Smattering Of New Nintendo DS Details Revealed

Thanks to 1UP for its article revealing several new technical details regarding Nintendo's just-announced DS dual-screen portable. In particular, Nintendo of Japan noted the DS will "...have two different processors, an ARM9 main CPU and an ARM7 subprocessor. Both of these are used in many cellular phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices - an ARM9 CPU is the heart of Tapwave's new Zodiac handheld, while the Game Boy Advance employs an ARM7." It's also confirmed that the screens will "...both be equipped with a backlight... with a light source behind each LCD. The Game Boy Advance SP, by comparison, uses a frontlight." Game Informer has an interview with a Nintendo of America spokesperson which reveals a little more, including confirmation that the screens "will be in the vertical position", not "side-to-side." The piece also features the spokesperson stopping short of a denial about GameBoy/GameBoy Advance backwards compatibility ("We haven't announced anything about that, yet.")

ARM also..

[Lord Bitman]

Runs Linux. Unless I dont know what I'm talking about*
The Zaurus uses ARM, thas all I know. It would be great to have a GBA with Linux on it instead of Linux with a GBA on it. I'd buy that :)

*this is true.

Wooohooo!

[forkazoo]

I have to say, as somebody who has always preferred to use dual head systems, I've always wondered what game developers might come up with in a dual-head environment. RTS games with a full map and a zoomed-in view simultaneously. A FPS with front and rear views. Even without thinking hard, it's really easy to come up with novel and potentially fun uses for two screens.

Now... (And, I hope I don't get modded too far down for this...) Imagine a beowulf cluster of these things! he he.

Personally, I'm still waiting for the end form of what Virtual Boy wanted to be. A pair of small, light wight glasses that are no bulkier than a convenient pair of sunglasses, with enough CPU to make some interesting 3D scenes. Add in an accelerometer, and a bearing sensor, and you have a kick ass augmented reality platform. I'd love to see what guys like Miyamoto could do with that sort of gear!

Also, the ideo of a video- iPod suddenly stops sucking so badly when the display is a pair of glasses instead of a cheezy box you have to hold in front of yoru face.

Re:Wooohooo!

[Jerf]

I've always wondered what game developers might come up with in a dual-head environment. RTS games with a full map and a zoomed-in view simultaneously. A FPS with front and rear views.

If this was so awesome, we'd probably have seen it by now. Nothing stopping current games from taking their head-to-head 2-player mode and providing the user with two views, even in one-player mode. Nothing preventing RTSs from dedicating half the screen to a map.

The reality is, if you have X viewing space, at the resolutions we have right now, you want about 4X or 5X space dedicated to your main task. The only thing that this might help with is a form-factor that is not conducive to RTS or FPS (depending on if the screens are arranged vertically or horizontally)... but that's a weakness, not a strength.

It looks damn cool, but if you really seriously try to think clearly about holding one of these in your hands, seriously playing an RTS, see if you don't start wanting the two screens to become just a bigger integrated view onto the playing field.

Splitting the screen is only useful when the value of the two views is such that BOTH of the following are true: You want to see both screens immediately at all times, AND both screens are so close to equally valuable as to make no difference. Again, if those conditions were true, we'd already be playing games that dedicated half their screen to maps or something.

The console may make it, but after a first generation of games, we will not see "one entire screen dedicated entirely to a map" anymore. Instead, it will be a bigger screen onto the relevant playing field, and while you may be able to pull up a map onto just that screen, you'll have to invoke it, it won't be there full time, and you'll begrudge that extra space, not be thankful the second screen is there for the map. First generation games always fall prey to hype and learn the hard way what really works about the system.

It's a variation on the standard money fallacy: "If I just had twice as much money, I'd be happy." The reality is, your expectations will rise with the extra income and on average it will not make you happier. (The key is to manage expectations, not make tons of money necessarily, though you do need a certain amount of raw material to work with.) "If I just had a second screen..." turns into "I miss the days when you looked at a map and the game was actually paused" pretty fast.

Someday we'll have so much resolution we really can piss it away on things like a usable "rear view mirror" in a racing game that can be used just like the real thing. We're not there on desktops yet, we're a long way from being there on handhelds.

Fanboys, before you flame away, try to really seriously imagine being in the situations I talk about here, and try to remember how rarely hype=reality in earlier ideas. (Everyone who sent a video e-mail today, raise your hand. One... Two... anybody else? Guess that aspect of the broadband internet didn't turn out like the hype said, huh?) If you're not already routinely actually using your windowing system (vs. always maximizing the current window, which Windows ends up encouraging)... on handheld-sized screens... then you're not going to want a dedicated screen split from your main task. (I use split windows... but just barely at 1024x768, they only get really useful at 1280x1024, and become mandatory at 1600x1200.)