"Entertainment per hour is EXACTLY how it works. What on earth leads you to think differently?"
Because "entertaiment" isn't a discrete measurement. Not every game (or movie, or whatever) produces an equal amount of fun for every person.
For an anecdotal case: I spent about $50 on Pikmin (often criticized for being too short), but I'd consider that a more worthwhile purchase than a $40 RPG that lasts for 80+ hours. I'd still enjoy the RPG, but I'd have more fun with Pikmin, even though it was shorter.
"For that matter, it's sure not listed on the DS packaging anywhere that GBA compatibility is not 100% and multiplayer is NOT actually supported."
From the package:
"...play all your favorite Game Boy Advance games in single player mode."
The reasoning is quite obvious: the DS has no link cable port, since it's 100% wireless. Including one would have been a waste of money for Nintendo, because 95% of users would have ignored it anyway. The other 5% most likely own a GBA, so why bother?
Other than multiplayer, GBA compatibility is pretty close to 100%, AFAIK. There might be one or two exceptions, but that's been the case with every backwards-compatible console. Perhaps you should have researched the product a bit more before purchasing it, particularly if you care so much about multiplayer GBA games.
For what it's worth, Matt Casamassina from IGN seems to be hearing similar things, as he's posted on his blog. He is a Nintendo-focused journalist, but he's far from a Nintendo fanboy, and IGN has strong ties with the industry. I think it's safe to say that the reports of developer interest are indeed accurate.
IGN covered this last year.
The only successful consoles that have debuted at a price point higher than $250 been the Playstations. Nintendo's consoles have always launched at $200, and Sega released a couple at $200-250. Even adjusted for inflation, the vast majority of consoles launched below $400, and those that didn't flopped (i.e. NeoGeo, 3DO, Saturn).
If they really want to allow for open game development, providing NES/SNES/N64 devkits wouldn't be the best way of doing it. What's the point of providing an easy development platform if you're going to restrict indie devs to some 20-year-old piece of hardware? I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but it seems like it would be much easier for devs to have a dumbed-down version of the complete Rev dev kit. Even if it significantly limited their software, they'd still have access to the full power of the hardware, rather than an emulated 2MHz processor and 2KB of virtual RAM.
What I'd like to see (and the GP hinted at it) is something like GameMaker made available for the Rev. It's a really simple, object-oriented, drag-and-drop game construction program. I've messed around with it a little bit, and the program makes it really easy to create just about any type of 2D game. It's a bit restrictive and inefficient, but it gets the job done, with little or no programming knowledge required. If Nintendo would provide something like that, I think the fanbase would go nuts.
"It certainly makes it less frustrating playing with a gamepad, but it takes a lot of the skill out of the game."
Does it really? Why are ultra-competitive Halo competitions so popular, then?
It seems to me that while the aim assist may take some of the skill out of aiming, it shifts the emphasis to strategy and teamwork. Most of the best Halo matches I've played have been determined primarily by tactics, not by headshot skill. I guess it depends on the player, but I've greatly preferred a more strategy-based FPS, as opposed to a game like Counter-Strike, where reflexes are usually the deciding factor. I can recall several Halo CTF games where one of my "less-skilled" (by the typical, twitch-based FPS definition) friends was able to snag the game-winning flag, simply because they were strategic about their attack pattern.
Of course, aiming is still a big part of the game, but it's not the biggest part. The aim helper makes it a lot easier for non-FPSers to get into Halo than other FPSs. It's easier for most people to formulate clever strategies than it is for them to train their thumbs to aim an onscreen cursor.
Not entirely. Certainly the game did some loading during sailing, but it didn't need a full map square to load the next island. The warp song cutscene (which loaded a completely new area at "random") was much quicker than the journey between two islands by boat.
What the ocean did mask was draw distances. The game only draws the geometry for the islands, creatures, NPCs, guard towers, and submarines that are located in the same square on the map as the player. All other viewable islands are represented as 2D sprites, and the other geometry isn't drawn at all (which sometimes causes a jarring "pop-in" effect as you cross the border into a new sector).
So while Nintendo could have decreased the size of each square, thus shrinking sailing times, the draw distances would have become noticeably shorter. You wouldn't be able to see as far with the telescope, the islands would fade to grey at much smaller distances, and some guard towers and submarines may have appeared at closer range. It would have made some of the awkward visual tricks seem even more awkward.
While Nintendo probably could have reworked the engine to accomodate for this, the existing method is likely the most logical way to handle the game's geometry. My only complaint is the "pop-in" effect, which probably could have been implemented as a nicer looking "fade-in".
Master Quest was fun, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to pay $50 for it, even if it did have Twilight Princess's graphics. Hopefully TP is far more than a graphical remake of Ocarina of Time. The wolf element looks very promising, as does the horseback combat, if Nintendo uses them to their full potential.
"However, a bunch of thick skulled people apparently were feeling a little insecure about their masculinity, and thought they couldn't play something with cartoon graphics..."
Right. Everyone who finds any fault with Wind Waker is insecure about their masculinity. My favorite game of the generation is frickin' Pikmin, and I was underwhelmed with Wind Waker after a bit. The graphics were not its biggest problem.
"...and some fun/creative puzzle solving (yes...not EVERY "puzzle" requires chopping someone's head off or doing a hooker) made them feely a little too much like girly men."
Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask had fun/creative puzzle solving. Wind Waker's puzzles were mostly rehashes of the puzzles from those two games, with a few exceptions. Nothing in WW even compares to the Water Temples in either of the N64 Zeldas, or the Forest Temple from OoT. Dungeons in WW felt like a series of independent rooms, rather than single coherent structures. Wind Waker also had too few dungeons, and the (arguably) most boring one was repeated twice. While Majora's Mask had only four dungeons, even the first one was quite challenging. The trading sequence was much more interesting in OoT, and the NPC interactions were better in MM, compared to WW's "sail all over the planet to talk to the same three guys over and over". Finally, WW's combat was painfully simple (I didn't die once on my first playthrough).
As a disclaimer: I don't hate Wind Waker. I highly enjoyed the game, and it's a lot better than most third-person adventures. But there were noticeable gameplay flaws with the game, and it was a bit of a letdown after the excellence of OoT and MM. To suggest that anyone who finds fault with it is a "graphics whore" is just plain shortsighted.
Exactly. The rules of the game don't change quickly enough to warrant a new sequel every year.
I would have no problem with sports titles if they would release a new version every 2-3 years, when the number of new features warrants a sequel. EA could easily cycle between releasing Madden and NCAA every other year. The games would probably be better this way, as each game would have a two-year dev cycle.
The only problem in the past has been roster updates, although EA could easily have made deals with third-party accessory manufacturers and sold yearly updates on cheap memory cards. Now that all three next-gen systems will be fully online-capable and have onboard memory, EA will have no excuse for releasing these slightly improved roster updates each year. I'm not expecting anything generous out of them, however.
"I have to wonder if consoles will hit a point where more people choose to reap technology advances through price cuts instead of higher performance, as with PCs over the last 5 years or so."
That's essentially what Nintendo is doing. The Revolution is rumored to be a less dramatic performance improvement than past generations have seen, which will allow Nintendo to sell it for a lower price than the competition.
First of all, there is no single connection that supports 5.5 million subscribers. The game is divided over many different servers worldwide, and there are never 5.5 million players logged in at the same time. And as evidenced by the lag and queue lines, their servers obviously can't handle their full load of subscribers flawlessly.
And no, I'm not basing this off the costs of my broadband connection. I'm basing it off the fact that other MMOs in the past (like Everquest) were successful with a cheaper monthly fee and fewer users. In practice, the average cost per user should decrease as the number of users increases, yet Blizzard charges more than other MMOs. Unless WoW requires significantly more bandwidth per player than Everquest or Lineage, your argument is flawed.
The fact is that Blizzard currently has close to the largest revenue stream in the history of the industry. Maybe I should reclarify this: their revenue in one month is enough to finance the development of over 70 average console games. And that's not even counting the initial purchase of the game. I agree that the costs of bandwidth are high, but not nearly that high. Many less successful MMORPGs have been able to cover the cost of bandwidth, even with a revenue stream an order of magnitude smaller.
"Perhaps next gen won't be based on a great leap in graphics or in some of the other things that have been mentioned here, but rather on the games ability to change over time based on the users skill."
That doesn't require next-gen hardware. IIRC, Resident Evil 4 adjusted the gameplay slightly based on the player's performance. Also, God of War provided players with health bonuses after each death, to give them a slightly better chance at victory. I'm sure there are better examples than these, but they illustrate that variable difficulty levels are already possible.
I wouldn't be surprised if certain arcade games from the '80s used some form of this. It's really not very complicated.
Re:We hitting a ceiling on video games?
on
What is Next-Gen?
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· Score: 1
Do you really think Tony Hawk for the PS3 will be that much different?
Let's face it, there are just some games and genres that don't need to be "next-gen". Dead or Alive 4 is basically DOA 3 with more polygons and shaders. Gran Turismo 5 probably will have very similar gameplay to GT4. Smash Bros. Revolution will most likely be a game that could have been designed for the GameCube.
A lot of genres are starting to hit a region of diminishing returns, at least in hardware requirements. Hardware improvements aren't significantly affecting gameplay anymore. Nearly every new third-person adventure game uses the classic Zelda64 model of gameplay. 3D racing games have been relatively unchanged since the early PS1. Most sports games have the same gameplay as they did last generation.
Like a few people have already pointed out, this next generation is primarily about graphics. Yes, one could argue that the Cell processor will be able to handle bigger terrain, advanced AI, more onscreen enemies, etc., but the games that truly need those features will be few and far between. 95% of "next-gen" games will be graphically enhanced current-gen games.
That is, unless the Nintendo Revolution lives up to its name...
"If you're trying to appeal to a large segment of players, you have to make it mind-numbingly easy."
Complicated != challenging. Case in point: chess or poker. Both are very simple to learn compared to most video games, yet they're both very deep games with many levels of strategy.
There's a big difference between dumbing a game down and removing the tedium. I'm not an expert on MMORPGs by any means, but I was really turned off by the ridiculous tedium that was so prevalent in the genre pre-WoW. From what I've seen, WoW still requires plenty of strategy and thought, but it doesn't require as much time as previous MMOs.
Maybe WoW is easier than most MMOs. I don't play it, so I can't make any claims either way. However, challenge is (mostly) unrelated to the learning curve of the game. Game developers should stick to the mantra, "easy to learn, difficult to master." It appears to me that Blizzard follows that rule better than most MMO devs.
"You still have to suffer like that because your only paying $15 a month as you said.
Only $15 a month? With over 5 million subscibers, Blizzard has a steady revenue stream of $75 million a month. For comparison, it cost Bungie around $40 million to develop Halo 2 over the course of three years, and H2 was considered a very high-budget game. Blizzard is making nearly twice that in a month. They have more than enough financial resources to keep the game running perfectly for every single paying customer.
I could understand the "$15 a month isn't a lot" excuse with a smaller MMORPG, but Blizzard currently has money coming out the wazoo. Money is not an excuse.
"Microsoft already said publicly that it will be their weapon against the PS3."
If you're referring to the comment that Halo 3 will launch on the PS3's launch date, Bill Gates recently retracted that statement. He probably has less control over the Xbox division (and Bungie) than he likes to put on, and someone called him out on that. When you consider the fact that it took Bungie three years to finish Halo 2, it's pretty unrealistic to expect that they'll have a next-gen game ready in less than two.
Ok, I overlooked Madden. Madden is neck-and-neck with The Sims, with about 45 million sales as of last August.
For reference, The Sims franchise had sold 41 million copies as of Sept. 2004. Since that statistic was reported before the release of The Sims 2, it's entirely likely that the franchise has surpassed Madden in sales.
And you're kidding yourself if you think either of those franchises have come anywhere close to touching Mario in total franchise sales. Mario games make up four of the top five best-selling games of all time. The original Super Mario Bros. alone has sold nearly as many copies as the entire Madden franchise. As of December, the Mario franchise has totaled 184 million sales, with Pokemon following at 143 million sales. The Sims and Madden, while both very successful, have sold an order of magnitude fewer copies than Nintendo's leading franchises.
As for Madden being the top-selling game each year... it's generally not. Madden 2005 was drastically outsold by both GTA and Halo 2, and other games tend to beat it every year. The problem it has is that while each copy may sell well at its launch, each version dramatically drops in sales after the new one is released. Contrast this with Halo, which sold well in 2001, but continued to top Xbox sales charts until the release of Halo 2 in 2004.
In an attempt to stay on topic: The Sims is one of the top five most successful franchises in history, which is quite impressive considering that it's a relatively new game. As a game that's targeted toward women (or "non-gamers"), that's even more impressive. Pursuing this market could be Nintendo's best business decision yet. Not only can they open themselves to a large, mostly untapped market, but they may help defeat some of the negative stigma attached to video games by appealing to some of the industry's critics.
It's funny... you cite The Sims as a game that succeeded in appealing to women, yet you claim that if Nintendo focuses on that demographic, they're doomed?
Maybe you're not aware of this, but The Sims is the number one best selling PC game of all time. And that's just the original game; the expansions and sequels have also been amazingly successful. The Sims, as a complete franchise, has outsold nearly every other series of games, with the only exceptions being the Mario and Pokemon franchises (which are, incidentally, both owned by Nintendo).
If that's not a lucrative market, I don't know what is.
That's the inside of the housing for the top screen, which is about 1/4" thick. There's not a whole lot of room for anything in there. Besides, there's no reason to put any hardware up there besides the screen and speakers. It's probably cramped enough trying to run the video/audio lines through that hinge; there's no need to cram another CPU up there, too.
So you expect "connectivity" to be a huge success on the PS3/PSP? Even though it failed on the GameCube/GBA, the latter being the second-highest selling portable in history?
The main criticism against GBA/GCN connectivity was the high cost of entry. I doubt the feature will succeed when each portable costs $250 (instead of $100) and each console costs $400+ (instead of $150).
If your #2 selling point of the PSP is its non-existant connectivity with the PS3, you're not trying hard enough.
For those who already own a DS, the depth and width of the Lite are comparable to those of the top half of the DS. Also, the Lite (when closed) is about as thick as the bottom half of the DS.
Not quite. The SNES and N64 both launched at $200, and after adjusting for inflation, they'd still cost less than $300 today. Also, nearly all of the systems you mentioned would cost less than the $400 Xbox 360, and the PS3 will likely cost even more than that.
Besides, a games console isn't like a gallon of milk, where the production costs are relatively constant, so you can't predict consumer pricing purely by inflation. An Xbox 360 is also thousands of times more powerful than a Commodore 64, but consumers shouldn't expect its cost to rise; in fact, the Xbox 360 is much cheaper at launch than the C64 was.
"Also, the compromises make to MK:DS in online play make me think that perhaps wireless isn't too suited to gaming full stop, I hope the Rev has a proper ethernet port."
The compromises in MK:DS are completely unrelated to the choice of Wi-Fi. (I'm assuming you're referring to the limited matchmaking system and lack of chat.) Those are due to Nintendo's policies regarding online games, primarily the idea that the games be relatively easy to use and safe for players of any age. It's entirely possible for DS games to use text chat (possibly even voice chat), but Nintendo has chosen not to support it in all games, probably to avoid profanity and unwanted trash-talking.
A more traditional matchmaking setup is also very possible, but an auto-match solution like the one Mario Kart uses is more convenient and generally faster. For a portable system like the DS, simplicity and speed are important. My guess is that the Revolution's WFC will have more options available, simply because it'll be designed for longer, more serious periods of play.
Really, the only inherent problems to using Wi-Fi are router compatibility issues and dropped connections. While both are annoying, they should improve as time passes and the technology improves.
Slashdot Mirror
For an anecdotal case: I spent about $50 on Pikmin (often criticized for being too short), but I'd consider that a more worthwhile purchase than a $40 RPG that lasts for 80+ hours. I'd still enjoy the RPG, but I'd have more fun with Pikmin, even though it was shorter.
"...play all your favorite Game Boy Advance games in single player mode."
The reasoning is quite obvious: the DS has no link cable port, since it's 100% wireless. Including one would have been a waste of money for Nintendo, because 95% of users would have ignored it anyway. The other 5% most likely own a GBA, so why bother?
Other than multiplayer, GBA compatibility is pretty close to 100%, AFAIK. There might be one or two exceptions, but that's been the case with every backwards-compatible console. Perhaps you should have researched the product a bit more before purchasing it, particularly if you care so much about multiplayer GBA games.
For what it's worth, Matt Casamassina from IGN seems to be hearing similar things, as he's posted on his blog. He is a Nintendo-focused journalist, but he's far from a Nintendo fanboy, and IGN has strong ties with the industry. I think it's safe to say that the reports of developer interest are indeed accurate.
IGN covered this last year.
The only successful consoles that have debuted at a price point higher than $250 been the Playstations. Nintendo's consoles have always launched at $200, and Sega released a couple at $200-250. Even adjusted for inflation, the vast majority of consoles launched below $400, and those that didn't flopped (i.e. NeoGeo, 3DO, Saturn).
If they really want to allow for open game development, providing NES/SNES/N64 devkits wouldn't be the best way of doing it. What's the point of providing an easy development platform if you're going to restrict indie devs to some 20-year-old piece of hardware? I'm not too knowledgeable on the subject, but it seems like it would be much easier for devs to have a dumbed-down version of the complete Rev dev kit. Even if it significantly limited their software, they'd still have access to the full power of the hardware, rather than an emulated 2MHz processor and 2KB of virtual RAM.
What I'd like to see (and the GP hinted at it) is something like GameMaker made available for the Rev. It's a really simple, object-oriented, drag-and-drop game construction program. I've messed around with it a little bit, and the program makes it really easy to create just about any type of 2D game. It's a bit restrictive and inefficient, but it gets the job done, with little or no programming knowledge required. If Nintendo would provide something like that, I think the fanbase would go nuts.
It seems to me that while the aim assist may take some of the skill out of aiming, it shifts the emphasis to strategy and teamwork. Most of the best Halo matches I've played have been determined primarily by tactics, not by headshot skill. I guess it depends on the player, but I've greatly preferred a more strategy-based FPS, as opposed to a game like Counter-Strike, where reflexes are usually the deciding factor. I can recall several Halo CTF games where one of my "less-skilled" (by the typical, twitch-based FPS definition) friends was able to snag the game-winning flag, simply because they were strategic about their attack pattern.
Of course, aiming is still a big part of the game, but it's not the biggest part. The aim helper makes it a lot easier for non-FPSers to get into Halo than other FPSs. It's easier for most people to formulate clever strategies than it is for them to train their thumbs to aim an onscreen cursor.
What the ocean did mask was draw distances. The game only draws the geometry for the islands, creatures, NPCs, guard towers, and submarines that are located in the same square on the map as the player. All other viewable islands are represented as 2D sprites, and the other geometry isn't drawn at all (which sometimes causes a jarring "pop-in" effect as you cross the border into a new sector).
So while Nintendo could have decreased the size of each square, thus shrinking sailing times, the draw distances would have become noticeably shorter. You wouldn't be able to see as far with the telescope, the islands would fade to grey at much smaller distances, and some guard towers and submarines may have appeared at closer range. It would have made some of the awkward visual tricks seem even more awkward.
While Nintendo probably could have reworked the engine to accomodate for this, the existing method is likely the most logical way to handle the game's geometry. My only complaint is the "pop-in" effect, which probably could have been implemented as a nicer looking "fade-in".
Master Quest was fun, but I certainly wouldn't have wanted to pay $50 for it, even if it did have Twilight Princess's graphics. Hopefully TP is far more than a graphical remake of Ocarina of Time. The wolf element looks very promising, as does the horseback combat, if Nintendo uses them to their full potential.
As a disclaimer: I don't hate Wind Waker. I highly enjoyed the game, and it's a lot better than most third-person adventures. But there were noticeable gameplay flaws with the game, and it was a bit of a letdown after the excellence of OoT and MM. To suggest that anyone who finds fault with it is a "graphics whore" is just plain shortsighted.
Exactly. The rules of the game don't change quickly enough to warrant a new sequel every year.
I would have no problem with sports titles if they would release a new version every 2-3 years, when the number of new features warrants a sequel. EA could easily cycle between releasing Madden and NCAA every other year. The games would probably be better this way, as each game would have a two-year dev cycle.
The only problem in the past has been roster updates, although EA could easily have made deals with third-party accessory manufacturers and sold yearly updates on cheap memory cards. Now that all three next-gen systems will be fully online-capable and have onboard memory, EA will have no excuse for releasing these slightly improved roster updates each year. I'm not expecting anything generous out of them, however.
First of all, there is no single connection that supports 5.5 million subscribers. The game is divided over many different servers worldwide, and there are never 5.5 million players logged in at the same time. And as evidenced by the lag and queue lines, their servers obviously can't handle their full load of subscribers flawlessly.
And no, I'm not basing this off the costs of my broadband connection. I'm basing it off the fact that other MMOs in the past (like Everquest) were successful with a cheaper monthly fee and fewer users. In practice, the average cost per user should decrease as the number of users increases, yet Blizzard charges more than other MMOs. Unless WoW requires significantly more bandwidth per player than Everquest or Lineage, your argument is flawed.
The fact is that Blizzard currently has close to the largest revenue stream in the history of the industry. Maybe I should reclarify this: their revenue in one month is enough to finance the development of over 70 average console games. And that's not even counting the initial purchase of the game. I agree that the costs of bandwidth are high, but not nearly that high. Many less successful MMORPGs have been able to cover the cost of bandwidth, even with a revenue stream an order of magnitude smaller.
I wouldn't be surprised if certain arcade games from the '80s used some form of this. It's really not very complicated.
Do you really think Tony Hawk for the PS3 will be that much different?
Let's face it, there are just some games and genres that don't need to be "next-gen". Dead or Alive 4 is basically DOA 3 with more polygons and shaders. Gran Turismo 5 probably will have very similar gameplay to GT4. Smash Bros. Revolution will most likely be a game that could have been designed for the GameCube.
A lot of genres are starting to hit a region of diminishing returns, at least in hardware requirements. Hardware improvements aren't significantly affecting gameplay anymore. Nearly every new third-person adventure game uses the classic Zelda64 model of gameplay. 3D racing games have been relatively unchanged since the early PS1. Most sports games have the same gameplay as they did last generation.
Like a few people have already pointed out, this next generation is primarily about graphics. Yes, one could argue that the Cell processor will be able to handle bigger terrain, advanced AI, more onscreen enemies, etc., but the games that truly need those features will be few and far between. 95% of "next-gen" games will be graphically enhanced current-gen games.
That is, unless the Nintendo Revolution lives up to its name...
There's a big difference between dumbing a game down and removing the tedium. I'm not an expert on MMORPGs by any means, but I was really turned off by the ridiculous tedium that was so prevalent in the genre pre-WoW. From what I've seen, WoW still requires plenty of strategy and thought, but it doesn't require as much time as previous MMOs.
Maybe WoW is easier than most MMOs. I don't play it, so I can't make any claims either way. However, challenge is (mostly) unrelated to the learning curve of the game. Game developers should stick to the mantra, "easy to learn, difficult to master." It appears to me that Blizzard follows that rule better than most MMO devs.
I could understand the "$15 a month isn't a lot" excuse with a smaller MMORPG, but Blizzard currently has money coming out the wazoo. Money is not an excuse.
Ok, I overlooked Madden. Madden is neck-and-neck with The Sims, with about 45 million sales as of last August.
For reference, The Sims franchise had sold 41 million copies as of Sept. 2004. Since that statistic was reported before the release of The Sims 2, it's entirely likely that the franchise has surpassed Madden in sales.
And you're kidding yourself if you think either of those franchises have come anywhere close to touching Mario in total franchise sales. Mario games make up four of the top five best-selling games of all time. The original Super Mario Bros. alone has sold nearly as many copies as the entire Madden franchise. As of December, the Mario franchise has totaled 184 million sales, with Pokemon following at 143 million sales. The Sims and Madden, while both very successful, have sold an order of magnitude fewer copies than Nintendo's leading franchises.
As for Madden being the top-selling game each year... it's generally not. Madden 2005 was drastically outsold by both GTA and Halo 2, and other games tend to beat it every year. The problem it has is that while each copy may sell well at its launch, each version dramatically drops in sales after the new one is released. Contrast this with Halo, which sold well in 2001, but continued to top Xbox sales charts until the release of Halo 2 in 2004.
In an attempt to stay on topic: The Sims is one of the top five most successful franchises in history, which is quite impressive considering that it's a relatively new game. As a game that's targeted toward women (or "non-gamers"), that's even more impressive. Pursuing this market could be Nintendo's best business decision yet. Not only can they open themselves to a large, mostly untapped market, but they may help defeat some of the negative stigma attached to video games by appealing to some of the industry's critics.
It's funny... you cite The Sims as a game that succeeded in appealing to women, yet you claim that if Nintendo focuses on that demographic, they're doomed?
Maybe you're not aware of this, but The Sims is the number one best selling PC game of all time. And that's just the original game; the expansions and sequels have also been amazingly successful. The Sims, as a complete franchise, has outsold nearly every other series of games, with the only exceptions being the Mario and Pokemon franchises (which are, incidentally, both owned by Nintendo).
If that's not a lucrative market, I don't know what is.
That's the inside of the housing for the top screen, which is about 1/4" thick. There's not a whole lot of room for anything in there. Besides, there's no reason to put any hardware up there besides the screen and speakers. It's probably cramped enough trying to run the video/audio lines through that hinge; there's no need to cram another CPU up there, too.
So you expect "connectivity" to be a huge success on the PS3/PSP? Even though it failed on the GameCube/GBA, the latter being the second-highest selling portable in history?
The main criticism against GBA/GCN connectivity was the high cost of entry. I doubt the feature will succeed when each portable costs $250 (instead of $100) and each console costs $400+ (instead of $150).
If your #2 selling point of the PSP is its non-existant connectivity with the PS3, you're not trying hard enough.
For those who already own a DS, the depth and width of the Lite are comparable to those of the top half of the DS. Also, the Lite (when closed) is about as thick as the bottom half of the DS.
Not quite. The SNES and N64 both launched at $200, and after adjusting for inflation, they'd still cost less than $300 today. Also, nearly all of the systems you mentioned would cost less than the $400 Xbox 360, and the PS3 will likely cost even more than that. Besides, a games console isn't like a gallon of milk, where the production costs are relatively constant, so you can't predict consumer pricing purely by inflation. An Xbox 360 is also thousands of times more powerful than a Commodore 64, but consumers shouldn't expect its cost to rise; in fact, the Xbox 360 is much cheaper at launch than the C64 was.
A more traditional matchmaking setup is also very possible, but an auto-match solution like the one Mario Kart uses is more convenient and generally faster. For a portable system like the DS, simplicity and speed are important. My guess is that the Revolution's WFC will have more options available, simply because it'll be designed for longer, more serious periods of play.
Really, the only inherent problems to using Wi-Fi are router compatibility issues and dropped connections. While both are annoying, they should improve as time passes and the technology improves.
Huzzah-what?!?
Japanese kids watch Pokemon in school?? I thought they were supposed to be better educated than us!