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When you're sitting there, playing your Game Boy Advance, you may think, what is next for handheld gaming? Well, you have a good question to ask. This is a question that needs to be answered. What will we be doing on our handheld consoles in, say.... 10 years? The GBA had shocked us all with it's graphical capabilities and all the great games on it, such as Mario Kart, Doom and Mario Advance. And now we are playing 4 player multiplayer games too. What will be next for handhelds?
If you think of a handheld, you think of Nintendo. Everyone would because Nintendo do handhelds like no-one else. They make them simple, yet effective. The question in this subject is, will there be any challenges to Nintendo from any other companies? Will Sony, Microsoft or Sega make a GBA beating handheld? The answer to that is probably no, but there may be another company that decides they will come in and make a handheld trying to rival Nintendo. It is most likely they won't because no-one really is good enough to challenge Ninty for handheld glory yet. Handhelds are what Ninty do best..... that no-one else can actually beat. What I mean by that is the GC may not do better than X-Box or PS2 but the GBA would do better than any opposition it got.
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
Graphics. How much better can handheld graphics get? That is a question asked quite a lot. They are in 3D already sometimes, but only a few games are actually in 3D at all. Some games boast using the full 32bit 3D engine but they are nowhere near 3D or, 32bit for that matter. Graphics on handhelds will get better. Nintendo will announce a new handheld system in about 5 years that will look, play and use it's power even better than the GBA. We may see what is claimed to be 64bit Game Boy games. We just may, you never know. I wouldn't mind that.
CDs. Will handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange. Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small, just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
Cartridges. This is the exact opposite of what would happen if there were no disced handheld games. This one, unlike the last paragraph, is probably right. Cartridges, if they stay on as the use for handhelds then they will probably need to get smaller. This would be due to the engine and all the inner parts getting more advanced and maybe needing more space. BUT.... as they get more advanced, this could mean the game engine could get smaller, and therefore, the cartridges would stay the same size, or possibly get bigger. This is probably more likely to happen than discs appearing on handhelds. Cartridges would be easier to develop for when they are small.
Peripherals may change to in the future. We could be playing 8 player games with extended link cables so that there could be space for you and 7 friends to enjoy an 8 player of Perfect Dark on a handheld. That would be great! How about speakers for a handheld that you could attach on and here the music much louder, or perhaps earphones.... maybe not those 2. You don't need to hear a game any more than it can be heard already. A link to a CD playing home console would be good as well. That is one Nintendo have got working with their Cube - GBA link, but what I mean is an attachment letting you play all games on the big screen, not just the ones that are designed to join up to a Gamecube.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming and why?
Cheers, Afro.
If you think of a handheld, you think of Nintendo. Everyone would because Nintendo do handhelds like no-one else. They make them simple, yet effective. The question in this subject is, will there be any challenges to Nintendo from any other companies? Will Sony, Microsoft or Sega make a GBA beating handheld? The answer to that is probably no, but there may be another company that decides they will come in and make a handheld trying to rival Nintendo. It is most likely they won't because no-one really is good enough to challenge Ninty for handheld glory yet. Handhelds are what Ninty do best..... that no-one else can actually beat. What I mean by that is the GC may not do better than X-Box or PS2 but the GBA would do better than any opposition it got.
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
Graphics. How much better can handheld graphics get? That is a question asked quite a lot. They are in 3D already sometimes, but only a few games are actually in 3D at all. Some games boast using the full 32bit 3D engine but they are nowhere near 3D or, 32bit for that matter. Graphics on handhelds will get better. Nintendo will announce a new handheld system in about 5 years that will look, play and use it's power even better than the GBA. We may see what is claimed to be 64bit Game Boy games. We just may, you never know. I wouldn't mind that.
CDs. Will handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange. Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small, just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
Cartridges. This is the exact opposite of what would happen if there were no disced handheld games. This one, unlike the last paragraph, is probably right. Cartridges, if they stay on as the use for handhelds then they will probably need to get smaller. This would be due to the engine and all the inner parts getting more advanced and maybe needing more space. BUT.... as they get more advanced, this could mean the game engine could get smaller, and therefore, the cartridges would stay the same size, or possibly get bigger. This is probably more likely to happen than discs appearing on handhelds. Cartridges would be easier to develop for when they are small.
Peripherals may change to in the future. We could be playing 8 player games with extended link cables so that there could be space for you and 7 friends to enjoy an 8 player of Perfect Dark on a handheld. That would be great! How about speakers for a handheld that you could attach on and here the music much louder, or perhaps earphones.... maybe not those 2. You don't need to hear a game any more than it can be heard already. A link to a CD playing home console would be good as well. That is one Nintendo have got working with their Cube - GBA link, but what I mean is an attachment letting you play all games on the big screen, not just the ones that are designed to join up to a Gamecube.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming and why?
Cheers, Afro.
Hard drive on a handheld. That would be a little strange. But I'm imagining a big hard drive, but as you said, they could get smaller. I still am having thoughts on what that would be like.
They would need to lower the price as well on the hard drives. Not just if there were handheld hard drives, but hard drives in general need their prices lowered, from what we've seen in Japan. The price is quite big.
Thanks for the replies people.
They would need to lower the price as well on the hard drives. Not just if there were handheld hard drives, but hard drives in general need their prices lowered, from what we've seen in Japan. The price is quite big.
Thanks for the replies people.
Cooky wrote:
Also with carts you can save data to them. This isn't possible with CD's
> so that will also put developers off creating a CD based handheld
> system.
Ye, but who knows what sort of media we will be using in the future. Take for example these new Blu-Ray Discs. Which apparently supports recording, re-writing and playback, can hold up to 27GB of information on a single sided, single layer disc.
We are already beginning to see hard-drive's implemented into Consoles, so it shoudnt be too long before a hard-drive small enough to be able to fit inside a hand-held is created.
All I can say is that the future is very exciting! Lets hope all the potential is filled.
Also with carts you can save data to them. This isn't possible with CD's
> so that will also put developers off creating a CD based handheld
> system.
Ye, but who knows what sort of media we will be using in the future. Take for example these new Blu-Ray Discs. Which apparently supports recording, re-writing and playback, can hold up to 27GB of information on a single sided, single layer disc.
We are already beginning to see hard-drive's implemented into Consoles, so it shoudnt be too long before a hard-drive small enough to be able to fit inside a hand-held is created.
All I can say is that the future is very exciting! Lets hope all the potential is filled.
Good post AfroJoe, and Cooky, what about an anti-shoch system?? But maybe that'd only be available for Sony products, or Nintendo would have to work again with Panasonic, like the Q!
Wow! What a reply Cooky!
You finished off points that I didn't know about and wrote what was good enough to be a topic in itself.
Cheers! ;-)
You finished off points that I didn't know about and wrote what was good enough to be a topic in itself.
Cheers! ;-)
AfroJoe wrote:
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even
> Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well
> but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being
> that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a
> very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is
> much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online
> is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
They had online handheld gaming on the GBC in Japan. In Pokemon Silver you could hook your GBC up to your mobile phone and battle other players. This won't take off really in this country as in Japan mobile phones are more standadised, meaning that the little sockets you can plug stuff in are the same on virtually all phones, whereas in the UK they are all different.
CDs. Will
> handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size
> as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't
> really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge
> ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange.
> Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small,
> just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on
> handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
There won't really be a handheld CD based machine for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is that you move around while using you console a bit. If you were to be shacking the machine around then the CD might skip like in a Discman. This really wouldn't be too good. Also with carts you can save data to them. This isn't possible with CD's so that will also put developers off creating a CD based handheld system.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming
> and why?
My thought on handheld overall is that it'll be quite a bit of time till we see another significant change in the handheld games market. The normal Gameboy didn't really change for 10+ years. Only now has the GBA been released and that still isn't really much of an improvment. Yes it can now handle better graphics, but that's about it. Really it's just the same as the Gameboy has always been. Is this a bad thing? No, not really. The point of handheld games is to provide generally a simple playing experiance that people can play while there on the move. Thus simple platformers, n puzzle games are generally what you see on handhelds. There's also beat-em-ups, and driving games are comming into the market a bit more now, but overall the games are generally simple pick up n play titles. This is the way that handheld gaming will probably stay. Due to what there aimed at handhelds can't really get anymore advanced. Because it they were to you might aswell buy a proper console. Thus I don't see the handheld market changing too much.
Also Nintendo has too much of a corner on the market for anyone else to stand a chance. People have tried to topple them, like Sega with the Game Gear (flawed due to it EATING battries), Atari Lynx (for similar reasons, plus for being worse than even the Game Gear), the Neo Geo Pocket (was released in the UK briefly before dying a horrible DEATH), the Wonder Swan (never been released in the UK so not really gonna stand up to the GBA much is it), and fially there's the GP32. The GP32 hasn't been released outside the far east I don't think so that's not really gonna bother Nintendo much either. The GP32 has one thing going for it. It is being made as open source so anyone can make games for it if they want. That's a nice feature, but I still don't think it's realy gonna help it match up to the GBA.
Well that's enought from me for now. Better go do some programming of my own now so hopefully I can be making some groovy GBA titles soon!
:)
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even
> Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well
> but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being
> that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a
> very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is
> much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online
> is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
They had online handheld gaming on the GBC in Japan. In Pokemon Silver you could hook your GBC up to your mobile phone and battle other players. This won't take off really in this country as in Japan mobile phones are more standadised, meaning that the little sockets you can plug stuff in are the same on virtually all phones, whereas in the UK they are all different.
CDs. Will
> handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size
> as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't
> really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge
> ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange.
> Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small,
> just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on
> handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
There won't really be a handheld CD based machine for a number of reasons. One of the main reasons is that you move around while using you console a bit. If you were to be shacking the machine around then the CD might skip like in a Discman. This really wouldn't be too good. Also with carts you can save data to them. This isn't possible with CD's so that will also put developers off creating a CD based handheld system.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming
> and why?
My thought on handheld overall is that it'll be quite a bit of time till we see another significant change in the handheld games market. The normal Gameboy didn't really change for 10+ years. Only now has the GBA been released and that still isn't really much of an improvment. Yes it can now handle better graphics, but that's about it. Really it's just the same as the Gameboy has always been. Is this a bad thing? No, not really. The point of handheld games is to provide generally a simple playing experiance that people can play while there on the move. Thus simple platformers, n puzzle games are generally what you see on handhelds. There's also beat-em-ups, and driving games are comming into the market a bit more now, but overall the games are generally simple pick up n play titles. This is the way that handheld gaming will probably stay. Due to what there aimed at handhelds can't really get anymore advanced. Because it they were to you might aswell buy a proper console. Thus I don't see the handheld market changing too much.
Also Nintendo has too much of a corner on the market for anyone else to stand a chance. People have tried to topple them, like Sega with the Game Gear (flawed due to it EATING battries), Atari Lynx (for similar reasons, plus for being worse than even the Game Gear), the Neo Geo Pocket (was released in the UK briefly before dying a horrible DEATH), the Wonder Swan (never been released in the UK so not really gonna stand up to the GBA much is it), and fially there's the GP32. The GP32 hasn't been released outside the far east I don't think so that's not really gonna bother Nintendo much either. The GP32 has one thing going for it. It is being made as open source so anyone can make games for it if they want. That's a nice feature, but I still don't think it's realy gonna help it match up to the GBA.
Well that's enought from me for now. Better go do some programming of my own now so hopefully I can be making some groovy GBA titles soon!
:)
Cartridges are the best way to go because there are no loading times - true plug and play - mini discs would have to load just like PS and Dc discs. This would inevitabley lead to buffering and skipping problems. You would also need a seperate method of storing game saves etc.
I cant see any other manufacturer coming and making much of a dent if any in Nintendos handheld market, everybody who has tried has failed so far.
I cant see any other manufacturer coming and making much of a dent if any in Nintendos handheld market, everybody who has tried has failed so far.
Good topic Afro. I hope maybe next time Nintendo release a hand held console, they'll use minidiscs as they are easier to store and would probably provide better graphic and sound quality. But if Nintendo do release another hand held, chances are it won't be for a long time :(
When you're sitting there, playing your Game Boy Advance, you may think, what is next for handheld gaming? Well, you have a good question to ask. This is a question that needs to be answered. What will we be doing on our handheld consoles in, say.... 10 years? The GBA had shocked us all with it's graphical capabilities and all the great games on it, such as Mario Kart, Doom and Mario Advance. And now we are playing 4 player multiplayer games too. What will be next for handhelds?
If you think of a handheld, you think of Nintendo. Everyone would because Nintendo do handhelds like no-one else. They make them simple, yet effective. The question in this subject is, will there be any challenges to Nintendo from any other companies? Will Sony, Microsoft or Sega make a GBA beating handheld? The answer to that is probably no, but there may be another company that decides they will come in and make a handheld trying to rival Nintendo. It is most likely they won't because no-one really is good enough to challenge Ninty for handheld glory yet. Handhelds are what Ninty do best..... that no-one else can actually beat. What I mean by that is the GC may not do better than X-Box or PS2 but the GBA would do better than any opposition it got.
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
Graphics. How much better can handheld graphics get? That is a question asked quite a lot. They are in 3D already sometimes, but only a few games are actually in 3D at all. Some games boast using the full 32bit 3D engine but they are nowhere near 3D or, 32bit for that matter. Graphics on handhelds will get better. Nintendo will announce a new handheld system in about 5 years that will look, play and use it's power even better than the GBA. We may see what is claimed to be 64bit Game Boy games. We just may, you never know. I wouldn't mind that.
CDs. Will handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange. Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small, just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
Cartridges. This is the exact opposite of what would happen if there were no disced handheld games. This one, unlike the last paragraph, is probably right. Cartridges, if they stay on as the use for handhelds then they will probably need to get smaller. This would be due to the engine and all the inner parts getting more advanced and maybe needing more space. BUT.... as they get more advanced, this could mean the game engine could get smaller, and therefore, the cartridges would stay the same size, or possibly get bigger. This is probably more likely to happen than discs appearing on handhelds. Cartridges would be easier to develop for when they are small.
Peripherals may change to in the future. We could be playing 8 player games with extended link cables so that there could be space for you and 7 friends to enjoy an 8 player of Perfect Dark on a handheld. That would be great! How about speakers for a handheld that you could attach on and here the music much louder, or perhaps earphones.... maybe not those 2. You don't need to hear a game any more than it can be heard already. A link to a CD playing home console would be good as well. That is one Nintendo have got working with their Cube - GBA link, but what I mean is an attachment letting you play all games on the big screen, not just the ones that are designed to join up to a Gamecube.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming and why?
Cheers, Afro.
If you think of a handheld, you think of Nintendo. Everyone would because Nintendo do handhelds like no-one else. They make them simple, yet effective. The question in this subject is, will there be any challenges to Nintendo from any other companies? Will Sony, Microsoft or Sega make a GBA beating handheld? The answer to that is probably no, but there may be another company that decides they will come in and make a handheld trying to rival Nintendo. It is most likely they won't because no-one really is good enough to challenge Ninty for handheld glory yet. Handhelds are what Ninty do best..... that no-one else can actually beat. What I mean by that is the GC may not do better than X-Box or PS2 but the GBA would do better than any opposition it got.
Online handheld gaming? Nah. No way. Not yet anyway. Not even Nintendo could put handhelds online yet. Yes, making a 4 player link is all well but Handheld Online Gaming is most unlikely to ever spring up, the reason being that it will be very hard to get that to work. As we have witnessed, it is a very complex thing to even put home consoles online, so a handheld, which is much smaller, with much less power and not many games that would do well online is not going to go online. Not for quite a long while anyway.
Graphics. How much better can handheld graphics get? That is a question asked quite a lot. They are in 3D already sometimes, but only a few games are actually in 3D at all. Some games boast using the full 32bit 3D engine but they are nowhere near 3D or, 32bit for that matter. Graphics on handhelds will get better. Nintendo will announce a new handheld system in about 5 years that will look, play and use it's power even better than the GBA. We may see what is claimed to be 64bit Game Boy games. We just may, you never know. I wouldn't mind that.
CDs. Will handhelds ever use discs? This is doubtful unless the handheld was the same size as a Personal Stereo. It is possible that that could happen though. We don't really know. CD handheld games would no doubt look better than the cartridge ones and would maybe play better, but a round handheld console would be strange. Maybe hard to control, possibly like an X-Box controller. The CDs may be small, just like the GC ones. As I said, we don't really know if there will be CDs on handhelds. I would say that it is most unlikely.
Cartridges. This is the exact opposite of what would happen if there were no disced handheld games. This one, unlike the last paragraph, is probably right. Cartridges, if they stay on as the use for handhelds then they will probably need to get smaller. This would be due to the engine and all the inner parts getting more advanced and maybe needing more space. BUT.... as they get more advanced, this could mean the game engine could get smaller, and therefore, the cartridges would stay the same size, or possibly get bigger. This is probably more likely to happen than discs appearing on handhelds. Cartridges would be easier to develop for when they are small.
Peripherals may change to in the future. We could be playing 8 player games with extended link cables so that there could be space for you and 7 friends to enjoy an 8 player of Perfect Dark on a handheld. That would be great! How about speakers for a handheld that you could attach on and here the music much louder, or perhaps earphones.... maybe not those 2. You don't need to hear a game any more than it can be heard already. A link to a CD playing home console would be good as well. That is one Nintendo have got working with their Cube - GBA link, but what I mean is an attachment letting you play all games on the big screen, not just the ones that are designed to join up to a Gamecube.
Anyway, enough from me, what are your thoughts on handheld gaming and why?
Cheers, Afro.