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"Innovative Nintendo?"

Well, the DS has been shown, whoopee, I bet Dringo wet his pants this afternoon.

So, anyway, this dual screen malarky, revolutionary? A brilliant change to the way games are played by the industry?

Well, guess what, I don't agree, and I'm going to be called a Sony fanboy, or at very best, an anti-Nintendo zealot for it ;)

Anyway, here's my gripe, there's nothing revolutionrary about the DS what-so-ever. People are talking as though they have never seen dual screen hardware in gamers lifetime, well, I hate to dissapoint you all, but the dual screen handheld format was tried, tested and loved by us golden oldies a little short of 20 years ago.

[URL]http://www.infa.abo.fi/~buck/misc/gizmos/pix/nintendo.game+watch.mickey+donald.open.jpg[/URL]

This picture shows a NINTENDO Game And Watch handheld single game device from almost TWENTY years ago.

[URL]http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/12/nintendo_ds_comms/[/URL]

This image shows an almost identical looking handheld game platform, released by the very same company, but claim this dual screen arhitecture to be new, revolutionary, and well, good.

I'm not saying there may be some niche elements available to gamers, but I feel that most games developers will not use the additional screen for anything useful. Football games will have a top down radar, metroid will have a map, mario kart will have the track and player positions, basically world information about locations and the layout of the world will be used on this screen.

There is a good reason for this too, people can only concentrate their vision to a single focal point at a time. No one can concentrate on both of those screens at the same time, so one screen will be used for gameplay, and the other for displaying information.

This is a good thing given the paltry size of the DS screen, it means the game screen can be uncluttered with HUDs and the like but concentrate solely on letting the player play the game.

I will be truely amazed if anyone on this forum can come up with an original gameplay dynamic which could actively use the two screens of the DS in a way that could not be done on a single screen.

I'm even thinking of having, say, a heat sensor camera on the top screen, and a normal view on the bottom. This would be done MORE effectively on a single screen as a current day frame rate is at a higher reresh rate then the ability of a person to change their point of focus from one screen to the other. Sinply hitting a button to change views whilst focusing on a single point is a more natural way of playing a game.

So, I suppose I have set myself up for a fight by challenging the might of Ninetndo, again, but surely there are more innovative things happening in the world of gaming than a twenty year old handheld design being rereleased to a massive fanfare with no clear cut example of how this creates a revolution.

Nintendo should be commended for spinning up some dust to hide Sony's far nore impressive PSP handheld entertainment device.

The PSP is much more of a students system, good games, good movies, good sounds, wireless and one decent big widescreen which will let people who commute, or like to enjoy the comforts of their bedroom in some glorious sunshine.

The DS is not a gaming revolution, it's a bit like 90s pop music, a remix of something old people liked twenty years ago, just with more colours and more marketing hype. Take the DS with a pinch of salt, it's not worth the hype.

I doubt the screen will be any more likely to scratch than any gameboy before the SP to be fair.

But anyway, has anyone actually thought of a useful way to use the touch screen capabilities in a game??

No doubt DS is an ugly beast, hopefully Nintendo will go back to the drawing board on the case design. It's not gonna put me off buying one, but I can imagine some people looking at it and saying no. Wouldn't say the PSP is really that much better looking though, better colour but still not what I'd call stylish.

Does the PSP come in a case or anyting like that? I could imagine that screen getting scratched to pieces.

Rickoss wrote:
> You really can be a complete retard at times, Bonus.


Not really, just trying to get people to actually discuss things properly, but arrogant people like yourself would rather resort to insults and blindly telling people that they are wrong than discuss the merits of the system.

I'll be quite blatant with my opinion about Nintendo's games of late, they've not been as good as should be expected. Mario Sunshine was average, The Wind Waker was too easy and too boring for long stretches, and MArio Kart was laughably simple for anyone who owned Mario Kart 64.

If I was being perfectly honest about my opinion of whether or not I would want a DS, then it more than likely wouldn't be for first party Nintendo software.

Now, if you are going to keep resorting to insults when I'm merely stirring up unpopular opinions so that people will actually discuss the merits of something, don't reply to a thread which I've started.

I'm not interested in listening to teenagers throwing insults because they think that's a good way to go about discussing something. Half the time when I post topics like this, I don't even believe myself what I am writing, but simply trying to put an alternative viewpoint to start a discussion.

Snuggly also called the DS a toy, go somewhere else if you can't respect the opinion of other people. Definately don't post insults directed at me, they will not be warranted with a response again.

Bonus wrote:
> The DS is little better than what will be a toy.

You really can be a complete retard at times, Bonus.

I don't care about sales, I don't care about who the DS/PSP will appeal to, all I care about is playing games on a handheld system. Both systems seem to have a fair amount of third party support, but the big difference is that Nintendo have Nintendo.

As good as GT4 on your handheld would be, and MGA, I much rather be playing the new Mario Bros., or Metroid Prime, or Zelda. Why? Because they're better games.

The DS has been designed for games, for me I can't help but that's taken a back-seat on the PSP as Sony have obviously focused on cramming in loads of extras. With touch-screen and vocie recognition, alogn with the obvious advantage of two screens, we'll get soem blinding games in years to come, and it can certainly handle itself graphically, placed in between the Cube and N64.

We've already seen Miyamoto hint towards a deal with Microsoft for online play, which would completely and utterly rock, especially seeing as the system's focus seems to be on multiplayer titles.

I don't want a video player, toothbrush and ankle-washer, I ant a games console, and that's what the DS is. Criticism over it's appearance is ridiculous as, not only has Miyamoto said it's early days, but it looks pretty good as is it when you see it for real.

All the DS needs to look good is a colour scheme better than grey.
Fin.

DS winner.

As Nintendo pointed out, the DS is still in development and the design may change a little.

Mr Snuggly wrote:
> PSP looks mighty fine, although this won't be the reason I'll be
> buying one (not going into it here, far too much spew and bile for my
> liking).

I bet it's because you are going to uni, and the PSP is the best platform for a student to watch movies, listen to music and play networked games on a single device :D

Presedenté Nash wrote:
> Mr Snuggly wrote:
> The DS is grey plastic, dull, looks like it's worth £29.99 and
> looks like it belongs in Toys R Us.
>
> It really doesn't.

It's dull grey plastic. They got it right with the SP, that looked cool. Even though this DS thingy is similar, it's an absolute dog egg. The D-pad looks weird and it's the most uniform console I've ever seen Nintendo produce. SNES was cool, all rounded edges. N64 was unique, four ports, raised corners, different colours. GameCube had a handle (brilliant), colours and was beautiful and tiny and petite. GBA was colourful, looked pretty and the SP redefined it, made it 'cool'.

The DS looks like Satan's aborted baby.

PSP looks mighty fine, although this won't be the reason I'll be buying one (not going into it here, far too much spew and bile for my liking).

Rickoss wrote:
> Of course I could be wrong, but Sony will have to get soem big-name
> developers on board if they want to try and rival Nintendo's machine.


This could easily be the funniest comment yet :D Either you really haven't looked at the PSP at all because Sony made it, or you are blind, but anyway, lets have a look at the current list of known developers.

Well, you know what, there are so many I can't be bothered listing them.

The big ones are all there anyway, Konami, namco, Capcom, Ubisoft, Sony themselves.

The only problem the PSP wil have that it will be PS2 port heaven, and I doubt many people will want to stump out £40 or £30 for a game they already own on the PS2.

I'll stand by my statement that the PSP is students hall heaven. You can play on your own, watch movies through it on a TV, listen to music and play multiplayer games with your flatmates in the flat or in lectures.

This is surely social student gaming opportunity heaven.

The DS will play games, quirky games, and game which will not be as good as they would be with a proper analogue controller on a console.

The DS is little better than what will be a toy.

I'll accept that I don't know how developers will use the touchscreen system, but as for accepting that because developers have produced great game sin the past means they will now produce equally good games on the DS is simply lunacy.

I'm still glad to see that people are actually putting some thought into this thread, rather than just saying you're wrong , because I said so, and that's final.

Mr Snuggly wrote:
> The DS is grey plastic, dull, looks like it's wprth £29.99 and
> looks like it belongs in Toys R Us.

It really doesn't.