tegan

Yes. Because it's been done. It's been done countless times, and it never ever works. It creates a chicken/egg scenario where consumers don't buy the accessory because game developers don't make it a requirement because it has a low adoption rate. It's the same reason why game accessories never reach a level of ubiquity where the consumer can be relied upon to buy an add-on.* What's more, there's not a chance in hell that a company like Apple is going to back down from their Minority Report monolithic aesthetic and produce/market a big ugly button attachment, and third-party solutions have demonstrably never caught on. You can't rely on optional accessories, full stop. Furthermore, what would the point of Nintendo changing to different hardware and then deliberately changing the hardware to make it make it more like the kind they were already using? It would be an utterly pointless and roundabout exercising in accomplishing absolutely nothing. Honestly, the most frustrating part of having this argument over and over is that it always seems to come from the same corner of the internet that thinks Nintendo hardware is based on "gimmicks" and then wants them to move to a platform exclusively controlled by the same gimmicks. It's also a move that financially makes absolutely no sense. Why the fuck would Nintendo even bother thinking about iOS when you compare selling 12 million copies of Angry Birds sold through the app store for less than a dollar to easily selling nearly twice as many copies of the 99 dollar Wii Fit just a few years ago? *the only exceptions I can think of are the Kinect, which kind of didn't go anywhere after its initial success thanks to a massive marketing push and then became a pack-in; Wii Motion Plus, which never caught on at all until it outright replaced the Wii Remote; the aforementioned Wii Fit balance board which didn't have enough audience crossover to even justify the handful of other compatible titles; and possibly the 360 controller for PCs, which is its own weird deal.

Has anyone ever seen that one response to an XKCD comic someone made where they dissected all of the math in it and explained why it was horrendously wrong? Because that was pretty great.

Next time there's a guest on the podcast, they have to address Chris as "my liege."

Before I forget, does anyone have either the box sofa or the box corner sofa? I've still never seen a single one for sale and I really want t make a sectional.

I actually found that OoT is what made things like stereoscopic visuals and gyroscopic controls work for me, because I've always had trouble using the analog stick to aim ranged weapons.

I don't think I've ever actually used imgur as whatever the heck it's supposed to be. I just have an imgur Chrome extension that lets me upload/screencap/rehost things. I never look at the actual website.

nintendo should make games for iphone because history tells us that atari and sega became much more successful and devoted to quality after they went third-party oh oh wait

I feel like 3D was kind of a red herring to get people to try the system and discover that Streetpass is the actual hook of the system.

Well, consider that a phone by necessity must be considered a phone first. Battery concerns and constant competition with other installed applications, texts, and phone calls mean that a cell phone game's experience almost always has to sacrifice depth or length of play sessions. Most of the most successful games on smartphones (ie: Angry Birds) have been low-impact, where a player can accomplish something in a play session that lasts only a few minutes and interactions that last only seconds. It's more difficult to get a player to invest in a game that takes long-term commitment or extended interactions. Hell, social platforms like phones and Facebook are what brought us free-to-play, which is entirely centered around exploiting the player base's desire to play less and play faster. There are certain types of games to which that environment is perfectly suited, but the ones that have traditionally flourished on consoles aren't among them. Consider Animal Crossing, which has arguably become the 3DS' killer app. It's a game that demands slow patience. Leaving it as-is would make it virtually unplayable on a phone, while bogging it down with microtransactions would make it completely joyless. What's unique to Nintendo in the industry is their habit of making hardware specifically tailored to the types of games they want to make. It's no surprise that Nintendo consoles have traditionally been unevenly favourable to first-party releases and while dissuading to third-parties, because their hardware is usually designed around their software. Hell, the N64 was basically made to play Super Mario 64 with little regard for how third-parties would use its fucking weird-ass hardware specifications (notice that Nintendo accidentally created their biggest rivals because they didn't want to introduce loading times). It makes Nintendo a pain in the ass to work with, and sometimes they'll get too ambitious and add a feature that they just don't have the ubiquity to support, but it's the forefront of why their games do so well and it's one of the things I admire them for. If anything, I think that the Wii U's shown Nintendo's willingness to compromise to making a less self-serving console by having a standard button layout and the option of an Xbox-style controller, not to mention their recent close partnerships with companies like Sega and Platinum to bring more variety to their console lineup.

Just starting, but I think it's hilarious that Chris is now Lord Chris Remo when only a few weeks ago you mused about Nick Breckon being secret royalty. EDIT: Nick can totally become Lord Breckon of Scotland for pocket change. EDIT: on creators and digital content: Prince has gone to ridiculous extents to keep his music offline. He's gone on record as comparing the internet to MTV and says that he thinks the internet is a fad that's run its course.

That doesn't sound like a problem with Nintendo as much as your tastes changing as you get older. It happens to everyone, but blaming it on the market is kind of a poor way to mask what's really just coming off as nostalgia (especially saying that Mario Kart peaked before it even had online play). Also, the difference between a DS and a smartphone is that one is designed for actually playing games. If the iPhone were really going to kill the dedicated handheld market like everyone seems to keep thinking it's going to, it would have happened in 2007. Not that there's anything wrong with smartphone gaming, mind you, but it's as different from dedicated handhelds as handhelds are from consoles, or consoles are from PCs. There have been attempts to merge dedicated handhelds with smartphones before (remember that huge push Sony made with the Xperia Play or their PSN-compatible tablets? Neither does anyone else), but they never become anything more than a niche curiosity because they're trying to merge two fundamentally different philosophies of the way games are produced and played.

Ankh-Mopork via Google Maps:

I assume the two cameras are actually still there so that AR still works and they're just advertising the 3D photo thing so they'll have a stronger bullet point to put on the box. Also, they'd have to add an extra "shelf" to the back of the unit to accommodate the shoulder buttons if they put the face buttons on the bottom. It's ugly as fuck as it is now, but by all accounts it's surprisingly comfy, sooooo...? I wouldn't buy one normally, but with the discount price I'd consider importing a European one for region-locked stuff (or a Japanese one if it ever gets released there)

Also note that only the original Famicom with the built-in controllers with their stupid 3-foot cables had a mic at all. The redesigned model (the one that the redesigned NES is based on) had no controller, instead requiring that you entered a button combination to simulate microphone input. True to form, Takeshi's Challenge had a completely different button combination that no other Famicom game used.

It would be pretty hilarious if the next podcast episode had everyone being really quiet so that that one lady wouldn't be annoyed.

Here's a size comparison, in case anyone was curious.

Takeshi's Challenge (or "Takeshi no Chōsenjō") for Famicom. It is considered a staple of the Japanese "kusoge" or "shitty games" genre.

Beat Takeshi is a crazy motherfucker who made one incredible, terrible video game. Also, I love that kind of pop-up stuff. I have a few Blu-Rays with the same sort of feature and it's always super neat.

In addition to the cameras, the DSi has more RAM and a faster CPU, and there were DSi-exclusive cartridge games (there weren't many of them; they were recognized by their white cartridges). If you count all the stuff on the DSiware store, it had loads of exclusive games. That's not much different from the Gameboy Color, which had more RAM and a faster processor plus an infrared port and colour screen but was otherwise identical to the GB.

LXG is Alan Moore's version of Captain N.

who do I have to bribe to make these official emoticons

Those people include Nintendo themselves, which baffles me. Although I also consider the DSi line to be in the same family as the DS line and can't really defend why, since it's even more different from the DS line as the GBC was from the GB.

Young Frankenstein is amazing. Did you know that the laboratory set in Young Frankenstein is the actual Frankenstein set? That must have taken dedication to arrange.

It's a feature they added for the US version; you're picking up Spotpass (internet) houses from Nintendo of America employees.

more like a sissy puss amirite