#27246 - dagamer34 - Thu Oct 07, 2004 3:42 pm
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/07/news_6109869.html
Interesting, huh? This will be quite a battle between the DS and the PSP.
By the way, does this have any similarity to how the GameBoy was launched? I am only 15, so it was before my time so to speak... :)
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Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27259 - DiscoStew - Thu Oct 07, 2004 6:40 pm
As low as $29.99 for Nintendo published games. I was expecting to pay more, but this is great news. They only said Nintendo published games, and the 'as low' comment doesn't necessarily mean all games will be that price. Still good to know I can possibly buy more for less.
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DS - It's all about DiscoStew
#27314 - dagamer34 - Sat Oct 09, 2004 5:11 am
I watched a video on GameSpot on Super Mario 64 DS. It really looks like a good game. And it definitely is better than N64 quality.
It really makes me wonder if the PSP is all that. All the media's attention has been focused on the DS with all this new info being released.
That was the good news.
The bad news is that Nintendo is projected only to have 1 million units available in the US before Christmas time. Good for Nintendo, bad for children... :/
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27315 - TwinD - Sat Oct 09, 2004 5:29 am
I'm buying 10 and ebaying them.
#27327 - dagamer34 - Sat Oct 09, 2004 10:47 pm
| TwinD wrote: |
| I'm buying 10 and ebaying them. |
Oooh... brings back some old memories. *remembers Christmas 2000*
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27328 - DiscoStew - Sun Oct 10, 2004 3:07 am
I've got mine reserved, so hopefully I'm one of those 1 million.
_________________
DS - It's all about DiscoStew
#27329 - Krakken - Sun Oct 10, 2004 3:09 am
Only 1 million is kinda discouraging.
#27343 - dagamer34 - Mon Oct 11, 2004 12:58 am
| Krakken wrote: |
| Only 1 million is kinda discouraging. |
Well, at least they told us straight up. Would you rather have found out 2 days before Christmas?
Anyway, Nintendo has no competition during the holiday season, allowing them to completely take over in terms of marketing. Who really is going to save their Christmas money for a PSP, game, and memory stick?
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27344 - DiscoStew - Mon Oct 11, 2004 1:22 am
What would be an average projected number of units for a new console/handheld at launch time be?
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DS - It's all about DiscoStew
#27349 - Cupcakus - Mon Oct 11, 2004 4:03 am
I reserved 2, yesturday, 1mil should be plenty for the initial launch, but I doubt you'll be able to find one come Christmas
#27380 - mymateo - Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:29 pm
Speaking of PSP, I was on lik-sang's website, and they had the PSP listed for pre-order, to ship on arrival. The arrival date was posted Nov 19 2004, 2 days before the DS. I thought the PSP was going to come out in the later part of Q1 2005? I have been rather unsucsessful in finding much data on the PSP, so I haven't been able to confirm this for myself yet.
Memory sticks? Good lord, has Sony gone retarded? No offense to the mentally challenged, but seriously, they need to give their heads a shake. Bult-in memory capable of holding enough save space for, say, 20 large games (like Animal Crossing -- takes an entire 1x GC memory card by itself), then have an optional method of transfer. If it has wireless, that could be a good way, or a USB key, or plug into a PC to transfer online, or hell yeah INCLUDE the port for a memory card, but don'e REQUIRE it. Geez!
#27381 - dagamer34 - Mon Oct 11, 2004 9:58 pm
| mymateo wrote: |
Speaking of PSP, I was on lik-sang's website, and they had the PSP listed for pre-order, to ship on arrival. The arrival date was posted Nov 19 2004, 2 days before the DS. I thought the PSP was going to come out in the later part of Q1 2005? I have been rather unsucsessful in finding much data on the PSP, so I haven't been able to confirm this for myself yet.
Memory sticks? Good lord, has Sony gone retarded? No offense to the mentally challenged, but seriously, they need to give their heads a shake. Bult-in memory capable of holding enough save space for, say, 20 large games (like Animal Crossing -- takes an entire 1x GC memory card by itself), then have an optional method of transfer. If it has wireless, that could be a good way, or a USB key, or plug into a PC to transfer online, or hell yeah INCLUDE the port for a memory card, but don'e REQUIRE it. Geez! |
Sony is attempting to establish a Draconian business model... :/
_________________
Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27385 - Touchstone - Mon Oct 11, 2004 11:07 pm
| mymateo wrote: |
| Memory sticks? Good lord, has Sony gone retarded? No offense to the mentally challenged, but seriously, they need to give their heads a shake. Bult-in memory capable of holding enough save space for, say, 20 large games (like Animal Crossing -- takes an entire 1x GC memory card by itself), then have an optional method of transfer. If it has wireless, that could be a good way, or a USB key, or plug into a PC to transfer online, or hell yeah INCLUDE the port for a memory card, but don'e REQUIRE it. Geez! |
Built-in memory isn't really the best solution. Building a memory with the same capacity as 20 memory cards would be very expensive and probably eat precious space in the machine.
Disregarding the cost, what would you do if the memory is full and you absolutely MUST save your game and you really, really don't want to free up save slots. Transferring saves to a PC isn't a possibility because Sony would have to either create a PC program to talk to the PSP, or have the PSP act as for example a Samba server.
Having a USB slot for memory sticks means you have to support the majority of existing sticks with various sizes and discrepancies. And the PlayStation image would probably take a hit if Sony encourage using non-PlayStation peripherals with their device.
Having both built-in memory and a slot for memory cards is probably also to expensive. Besides, when they have the memory card slot, why have built-in memory aswell.. That way they don't make money selling memory cards.
Well, that's what I think.
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#27388 - mymateo - Tue Oct 12, 2004 2:06 am
I should point out the PSP already has a USB slot.
But you make two good points -- too much space taken inside, too much cost. But what about some internal memory?
If you have two memory cards, and you bring two games on a trip with you, and they have their saved games on different cards, it'd be very annoying to switch memory cards every time you switched games. But with some internal memory, you could transfer the saves for a few games internally, thus reducing the possibility of losing your card(s) due to swapping (or little brother theft), and would reduce the immediate need for people to buy more stuff. It's rather off-putting to spend several hundred dollars on a system, a hundred or so on a couple games, then find out you ABSOLUTELY MUST pay more money just to save your game, something you've NEVER had to do on a portable before EVER (to my knowledge).
So, no it's not the best solution, but neither is requiring people to spend all their money. Just my two cents.
#27392 - tepples - Tue Oct 12, 2004 5:28 am
| Touchstone wrote: |
| Transferring saves to a PC isn't a possibility because Sony would have to either create a PC program to talk to the PSP, or have the PSP act as for example a Samba server. |
Sony created PC programs to talk to PS2 consoles for those games that support online play.
| Quote: |
| Having a USB slot for memory sticks means you have to support the majority of existing sticks with various sizes and discrepancies. |
The majority meet the USB 1.1 Mass Storage standard plus FAT32 file system.
| Quote: |
| And the PlayStation image would probably take a hit if Sony encourage using non-PlayStation peripherals with their device. |
I own an original PlayStation game console, and I use it with a Philips Magnavox TV. Does the PS2 require a WEGA TV?
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#27472 - Touchstone - Wed Oct 13, 2004 7:02 pm
| mymateo wrote: |
| I should point out the PSP already has a USB slot. |
Oh, cool.
| tepples wrote: |
| Sony created PC programs to talk to PS2 consoles for those games that support online play. |
But that doesn't mean that program is a requirement to play ANY game on the console, only a few.
| tepples wrote: |
| The majority meet the USB 1.1 Mass Storage standard plus FAT32 file system. |
That's nice.
| tepples wrote: |
| I own an original PlayStation game console, and I use it with a Philips Magnavox TV. Does the PS2 require a WEGA TV? |
I think the memory-card thingie is more comparable to Sony not creating any joypads for PlayStation, rather than your TV argument.
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You can't beat our meat
#27503 - mymateo - Thu Oct 14, 2004 8:29 am
I'm going to have to side with tepples on his TV analogy, though for a different reason.
I am much more likely to buy something if I already own something compatible with it. For example, if the PSP was compatible with Smart Media cards, I would be much more likely to consider buying one because I already own a Smart Media card.
So, in that respect, it would be a good move for Sony, or any other hardware developer, to support other popular technology. This is purely due to the fact that people have a general distrust of new technology based on how fleeting it has been in the past. The ngage flopped in my quiet little town, I have never EVER seen anyone use one (except for the demo model in EB), and I have never heard of anyone owning one PERIOD. So anything a company can do to offset that natural distrust would be a good move, and may very well help a good product get the recognition it deserves.
If you doubt what I say, read a few techie magazines (Maximum PC, that sort), anything that reviews different hardware and gives honest upsides and downsides to everything they review. You will find that most products that support a little-used technology might get some disapproval, and that anything that heavily relies on little-used technology for basic functionality will get flamed, and there is a reason for that.
Well, I hope I've shed some light. I really don't care what Sony does right now, nor do I think they have anyone reading these posts trying to get ideas, so this is all irrelevant in real life anyways.
But it's fun to discuss! :-P
Peace
#27514 - Touchstone - Thu Oct 14, 2004 3:07 pm
| mymateo wrote: |
| I am much more likely to buy something if I already own something compatible with it. For example, if the PSP was compatible with Smart Media cards, I would be much more likely to consider buying one because I already own a Smart Media card. |
To me that sounds about as silly as saying, "Hey I got a chair, now I'm more likely to buy a house to put the chair in." I'm not saying you're wrong, I simply don't buy the arguments when it comes to videogame consoles. For something else, like a computer or a phone it would be something completely different, I wouldn't buy anything that isn't standardized (unless for a very good reason ofcourse) ...
| mymateo wrote: |
| So, in that respect, it would be a good move for Sony, or any other hardware developer, to support other popular technology. This is purely due to the fact that people have a general distrust of new technology based on how fleeting it has been in the past. |
If I had a bluetooth connection in my computer and I was buying a new phone I would defenitely go for a bluetooth enabled phone rather than one with their own proprietary connection possibilities. So for that matter I definetely agree with you.
| mymateo wrote: |
| If you doubt what I say, read a few techie magazines (Maximum PC, that sort), anything that reviews different hardware and gives honest upsides and downsides to everything they review. You will find that most products that support a little-used technology might get some disapproval, and that anything that heavily relies on little-used technology for basic functionality will get flamed, and there is a reason for that. |
I understand why a PC product that doesn't support the major standards will get disaproval but in the PC world compability is vital because if your product doesn't meet the standards to a 100% you cannot guarantee that your product work with every possible match in the world simply because you cannot test your product with everything else. In the console world theres another matter. Sony design their console and memory card to work with each other and nothing else, that makes it a lot easier to verify that every match (that only one) works. If a problem should arise along the way, which of course is possible, then Sony will know exactly what the problem is and prohibit developers from reproducing the bug in their own software.
And to draw my argument to it's extreme, why would only memory cards be disapproved when it's exactly the same situation with the joypads for the PS2? And that's just exterior, why would people want to buy a console that is built from unknown parts instead of one that's built from known hardware like intel motherboards+processor, nvidia graphicschip, yamaha soundchips. (I know some consoles actually are built on this hardware but it's not because consumer rather buys this hardware, rather it's because it's cheap to develop that kind of system)
So in short, I don't think the console world is comparable to the PC world because it's more closed off to the rest of the world and easy to control and verify that stuff works.
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#27546 - mymateo - Fri Oct 15, 2004 6:20 am
True enough. But as for comparing controllers in the PS2 to the memory cards in the PSP, that's a little off-the-wall. I'm not sure how to take it, but I'll point out that my argument is based on the PSP being portable. With a home console, it isn't meant to be portable. Yes, you can move it, but you can't really play it on the go, as in walking down the street, and therefore is more suited to people who have enough room to hook up a console and store, to a certain extent, peripherals and accessories to it.
However, the portable gamer, has limited storage capacity on-the-go (pockets and, for some, carrying case), and risks a much greater chance of losing or damaging his console. For this reason, I feel that reducing the number of parts, and therefore amount of storage space needed, is a good move. Not always economical, but a step towards more secure gameplay.
As for the argument of compatibility, if the memory was built it, it would be absolutely 100% compatible. Besides, 3rd party developers are bound to make memory cards/sticks for the PSP if Sony lets them, and that's exactly why we have standards. The SD memory cards (to pull more references from the PC world - sorry, I'm a computer tech, it's what I know) are all made to the same specs, so anything that uses an SD memory card is guaranteed to use any manufacturer's SD memory card. Whether or not the card is a peice of garbage and fails the first time you use it doesn't enter into the compatibility. But, again, this is another somewhat poor comparison to gaming, 'cause it's not like there's an SG (Secure Gaming) memory card that the PS2 and GameCube use. No no, each console has its different memory card. Sure, the PS2 can use PS1 memory cards, but only for PS1 games.
And it is true that having a chair wouldn't necessitate buying a house, but wouldn't it be nice to have a place to put it? (Totally off-topic and irrelevant, but I thought I'd say that just for fun :)
And something you said really struck me when I first read it, but for some reason I've forgotten what it was, and re-reading your post didn't help... Good lord, I'm a dunce... Anyways, I was going to say it was a good argument, so instead I'll just say you're a good arguer. It's rare to find someone interested more in the actual points of the matter. Most people resort to mindless bickering... I like to avoid that, nothing gets done then...
Goodnight everybody!
#27559 - dagamer34 - Fri Oct 15, 2004 3:21 pm
Anyway, back to the original point of this topic, now that launch details have been revealed, what do you people think about it? Reggie says that the Nintendo DS has the best launch portfolio Nintendo has ever come up with. Do you agree with that statement and why?
Also, is it important that Nintendo has a surefire killer 3rd party game to survive? Everyone knows that Nintendo will make the usual stuff, but I honestly think that the DS will only stay afloat because there is ample support from 3rd parties. 3rd parties left the GCN because no one was buying thier games on the GCN, but instead on the Xbox and PS2. Odd, don't you think?
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Little kids and Playstation 2's don't mix. :(
#27575 - mymateo - Fri Oct 15, 2004 11:07 pm
I think the DS will sell enough games to keep its 3rd party support... but I do think that getting awesome multiplayer from 3rd party devrs (lets face it, Nintendo ran out of ideas when N64 was just about gone) is really important to the DS thriving. As for simply survivng, I think Nintendo could manage that with minimal 3rd party support... but only just.
As for release titles, this is what I think of it. The 3rd party release titles are going to be really good, and cover many genres, so everyone will (most likely) have something to play. But shame on Nintendo! Everyone is going to get PictoChat and the First Hunt demo with their DS at release, and the ONLY game Nintendo has confirmed at launch is Super Mario DS (formerly SM 64x4). I think they should release Animal Crossing DS, Mario Kart DS, Wario Ware Inc. DS, and Super Mario Bros. at launch. Especially since it looks like the PSP will be getting released around the same time now. That's unconfirmed, but it's possible.
But, I've read rumors that the big N might have some surprises yet to come. Can you say "extra release titles" boys and girls? Or maybe including a free year subscription to an online gaming service? Even better, releasing an official Nintendo wireless router for $30 US ($40 CAN) to anyone who pre-ordered their DS so they can play people online from across the globe? Or what do you want to bet all we loyal people who paid ahead of time get some dorky T-shirt, or a free 1 year subscription to Nintendo Power, or some kid's watch? Ugh, I don't know if I want Nintendo to pull out any surprises now...
#27588 - tepples - Sat Oct 16, 2004 3:20 am
| mymateo wrote: |
| Even better, releasing an official Nintendo wireless router for $30 US ($40 CAN) to anyone who pre-ordered their DS so they can play people online from across the globe? |
Nope. Though the system itself imposes no region coding, the Japan, USA, and Europe versions of a GBA game tend to use different protocol versions. I see no reason for the DS to break this tendency.
_________________
-- Where is he?
-- Who?
-- You know, the human.
-- I think he moved to Tilwick.
#27590 - sgeos - Sat Oct 16, 2004 5:19 am
Changing the character set alone could break multiplayer if any text is excanged. I don't think the goal is to make the games incompatable. Compatability between different language versions of the same game is a feature. Like any other feature, it takes time and money to develope. In the case of the GBA, it's also an obscure feature that would not convince many people to buy the game. With a global network the feature is suddenly less obscure and could potentially be justified.
-Brendan
#27597 - mymateo - Sat Oct 16, 2004 11:09 am
Well tepples, normally I'd agree with you because I've come to respect you as a higher intellect, but I *could* see a reason for DS to maintain the same protocols whereas the GBA didn't: the GBA wasn't built to go online, the DS is. This, however, doesn't mean much to corporate guys. And as sgeos points out, different languages DOES present quite a problem...
So, overall, I think I'll just retract what I said before, and restate as such.
"Even better, releasing an official Nintendo wireless router for $30 US ($40 CAN) to anyone who pre-ordered their DS so they can play people online from outside DS' built-in wireless range?"
I guess what I'm getting at is that it'd be nice if Nintendo would finally support online gaming, even if it IS just an extention of DS' wireless, and not actually games hosted VIA server (just servers to facilitate a more P2P-type connection). Does that make sense? It's 3 hours past my bedtime, my eyes are dried out, and sometimes I can't tell if I'm making sense...
Let's put it this way, if I don't make sense, then just ignore me and continue on with the discussion.
I'm going to bed.