You CD is too big to play games on, but then again neither is your PS2 or Xbox. The point of the handheld market is easy portability. A CD player sized 'handheld' (or what would you call it then? a palmtop?) is just too big for light travel.
That size form factor would be great for long trips (week long business meeting, going to visit a relative) but you could just as easily pick up an LCD for your favorite console and do it that way.
Preface: I own a DS, and will probably buy a PSP (although the price looks pretty steep after games and a mem stick).
Anyway, the reason the PSP is going to be a huge success for Sony is that they can show it on programs like 'The Today Show' and have people immediately understand it. Sony is targeting a high-end market of older men who have paid big bucks for Blackberries and the like, and they can immediately see how this fits their lifestyle. It's sexy like an ipod, and does good gaming like the PS2, something many people are familiar with.
The movie features should really be viewed as a bonus since I really don't think this small a device is suitable for much movie watching. However, some may think so.
The DS, on the other hand, is a completely different not only from other handhelds, but also from other gaming platforms, due to the stylus/touch screen, microphone, and dual screen layout. Developers are still trying to figure out what to do with those screens and the stylus.
All that Sony is really missing is the 'Killer App' for the system. If they manage to release something like GTA:Wireless where you can go near any WAP and play GTA with a few hundred others the battle is won.
The bottom line is that you can show a PSP on a few TV Shows and it will instantly become a media darling, giving it that 'must have' conspicuous consumption quality. To anchor this image, think what would happen if Friends were still on and Joey was seen playing a PSP a few times. Or how about if one of the challenges on 'The Apprentice' somehow involves selling PSPs? You wouldn't be able to keep them on the shelf. While the DS would benefit from these similarly, it is a much more abstract concept to sell. Even now, it is marketed more for what it can do than for what it does.
As long as Sony releases some good games fairly quickly, this will severely hamper the DS's market share. I still say there is room for both in the handheld market, but Sony may just get a bigger slice of the pie.
Sex in the City is an excellent example that I totally overlooked. You are right, a bunch of men talking about their sexual conquests would be yanked in minutes.
As to what my problem is with Friends? Well, it's a complicated one. Basically, I liked Friends for the first two seasons. Then it started getting really big, so they started making things a bit wackier (and more sitcom generic jokes) episode after episode. Eventually, it just wasn't funny anymore, but this was at the height of it's popularity so people didn't want to hear that. Basically, America fell in love with Friends so much that they didn't care that the show became a soap opera (and a bad one at that) and went in the crapper years ago.
Agreed, mostly. There's been a lot of stories of outages and such on/. recently, and yeah, much of it is whiney. They have their points on stuff like the game should be available when you can play it, comparing the game service to cell service etc. Maybe not great points but still.
The two big differences is that WoW and the like are online games, and Steam locks you out of offline games. The second is what does happen if Valve goes under or (more likely) just doesn't feel like supporting 'game X' on Steam anymore for bandwidth/storage reasons or whatever? I do have many classic games I still play today that are from *waaay* back, that would not be playable if they were set up in a Steam-like fashion. I *hope* it'll be like one poster suggested and there will simply be a 'final patch' that disables all authentication.
Throw my hat into this too. I agree 100%. I do enjoy Raymond, the show is hilarious at times, but I hate the environment it lives in. If you switch the sex roles of any of these sitcoms there would be a gender-backlash the likes of which we have never seen.
What bothers me is that many times the 'moral' of the show (Raymond included) is often something akin to 'Women are right, men are idiots, deal with it'. Let's throw some more examples out there. My favorite immasculater "Yes, Dear" which by it's very title tells you the motive. Horrible show by the way. "Friends" of course, but these are both cancelled. "Listen Up!", which I've only watched like 3 times, has the same theme. Then there is another one I watch for the humor anyway "The King of Queens". I don't know if there are more since I gave up on any sitcom where marriage is involved, mostly because of this.
If anyone would respond to this in a good way, I would appreciate an example of the reversal of this. It's not that I want the world to go back to the 40's when there was things like 'womens work', I just want a few sitcoms out there that don't *always* rely on the 'men are idiots, thank god they get married/find a woman' theme. Isn't marriage/relationships supposed to be about equality?
Because a lot of gamers, if we are really facing facts, are addicts. We love that feeling we get when we play the newest, hottest title. This isn't GTA (which is played by hardcore gamers and the 'mainstraim' gamers that slashdot is so not fond of). This is Half Life, it's for die hard FPS shooter fans, and those that love to see the FPS done well.
My point is, if you're a gamer that buys more than 4 games a month (or some number to be qualified as 'addict'), I bet you have signs of addiction. You *can't* leave half life on the shelf, never to have even seen it. This type of personality is a large part of their audience.
This kind of behavior on gamer's part is extremely similar to addicts. If you do a lot of crack or meth, you (usually anyway) *know* it's bad for you, but you'll do anything to do it again. Sound familiar?
I think you missed his joke. This is a MS product. That 'feature' will be fixed when the user authenticates their (X++)Box with MS, once verified, the name changes to the correct (X+1)Box, thusly MS will know when you call for tech support if you're using 'authentic' MS products.:)
The exact value of X is left as an exercise to the reader.
Yeah, no game price cuts. But I *will* be picking up a few cheap Xboxes when they drop low enough. Hell, I may pick up a few extra Cubes too. A lot of my cube games will *always* be good for a party.
The emulatorsareout and about at the same stage those PS1 emulators were when the PS2 was released. Not a lot of progress though, these machines are incredibly complex.
I wish they would learn more towards the linux community though. I'm dying to hook those up to my MythBox.:)
Hahaha. It's funny because it's true. Which is where we got Windows '95' and 'Millenium' probably. I guess XBoxTwo would be trademark infringement, and still fail the less than clause. Well, MS could always just trump everything with XboxInfinity (which is what you call when you're a child) or perhaps XboxQuantum if they're feel risky. I like the latter.
Or perhaps we're incrementing the wrong end? How about XCrate or XBiggerBox. Bigger is better no?
While I'm off on a rant, how about making a deal with Hummer, merge the next H2 with the XBox, and call it the XH3? Now we're talking. You could even put a few tires on it and make it a scale RC car of the new H3, which is operated with a remote (xbox) controller!
And whoever said that Xbox Next is improbable should remeber that it *is* called the Xbox. Rotate your head back to before the launch, and the 'Xbox' name sounds silly. 'X' for unknown and 'box' for a containter? Surely they won't call it that? They did. It's just a common name now so we don't think about it. Out of all our speculation here, Xbox Next is as good as any.
This will make for quite the interesting year game wise. It will also make for lots of price slashes. Since the current consoles still have lot's of graphics power and a huge install base, it's going to be a good year to be a gamer.
You should also check out X-Entertainment's media section which features a bunch of 80's ads also (some are video games). Amatuerish site content at best, but some damn fine memories.
I read the original article and the response, both have good points, but the result is that the ESRB ratings are not perfect, but don't need any dramatic change. I'll preface this by saying the video game ratings topic gets me a bit hot under the collar these days.
The problem starts with the first paragraph from the critiscm:"it dawned on me that I wasn't really sure what the games he played were rated"
It dawned on you?!? Ok, so what you are saying is that you failed to check the ratings AT ALL before you let your child play the games? So if in fact the ratings had read as follows:
"Do not let any child play this game. Especially those under 18. In particular we are referring to your child. You. The one reading this rating that resides at 214 Elm, third house from the left."
So if the rating had been that specific, it would have made absolutely no difference at all since you didn't bother to read it before you let your child play. What hope can the ESRB have then to find the magic words that will keep your child 'safe' from these situations? There aren't any. Or maybe there are, but you'd have to read them to know.
I tried an experiment about this with my father a while back, who barely knows what video games are. I gave him 10 titles from my library, from all three platforms. He had no idea what the games were, but I asked him if he would carefully look at them at see which ones he would not let a child play. He rejected Grand Theft Auto outright, from the title itself. He examined the boxes for the other games, didn't notice the ESRB on the front. However, when he went to the back, he started figuring out that 'Mild Violence', 'Gore','Sexual Situations' meant that those might be in the game, and rejected those. In my eyes he scored 100, without knowing what an ESRB rating is. Why is that? Is my father a genius? Maybe, but I think it's more likely that since he was forced to take the time to read the box, he was able to make an informed decision.
Are the ratings consistent? Probably not 100%, but that's not what the ratings are for. They are a guide. That's mostly because the ESRB, much like America itself, does not have a definitive line on what is indecent, let alone offensive.
Any parent who reads the back of a video game box these days has probably 300 times more information available to them than when they take their child to the movies. It doesn't matter though, it never seems to be enough for some. So until we figure out a way to make boxes flash DO NOT BUY FOR YOUR KID parents may have to sit down and play a game with their kid every now and again. What a shame.
I agree though, that those games that the ESRB rates as only applicable to certain ages only be sold to those who are of the appropriate age. However, if the parents don't read the boxes, that won't keep little Johnny from seeing a plumber violently crush an innocent mushroom now and again.
The biggest reason that companies don't 'innovate' anything but graphics is more subtle. Advertising. It's very easy to show a screenshot of console 'X' vs console 'Y' and see a increase in graphics. If you look at most advertising today, that's about as complex a message you can send in an ad.
Showing your console has 'gyro-support' or whatever you've done that's not graphics, is extremely difficult. See most of Nintendo's marketing on the DS. Most of it showcases the dual-screens, while simultaneously emphasizing the 'touching is good' message. Their ads are good, but you can see how difficult anything but eye-candy is to market.
It's great for the mod community actually. XBoxes will be cheap as dirt, and MS will care less and less what people do with them.
Well, maybe. I know they have this 'XBox Media Center' thing going. We'll see if that's a band-aid to maintain living room presence or a core part of a better, larger strategy.
I'm with you, but not as strongly. Unfortunately, the PS2 is really starting to get long in the tooth. I'll be sad to see it go as the new war begins. I am however, still pissed at Sony and Nintendo for rushing this DS/PSP thing, as the software lineups for both show is obviously the case.
As for Microsoft, they may be trying to push forward a *little* bit early, but console history shows it's about time to introduce the new generation for early adopters.
Don't worry about your XBox though, people still have PS1's lying around, and many a good game was released for that generation after the launch of the PS2/XBox etc. This generation of consoles still has some life yet, they just won't be media darlings anymore.
I am still trying to figure out exactly why having a HDD in a console is a good idea.
Ripping Music: Nifty but nonessential and basically gimmicky.
Unlimited Saves: Nice but again a Mem Card works 90% as well and is portable
Game Patches: Ok, but I always worry that will fall down the slippery slope of devs shipping buggy games much like the PC world.
Game Content Updates: Well, that's pretty cool I suppose.
I can see why it's a fine idea, but nothing revoltionary or indeed even essential. So what am I missing? Why is the HDD the 'best' feature of the XBox?
Actually, I remember an E3 where Nintendo showed off some kind of volumetric 3d display. I think with Fox McCloud in it. Can't for the life of me find the link though.
And yes, we all know about Virtual Boy Syndrome (sometimes referred to by the kiddies as NGageitis). Keep in mind though, the man of which you speak is also responsible for the Game Boy and a few other Nintendo 'gems.'
As I'm fond of saying of most of my jokes:"They can't all be winners you know."
Hmm. Distribute processing to the users. This is interesting. So combine something like bittorrent with a MM game. Each client uses their own bandwidth to support the whole. Doesn't sound right, but sounds interesting.
This is exactly what I was thinking also. This deal may just wind up being innovative despite itself, with companies really focusing on the game itself.
However, most major league sports in this country have gotten completely out of control these days. With ridiculous salaries and a tolerance for just about any behaviour, all the major league sports I see are focusing less and less on the game and more on peoples perceptions of the players (which can they be marketed en masse.)
It seems as if sports figures have become America's version of royalty. Known for who they are but not really what it is they do. Unfortunately, for everyone one fan who loves the *game* there are 50 rabid fans who paint themselves and trash the opponents fans who would say ill things about 'their' team. Those 50 will buy a game to play as their favorite player no matter how much it sucks. It'll take 6 generations of breeding to weed that out.
Yes, the lack of good DS games is extremely frustrating. I was an early adopter of the DS, and I know Nintendo does wonderfully innovative things. The DS is a great product, but it seems it might have been rushed just a teeny bit to combat the PSP. It seems like the PSP is also suffering from the same problem at the moment. Maybe if everybody just slowed down until everything was ready we would all be better off. One can dream.
I still think there is room in the portable market for two consoles. This wasn't true when the previous game boy competitors came to market. There is a lot of people gaming now a days though, and I think their tastes are different. Enough so to create *at least* two portable console markets.
Slashdot Mirror
You CD is too big to play games on, but then again neither is your PS2 or Xbox. The point of the handheld market is easy portability. A CD player sized 'handheld' (or what would you call it then? a palmtop?) is just too big for light travel.
That size form factor would be great for long trips (week long business meeting, going to visit a relative) but you could just as easily pick up an LCD for your favorite console and do it that way.
Preface: I own a DS, and will probably buy a PSP (although the price looks pretty steep after games and a mem stick).
Anyway, the reason the PSP is going to be a huge success for Sony is that they can show it on programs like 'The Today Show' and have people immediately understand it. Sony is targeting a high-end market of older men who have paid big bucks for Blackberries and the like, and they can immediately see how this fits their lifestyle. It's sexy like an ipod, and does good gaming like the PS2, something many people are familiar with.
The movie features should really be viewed as a bonus since I really don't think this small a device is suitable for much movie watching. However, some may think so.
The DS, on the other hand, is a completely different not only from other handhelds, but also from other gaming platforms, due to the stylus/touch screen, microphone, and dual screen layout. Developers are still trying to figure out what to do with those screens and the stylus.
All that Sony is really missing is the 'Killer App' for the system. If they manage to release something like GTA:Wireless where you can go near any WAP and play GTA with a few hundred others the battle is won.
The bottom line is that you can show a PSP on a few TV Shows and it will instantly become a media darling, giving it that 'must have' conspicuous consumption quality. To anchor this image, think what would happen if Friends were still on and Joey was seen playing a PSP a few times. Or how about if one of the challenges on 'The Apprentice' somehow involves selling PSPs? You wouldn't be able to keep them on the shelf. While the DS would benefit from these similarly, it is a much more abstract concept to sell. Even now, it is marketed more for what it can do than for what it does.
As long as Sony releases some good games fairly quickly, this will severely hamper the DS's market share. I still say there is room for both in the handheld market, but Sony may just get a bigger slice of the pie.
Sex in the City is an excellent example that I totally overlooked. You are right, a bunch of men talking about their sexual conquests would be yanked in minutes.
As to what my problem is with Friends? Well, it's a complicated one. Basically, I liked Friends for the first two seasons. Then it started getting really big, so they started making things a bit wackier (and more sitcom generic jokes) episode after episode. Eventually, it just wasn't funny anymore, but this was at the height of it's popularity so people didn't want to hear that. Basically, America fell in love with Friends so much that they didn't care that the show became a soap opera (and a bad one at that) and went in the crapper years ago.
Agreed, mostly. There's been a lot of stories of outages and such on /. recently, and yeah, much of it is whiney. They have their points on stuff like the game should be available when you can play it, comparing the game service to cell service etc. Maybe not great points but still.
The two big differences is that WoW and the like are online games, and Steam locks you out of offline games. The second is what does happen if Valve goes under or (more likely) just doesn't feel like supporting 'game X' on Steam anymore for bandwidth/storage reasons or whatever? I do have many classic games I still play today that are from *waaay* back, that would not be playable if they were set up in a Steam-like fashion. I *hope* it'll be like one poster suggested and there will simply be a 'final patch' that disables all authentication.
Throw my hat into this too. I agree 100%. I do enjoy Raymond, the show is hilarious at times, but I hate the environment it lives in. If you switch the sex roles of any of these sitcoms there would be a gender-backlash the likes of which we have never seen.
What bothers me is that many times the 'moral' of the show (Raymond included) is often something akin to 'Women are right, men are idiots, deal with it'. Let's throw some more examples out there. My favorite immasculater "Yes, Dear" which by it's very title tells you the motive. Horrible show by the way. "Friends" of course, but these are both cancelled. "Listen Up!", which I've only watched like 3 times, has the same theme. Then there is another one I watch for the humor anyway "The King of Queens". I don't know if there are more since I gave up on any sitcom where marriage is involved, mostly because of this.
If anyone would respond to this in a good way, I would appreciate an example of the reversal of this. It's not that I want the world to go back to the 40's when there was things like 'womens work', I just want a few sitcoms out there that don't *always* rely on the 'men are idiots, thank god they get married/find a woman' theme. Isn't marriage/relationships supposed to be about equality?
Because a lot of gamers, if we are really facing facts, are addicts. We love that feeling we get when we play the newest, hottest title. This isn't GTA (which is played by hardcore gamers and the 'mainstraim' gamers that slashdot is so not fond of). This is Half Life, it's for die hard FPS shooter fans, and those that love to see the FPS done well.
My point is, if you're a gamer that buys more than 4 games a month (or some number to be qualified as 'addict'), I bet you have signs of addiction. You *can't* leave half life on the shelf, never to have even seen it. This type of personality is a large part of their audience.
This kind of behavior on gamer's part is extremely similar to addicts. If you do a lot of crack or meth, you (usually anyway) *know* it's bad for you, but you'll do anything to do it again. Sound familiar?
I think you missed his joke. This is a MS product. That 'feature' will be fixed when the user authenticates their (X++)Box with MS, once verified, the name changes to the correct (X+1)Box, thusly MS will know when you call for tech support if you're using 'authentic' MS products. :)
The exact value of X is left as an exercise to the reader.
Yeah, no game price cuts. But I *will* be picking up a few cheap Xboxes when they drop low enough. Hell, I may pick up a few extra Cubes too. A lot of my cube games will *always* be good for a party.
:)
The emulators are out and about at the same stage those PS1 emulators were when the PS2 was released. Not a lot of progress though, these machines are incredibly complex.
I wish they would learn more towards the linux community though. I'm dying to hook those up to my MythBox.
Hahaha. It's funny because it's true. Which is where we got Windows '95' and 'Millenium' probably. I guess XBoxTwo would be trademark infringement, and still fail the less than clause. Well, MS could always just trump everything with XboxInfinity (which is what you call when you're a child) or perhaps XboxQuantum if they're feel risky. I like the latter.
Or perhaps we're incrementing the wrong end? How about XCrate or XBiggerBox. Bigger is better no?
While I'm off on a rant, how about making a deal with Hummer, merge the next H2 with the XBox, and call it the XH3? Now we're talking. You could even put a few tires on it and make it a scale RC car of the new H3, which is operated with a remote (xbox) controller!
And whoever said that Xbox Next is improbable should remeber that it *is* called the Xbox. Rotate your head back to before the launch, and the 'Xbox' name sounds silly. 'X' for unknown and 'box' for a containter? Surely they won't call it that? They did. It's just a common name now so we don't think about it. Out of all our speculation here, Xbox Next is as good as any.
All the replies miss the point. He wanted one that integrates with MythTV. Enter torrentocracy.
I was kind of hoping for the (X+1)Box myself.
Wow. First I've seen that one. Mindblowing. Mod it up.
This will make for quite the interesting year game wise. It will also make for lots of price slashes. Since the current consoles still have lot's of graphics power and a huge install base, it's going to be a good year to be a gamer.
Ah the circle of consoles. Makes my heart warm.
You should also check out X-Entertainment's media section which features a bunch of 80's ads also (some are video games). Amatuerish site content at best, but some damn fine memories.
You mean like this? No. Please god no. I think it's widely acknowledged that this is much better.
And of course they can't make it an 1/8" bigger, then it might look like this!
FWIW, I have an XBox and it's good at what it does, but that initial controller design was hideous. Despite what test audiences may say.
I read the original article and the response, both have good points, but the result is that the ESRB ratings are not perfect, but don't need any dramatic change. I'll preface this by saying the video game ratings topic gets me a bit hot under the collar these days.
The problem starts with the first paragraph from the critiscm:"it dawned on me that I wasn't really sure what the games he played were rated"
It dawned on you?!? Ok, so what you are saying is that you failed to check the ratings AT ALL before you let your child play the games? So if in fact the ratings had read as follows:
"Do not let any child play this game. Especially those under 18. In particular we are referring to your child. You. The one reading this rating that resides at 214 Elm, third house from the left."
So if the rating had been that specific, it would have made absolutely no difference at all since you didn't bother to read it before you let your child play. What hope can the ESRB have then to find the magic words that will keep your child 'safe' from these situations? There aren't any. Or maybe there are, but you'd have to read them to know.
I tried an experiment about this with my father a while back, who barely knows what video games are. I gave him 10 titles from my library, from all three platforms. He had no idea what the games were, but I asked him if he would carefully look at them at see which ones he would not let a child play. He rejected Grand Theft Auto outright, from the title itself. He examined the boxes for the other games, didn't notice the ESRB on the front. However, when he went to the back, he started figuring out that 'Mild Violence', 'Gore','Sexual Situations' meant that those might be in the game, and rejected those. In my eyes he scored 100, without knowing what an ESRB rating is. Why is that? Is my father a genius? Maybe, but I think it's more likely that since he was forced to take the time to read the box, he was able to make an informed decision.
Are the ratings consistent? Probably not 100%, but that's not what the ratings are for. They are a guide. That's mostly because the ESRB, much like America itself, does not have a definitive line on what is indecent, let alone offensive.
Any parent who reads the back of a video game box these days has probably 300 times more information available to them than when they take their child to the movies. It doesn't matter though, it never seems to be enough for some. So until we figure out a way to make boxes flash DO NOT BUY FOR YOUR KID parents may have to sit down and play a game with their kid every now and again. What a shame.
I agree though, that those games that the ESRB rates as only applicable to certain ages only be sold to those who are of the appropriate age. However, if the parents don't read the boxes, that won't keep little Johnny from seeing a plumber violently crush an innocent mushroom now and again.
The biggest reason that companies don't 'innovate' anything but graphics is more subtle. Advertising. It's very easy to show a screenshot of console 'X' vs console 'Y' and see a increase in graphics. If you look at most advertising today, that's about as complex a message you can send in an ad.
Showing your console has 'gyro-support' or whatever you've done that's not graphics, is extremely difficult. See most of Nintendo's marketing on the DS. Most of it showcases the dual-screens, while simultaneously emphasizing the 'touching is good' message. Their ads are good, but you can see how difficult anything but eye-candy is to market.
It's great for the mod community actually. XBoxes will be cheap as dirt, and MS will care less and less what people do with them.
Well, maybe. I know they have this 'XBox Media Center' thing going. We'll see if that's a band-aid to maintain living room presence or a core part of a better, larger strategy.
I'm with you, but not as strongly. Unfortunately, the PS2 is really starting to get long in the tooth. I'll be sad to see it go as the new war begins. I am however, still pissed at Sony and Nintendo for rushing this DS/PSP thing, as the software lineups for both show is obviously the case.
As for Microsoft, they may be trying to push forward a *little* bit early, but console history shows it's about time to introduce the new generation for early adopters.
Don't worry about your XBox though, people still have PS1's lying around, and many a good game was released for that generation after the launch of the PS2/XBox etc. This generation of consoles still has some life yet, they just won't be media darlings anymore.
I am still trying to figure out exactly why having a HDD in a console is a good idea.
Ripping Music: Nifty but nonessential and basically gimmicky.
Unlimited Saves: Nice but again a Mem Card works 90% as well and is portable
Game Patches: Ok, but I always worry that will fall down the slippery slope of devs shipping buggy games much like the PC world.
Game Content Updates: Well, that's pretty cool I suppose.
I can see why it's a fine idea, but nothing revoltionary or indeed even essential. So what am I missing? Why is the HDD the 'best' feature of the XBox?
Actually, I remember an E3 where Nintendo showed off some kind of volumetric 3d display. I think with Fox McCloud in it. Can't for the life of me find the link though.
And yes, we all know about Virtual Boy Syndrome (sometimes referred to by the kiddies as NGageitis). Keep in mind though, the man of which you speak is also responsible for the Game Boy and a few other Nintendo 'gems.'
As I'm fond of saying of most of my jokes:"They can't all be winners you know."
Hmm. Distribute processing to the users. This is interesting. So combine something like bittorrent with a MM game. Each client uses their own bandwidth to support the whole. Doesn't sound right, but sounds interesting.
This is exactly what I was thinking also. This deal may just wind up being innovative despite itself, with companies really focusing on the game itself.
However, most major league sports in this country have gotten completely out of control these days. With ridiculous salaries and a tolerance for just about any behaviour, all the major league sports I see are focusing less and less on the game and more on peoples perceptions of the players (which can they be marketed en masse.)
It seems as if sports figures have become America's version of royalty. Known for who they are but not really what it is they do. Unfortunately, for everyone one fan who loves the *game* there are 50 rabid fans who paint themselves and trash the opponents fans who would say ill things about 'their' team. Those 50 will buy a game to play as their favorite player no matter how much it sucks. It'll take 6 generations of breeding to weed that out.
You mean like the various 'alternative health' solutions with magnets? Like say, these?
Yes, the lack of good DS games is extremely frustrating. I was an early adopter of the DS, and I know Nintendo does wonderfully innovative things. The DS is a great product, but it seems it might have been rushed just a teeny bit to combat the PSP. It seems like the PSP is also suffering from the same problem at the moment. Maybe if everybody just slowed down until everything was ready we would all be better off. One can dream.
I still think there is room in the portable market for two consoles. This wasn't true when the previous game boy competitors came to market. There is a lot of people gaming now a days though, and I think their tastes are different. Enough so to create *at least* two portable console markets.