Slashdot Mirror
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."
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.