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"Handhelds - The future?"

The next generation of consoles are just round the corner. Excited? Genuinly excited? Developers are fast running out of ideas for consoles. How powerful can a system get before people get bored with it? By the time PS3 & Xbox 2 arrive, the ideas for new and unique games will have all but died. So. Where will we go then? PC games will probably go the way of consoles. I think the answer lies in handhelds.
Up until now handhelds have sort of taken a back seat to home consoles. But only now are developers realising the true potential of portable consoles. Imagine the possbibilities... I think gamers are going to have to come to terms with the fact that consoles are dying. And developers can only come up with so many ideas before turning towards new things. Handhelds, I think, are the future of gaming.

> Also the DS cards are cheaper.


Tread Carefully, i feel a fanboy argument between a ds person and a psp (which is better XD) person.........BE AFRAID!

Nono, it really won't be very long at all.
About 10 years, I'd say.

It will be a hell of a long time untill game graphics can get as good as they get. The only thing stopping them are when they get as good as real life which will never happen any time soon. Just imagine how hard it will be for the 3D modlers.

Foszy wrote:
> You say we will eventually reach a limit, but people said the earth
> was flat at one point...

Total irrelevance.

Dont know if you have been to America but
> there games arcades are a lot better than what we have here in the
> UK. They have 3D goggle games, you are actually on a platform and
> that is why it is only possible to have arcade machines of it but 3D
> is definatly the way forward i feel, although i feel this could be
> even past the PS4 era.

Of course there's better things now - but, in the future, there will be point when, graphically, games just can't get any better. There's no denying it.
And when it comes, the companies can no longer rely on more powerful machines to induce awe and provide their cash.

I'd like to see a console with a built in solar panel to charge the batteries with.

Macintosh wrote:
> I think the DS handheld will be limited to 128Mb, but the PSP will
> hold upto 1.6Gb. So those games for PSP like MGS will never make it
> onto DS without being transformed into some thing very basic. A bit
> like that XBox game that also launched for GBA (cant remember the
> name), it was turned into a 2d platform game.

Cause the GBA can't hold that sized games.

It can be up to 1GB, and they are cheap... you can use a GBA cart at the same time as well so it makes 256 MB max on top of that.

Also the DS cards are cheaper.

Of for fans of the obscure, Gamestation seem to be selling second hand GamePark32s.

I think the DS handheld will be limited to 128Mb, but the PSP will hold upto 1.6Gb. So those games for PSP like MGS will never make it onto DS without being transformed into some thing very basic. A bit like that XBox game that also launched for GBA (cant remember the name), it was turned into a 2d platform game.

And will the next GBA use the same 128Mb memory as the DS? If it does, or is similar, it also will be very limited compared with PSP.

PSP will at last offer real performance to the handheld market. Developers will quickly start making PSP versions of games like MGS, GT4, GTA, Quake, and so on. And with games like that on PSP, which look like proper games (not the 2d p!ss poor stuff on the GBA), most people will never look back. There will be some that must have their Nintendo, no matter what, but there will be less of them as times goes by.

Hedfix wrote:
> I prefer playing on a big tv.

Linking up via an adapter to a TV would be easily possible....

And you unplug the device to take on the go...

Online a standard.

Eventually Handheld gaming would be as good as home systems, and these home systems will become obsolete.