Reggie on the Wow! factor of the DS

Mai Valentine

Mai Valentine

Moderator
http://ds.ign.com/articles/541/541758p1.html

It's five pages of Reggie's speech. Pretty interesting read.

Check it out and then come back here and post your thoughts and comments. :)

My favorite part it this:

Now, consider those games they play to immersion—Halo, Grand Theft Auto, Madden, Zelda—and ask yourself this. Are they away from home for sufficient blocks of uninterrupted free time to repeat that immersion on a handheld device? How many 20 year olds really take regular three hour plane flights?
Eleven-year-olds spend half-day car trips in the back seat, playing Game Boy. 21-year-olds spend half-day car trips in the front seat, driving. Even if those blocks of time were available to them, how many older gamers wouldn't really rather wait and play those games at home, lying on the couch, blasting away on their big screens?

The less obvious answer here—but perhaps the more accurate one—is that older gamers may well expect and accept a different kind of game experience on their portable. Probably games that offer limited but still exciting play sessions…and ones that don't pretend to match the environment of their high tech living room setups. We call this 'inter'-tainment—action occupying short bursts of time between other activities.
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I haven't read the whole thing yet, but that little bit you quoted is right on the money. I especially like the "inter-"tainment idea. That's exactly how I use my GBA now. 8)
 
I read the whole thing. It was pretty good but you have to keep in mind he is a Nintendo PR guy, so it is heavily biased. I am starting to understand what Nintendo's getting at about the state of the industry and where it's headed and whatnot. I still want better graphics though, innovative gameplay's always important, but if I'm shellin out $300 for a new system I sure as hell want it to be more powerful than the last.
 
More powerful than what, though? And where does that relate to price?

The DS is more powerful than a GBA SP, for example, but less powerful than a PSP. But at the same time, its price will be reflecting that. The DS will be more expensive than the GBA SP, but it's not going to be as expensive as the PSP (unless Sony is crazy and price matches).

And the PSP most likely will be in the $200 range, which is more than what it costs to buy a PS2 or XBOX now, and the PSP is not quite as powerful as the PS2 or XBOX. It's going to cost more because it's a handheld trying to wield the power of a console.

From what I experienced at E3, I am more satisfied as a gamer (not just a Nintendo fan) with the DS than the PSP. Every new console has better graphics and more features than the last, so it's argueable that neither the DS or the PSP are really innovative; what makes the real difference is the software, and I think the DS will end up with the better share of software.
 
Not necessarily. I think the PSP, the hardware itself, is awesome. The screen is big and beautiful. It's sleek while the DS has more of a techy look. I'm just not excited for the games, with the possible exception of Tales of Eternia. However, like you, I don't think I would get it for one game. So I'm going to wait and see if anything else comes along that catches my interest. *^_^*

I would say more that I'm pro-Nintendo, not anti-Sony.
 
Just wanted to point out what Blue said in another thread....

Bluevoodu said:
Neph... we all like you here, but dude you need to chill.

You are never going to get along with everyone... everyone has their own opinions.
You all have good points here... and IMO on this issue there is no right and wrong.

Don't take things too seriously.

BV
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Ahem, well, in relation to what Mai asked about my last post...

I meant that Nintendo has been really pushing this whole "innovation vs. technology" thing where they keep saying that better technology doesn't necessarily mean "funner" technology (and yes I know that's not a word). However, as a consumer, and a rather cheap one at that, if I'm going to buy Nintendo's next handheld or console I want it to be technically better than the previous. I don't just want an interesting control scheme or some crazy idea like 2 screens, I want it to look like it's a step up from it's predecessor. I know the DS is better than the PSP in that sense, I'm just saying that Nintendo better not get too crazy with this line of thinking and ignore the technology that's now available.

I want the games I buy for the new $300 systems to LOOK better than they do on my currently priced $100 system.
 
Stealth, I get what you are saying, and I can tell you that for the most part you won't be disappointed with the PSP or the DS in that respect. The PSP has graphics that surpass the GBA SP and the DS and comes close to PS2 graphics. And the DS is about between the N64 and the Dreamcast. I mean that's not as much as the PSP, but if you consider that the GBA runs about SNES graphics, than what the DS can do is nothing to sneeze at. ;)

The PSP's wide screen is nice for movies, too. I think that depending on the battery life and the price of the movie UMDs, I would get that instead of a portable DVD player, because if I didn't want to watch movies I could play games.
 
That's what I think would be great - the ability to play movies, listen to MP3 music, and play great-looking games all on one system. I think that would be much fun. However, I still don't think that the handhelds have enough buttons/control for that. If someone could convert a PS2/Xbox/GC controller into an awesome handheld device, then we could get some better games. I just don't think there's enough buttons on such a small device to work with what all the companies want.
Look at Fable. That controller scheme is way too packed for the Xbox controller. For Steel Battallion (I wish I had enough money) they had to make their own controller just to be able to play the game.

^That was completely random, and I apologize for my lack of sleep. I'll shutup now... :p
 
That could actually be pretty sweet, if it was small enough. Otherwise I'd almost prefer to have each of those separately, as I'd want my MP3 player to be portable.
 
My roommate bought a small 256 MB MP3 player. It was around $130 just for that. Add the ability to watch DVDs and play games, and $200 (pure speculation) for the PSP is not a bad price.
 
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