of an iPod Touch. Some of the members of tetrisconcept.net and harddrop.com (forums for hardcore Tetris fans) have tried Tetris on an iPhone, and the control scheme wasn't suitable for the sort of 100+ piece per minute play that they're used to.
as someone who had an ipod, a phone, and a dslite...I was carrying around a lot of stuff. The iphone, for me, consolidates everything into one package
I'm currently on a $5 per month plan at Virgin Mobile because I don't text or use a lot of minutes. I looked into an iPhone and found the convenience of a single device not worth the money for the required voice and data plans.
You don't _really_ want a dev kit to make games on it, you want a dev kit so you can pirate games.
Say I start by making a PC-based demo of the game in question. "I made this game, but Nintendo and Sony won't let me port it to their hardware." Would such a whine sound more credible?
There are other open portable gaming devices
Which of them have a distributor in the United States? Best Buy has never heard of a "GP2X" or a "Dingoo", and Pandora isn't out yet.