Marek

DS, PSP ...... N-gage? (neh)

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Hi there. I figured we needed something lame to discuss, so here ya go.

Does anyone have tentative plans to buy a DS, PSP or other handheld device? Which device excites you most and why? Or maybe you don't like any of them?

Speaking for myself, I've never owned a handheld but I'm somewhat considering making the DS my first, if there's a couple of awesome games to go with it. WarioWare DS is one ... now we need some more. I'd be happy playing a couple of DS-specific titles on it along with some GBA titles I missed out on. I really like how the DS is sort of like a swiss knife with a million things on it that could be used by games. So a lot will really depend on the games.

The PSP looks kind of like the "executive handheld". It's really big and has a sort of laptop feel to it. It seems you really have to conciously take it with you somewhere and can't just put it in your pocket. (DS is big too but not so big you need to put it in a bag.) The PSP is perhaps more likely to have some awesome launch titles, as probably a lot of current-gen developers that can't make the jump to the PS3 generation can easily convert to doing PSP titles since it's at a PS2 level of technology. However, it seems like a bulky thing, and I doubt I'd be playing movies on it or listening to music, so I'm not entirely convinced yet. It seems to me the sales of PSP could really pick up, but then maybe collapse as soon as the PS3 is there. Why buy a mobile, but bulky, PS2 equivalent, when you can have a PS3 for a bit more money?

Your thoughts?

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If I'm going to pick one up, it will probably be the DS. Like you said, the PSP is big, and it probably chews batteries like candies. And it's probably going to be costy... I'm not sure if I'm ready to pay $300 for a handheld. I have this feeling that the games for the PSP will be more complex too, which may be a stupid thought... I dunno :P

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Most likely I won't buy Nintendo DS or PSP.

But if I had the money, and if I had the need to have a portable gaming device, it would be DS.

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There's no way I'll buy any of them at launch, but if I had the money for one I'd get the PSP. DS looks way too gimmicky and silly to me, and N-Gage is obviously worthless.

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I've never owned a handheld either, but I considered getting a GBA when they were going cheap, once. Anyway, of this next generation, the PSP sounds pretty useless - battery life is supposedly under 3 hours, so unless you want to be carrying a Ghostbusters-style generator on your back or something, it's going to be pretty restrictive. Who needs a handheld with close to the PS2's power anyway? Gaming on the move is best restricted to simple stuff that just passes the time (see the popularity of that Snake game on mobile phones), not vast CPU-guzzling epics. :devil2:

On battery life, its Nintendo pedigree and promised features alone, I reckon the DS is the one to watch...

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I'm pretty sure that I'll get a DS sooner or later (I'm something of a Nintendo fan), but I think it was a bad move not to make the DS backwards compatible right back to the original Gameboy...

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I'll probably be getting both. The PSP is as big as the Gameboy advance, so I don't see why everyone's saying it's too big. At least, that's what someone with hands-on experience said.

DS looks great, but I still don't think this touch screen is as revolutionary as Nintendo wants us to think. It's just a gimmick used to sell better. Even the technology is old (although never used on a handheld).

The one thing I'm wondering about is how come almost everything that's coming from Nintendo that's new and untried is a revolution, but if something new and untried comes from Sony, it's an evil and stupid gimmicky product from an evil company?

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DS looks great, but I still don't think this touch screen is as revolutionary as Nintendo wants us to think. It's just a gimmick used to sell better. Even the technology is old (although never used on a handheld).

The touch screen is actually pretty cool (if not by any means revolutionary), but the two screens seem extremely redundant and contrived. And even with the touch screen I suspect Nintendo will get the most mileage out of it and third party developers won't have quite as much to offer. That seems to be the way it always goes with Nintendo's crazy-ass innovations.

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I don't think you should look at the DS as something that will transport you to lush new dimensions of shatteringly intense gaming pleasure, despite the fact that Nintendo's PR is throwing the word innovation around pretty generously. People aren't expecting that much of the PSP either.

I see the DS very much as a swiss army knife ... there's ton of crap on it and some games might use it well. It's got the connectivity, the microphone, two screens and the touchscreen. It's too bad Nintendo put the emphasis so much on the two screens, because it's really just a sort of gameboy deluxe with lots of bells and whistles that are interesting.

As far as gimmickness goes, I think the PSP is slightly more guilty of that than the DS. PSP is not gimmicky in a "whoah look at this input method" kind of way, but more in the Nokia N-gage kind of way. You know ... "hey it's not just a game console, you can also play music on it, watch movies on UMD, plug in your MemorySticks (you've got tons of those right?) and if you flip it around and press this button it turns into a small picknick table! How convenient!". The DS' gimmicks can at least be used in games, and moaning about how games will surely not use them is missing the point a bit in my opinion. We already know games won't use PSP's MemoryStick port or its movie and music playing capability. That said, there are still a million ways in which the DS could fail and I won't deny that.

The PSP is definitely bigger than a Gameboy. It's probably 1.5 times the size of a GBA SP, at least based on my quick glance at the thing at E3. The shape makes it seem twice as big as an SP though, since it's so wide. In all the promo pics that came out, people wear neck cords to hang their PSP on. I'm sure that will be really hip and cool and fashionable, but it also hints at how the PSP might be inconvenient to take with you as it probably won't fit in your pockets. I don't want to wear that thing on a neck cord, thank you.

pspsc7.jpg

Mind you, I have no bias in favor of any company. I currently don't own any handheld device. The only reason I actually care is because I want my first handheld to be one of the upcoming generation.

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The touch screen is actually pretty cool (if not by any means revolutionary), but the two screens seem extremely redundant and contrived.

Maybe someone at nintendo wanted to make the best Donkey Kong/ Oil panic / Greenhouse emulator ever!

More likely however, is that they didn't want any applications of the touch screen to be negatively affected by the fact that your fingers obscured what was going on on the screen. I'm not sure completely sure about this - but in the touch screen games maybe the bottom screen takes the touch input, and the top one shows the result of your touching/pencilling.

I wish I had a DS at school, then I could have kept a copy of the drawings I sent to other kids...alas lost to the ages.

And you could possibly send animated drawings - like the magic animated drawing that the evil blonde haired kid gives harry potter!

Cool!

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Jebus, PSP is HUGE!!! It would choke and strangle me if I tried to wear it on my neck.

I'm guessing that by the time DS and PSP come out, GBA SP's price will drop further. Then I'll buy taht instead.

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Jebus, PSP is HUGE!!! It would choke and strangle me if I tried to wear it on my neck.
Like an ALBATROS!

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Personally I'm quite interested in getting myself a DS. It seems that a fair few of my friends have SPs and I don't. In fact I don't have a handheld at all and there's something about them that seems somewhat... well... handy.

I actually like the look of the PSP and I have a feeling it'll probably turn out to be pretty good, but I don't think I'll end up getting one.

If the DS turns out to be good and I can gather the cash then 8)

If it turns out to be not all that special then I'll probably get that fresh looking red SP I've had my eye on for a while. :grin:

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PSP will probably end up being much too expensive...and it seems that most of its games will be PS2 ports :shifty:. Besides, the DS is trying something new and I think its touch screen is pretty cool, so DS it is!

Plus, I think the real sequel to the Wind Waker will be on DS, so that's a plus.

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If they can figure out a way to cheaply run DivX movies on the PSP and I was catching the train every moring, I would consider getting one to watch movies on.

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Do you really want to hold a screen while you watch a movie, though? With games... the answer is yes. You need to hold the controls anyway. But with movies ... no.

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If they can figure out a way to cheaply run DivX movies on the PSP and I was catching the train every moring, I would consider getting one to watch movies on.

I love Pocket PCs :D...

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Do you really want to hold a screen while you watch a movie, though? With games... the answer is yes. You need to hold the controls anyway. But with movies ... no.

Well, people don't seem to mind holding books to read the words.

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Do you really want to hold a screen while you watch a movie, though? With games... the answer is yes. You need to hold the controls anyway. But with movies ... no.

It is a matter of taste, honestly, of taste and convention. You have no case here.

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