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GameCube (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Nintendo Talks DS, Zelda, PSP Threat 108

Posted by simoniker from the reggie-lution-already-televised dept.
Thanks to IGN Cube for its interview with Nintendo VP of corporate affairs Perrin Kaplan, as she comments on the Nintendo DS' backwards compatibility ("I think the initial appeal the DS gives you is that you can start with a library of 500 games"), on the new realistic-looking Zelda title ("We knew that people were going to say, 'Oh, is the new Zelda because you made a mistake with Wind Waker?' You don't make a mistake when you sell something in the millions and millions"), on the battery life of Nintendo's forthcoming handheld ("Very similar to the [Game Boy Advance] SP and I think very different from the PSP. I'm not quite sure why Sony said "Two to 10 hours" [for PSP's battery life]. That must mean that it's two hours"), and on rivalry with Sony's PSP ("I think Sony has developed a very nice looking screen. I think that having a system with claims to all the multi-functionality is a big question in our minds. Pricing is a huge question.")
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Nintendo Talks DS, Zelda, PSP Threat More

Nintendo Talks DS, Zelda, PSP Threat

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  • Rock on, Nintendo (Score:5, Insightful)

    by redfiveneo ( 692968 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @11:32PM (#9147568)
    Battery life is the most important aspect of a handheld/portable device. I applaud Nintendo for trying hard to match the SPs battery capacity. IIRC, the SP is 10hrs with the backlight on, 18hrs with it off.

    Compared to an estimated 2-10hrs for the PSP, the DS is looking good.

    • Re:Rock on, Nintendo (Score:3, Informative)

      by hords ( 619030 )
      And from what I read the 2-10hrs of battery life for the PSP were depending on how you used it. Quote from this techtv article... [techtv.com]

      "Sony claims the battery fuels two and a half hours of video playback, eight hours of gaming, or 10 hours of music."

      • Re:Rock on, Nintendo (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:37AM (#9147963)
        This concerns me as a potential buyer, since game playback will probably use more power than movie decoding and playback. DVD-level MPEG's pretty easy to do nowadays, especially at low-res, but random game disc seeking and dynamically-loading 3d graphics with effects are going to eat battery time for lunch. I think 1 1/2-2 hours is going to be the upper limit for gaming battery life since 2 1/2 hours is the max that they claim for movies, unless they're really simple games.

        I'm all set to buy a Nintendo DS (already got a few hundies earmarked for the DS launch later this year, hopefully that will bag me a bunh of games in addition to the system), but I'm going to play the waiting game with the PSP, especially at what it's going to cost for the system alone and that it's never going to offer any new kind of gameplay options like the DS. Graphics look good though. The Metal Gear game looks like something between PS and PS2 level, jaggies and all. Hopefully the framerate is not bad on PSP games, otherwise I might expect dizziness issues from the movement on the small (compared to a monitor or TV) screen. I'm one of those guys that gets sick from jerky low framerate FPS games.
        • Keep in mind that movie playback requires a lot more disk I/O than the typical game. In my experience, playing a DVD on a laptop sucks down way more battery than playing a similar-length DivX from hard drive, which in turn sucks down way more power than playing, say, Quake, which only has to touch the disk between levels.
      • I'm just curious, as the AC(who probably isn't visible) who also replied is as well, how precisely they're going to get 8 hours of gaming when they can only display 2 1/2 hours of video.

        Either something besides the LCD/optical drive is drawing almost 4 times more power than the rest of the device or they're lying about gaming battery life.
        • Probably they used a game that loads itself on bootup and then runs from RAM like they tested triangle performance with some weird, unrealistic setup. I can't imagine those 8 hours including much disk activity if they can't get over 2.5h for movies. And if it's that heavily dependant on the drive, the number will vary greatly from game to game. Does that mean we'll see an additional cathegory "battery usage" in PSP game reviews?
    • From the interview, it mentions the DS using 802.11b for the WiFi device. I would guess that 802.11g would be a better, since it would comsume less power on use.

      • Re:Rock on, Nintendo (Score:2, Informative)

        by hords ( 619030 )
        Faster, less power, greater range, signal not easily obstructed, backword compatible with 802.11b, *but* it costs more to implement. There's the kicker I assume.
        • Exactly. 802.11b chips have become commoditized, and many mfrs. are selling the chips at the cost to make them (Intel being a major one). G would cost more, and Nintendo is nothing if not cost-conscious.

    • Battery Life, huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Tezkah ( 771144 )
      So, having a backlight on ONE screen halves the SP's battery life, what will having a backlight on TWO screens, powering TWO processors, along with Wi-Fi, which ALSO drains battery life do to it?

      to quote homer_ca, on a topic about Wi-Fi on Cell Phones: "Toy is right. Besides the problem of roaming, power consumption is a huge problem with Wifi. 802.11b is a high bandwidth, long range (compared to Bluetooth at least) protocol. It consumes a lot of power just maintaining a link to the AP. According to this i

      • But they said nothing about using the same battery as the SP. The just said that they would try to match its battery life.

        I'm also thinking that the wifi wouldn't be always-on, neither would both processors. I'm thinking it'll be more like the PS2-- where instead of emulation for PS1 games, they have the PS1 chip onboard, used as a coprocessor when not being used to play PS1 games. Since the DS is backward-compatible to the GBA, and has the GBA's ARM7 processor alongside it's own ARM9... I think the point

        • Damn. I'm tired, and I just realized that I said that both processors would be on, defeating my whole point. Oh well. All I know is that Nintendo and Sony have shiny things coming out later this year. Shiiiiiiiney.... :)

        • I guess this means that whereas it can play GBA games, it can't play GBC games.

          So there is still a reason to keep around the GBA: for playing your remaining GBC games.

          • According to this article [gamespot.com].

            "The system will be backward compatible with the Game Boy Advance (and, therefore, with other, earlier Game Boy models)."
            • Being backward compatible with the GameBoy Advance does not automatically mean it's compatible with the GameBoy and GameBoy Color.

              The GB and GBC used a Z80 processor. The GBA uses an ARM7, but also has a Z80 which is used for running older games.

              Nintendo has said that the DS has an ARM9 and an ARM7. To implement GB/GBC compatibility, they'd either have to add in a Z80, or build a GB/GBC emulator into the DS. So far they haven't said anything to suggest they were doing that.

              If anything, Nintendo has hinte

      • Re:Battery Life, huh? (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        About the lighting, I at least hope it's switchable sidelighting like on the GBA SP as opposed to always-on backlighting. I have an SP and an add-on battery pack, but I still prefer to play it with the light off when there's adequate light around, or when I'm outside. Battery life is practically forever because of this. I typically recharge once a week, sometimes once every two weeks if I haven't been able to play very often.

        About wifi, I wouldn't be surprised if it became a matter of switching between
        • The device has two small buttons on the left and one on the right. We know that among these are the Start and Select buttons, meaning one button has no known function yet. I'd assume that's the light toggle snce Nintendo knows that you won't need lights all the time (e.g. when you're playing Boktai...)
      • Easy. Bigger Battery. Duh.

        One things you'll learn is while there are plenty of places where you can take your shots at Nintendo, SPECS are simply not one of them. Nintendo always UNDERESTIMATES specs.
    • My lack of understanding of what you just said is only rivalled by shakespeare's prose (Hint, the acronyms, they burn the eyes!)

  • New Zelda look a Let Down (Score:4, Insightful)

    by I_Love_Pocky! ( 751171 ) on Thursday May 13, 2004 @11:39PM (#9147623)
    I don't understand why a "realistic" Zelda game is a good idea. Wind Waker was awesome because it looked and felt like a cartoon. I'm still going to buy it when it comes out, because Nintendo doesn't make bad Zelda games. Despite the down grade in graphics, I'm sure the game play will be top notch as always.

    On the plus side, fighting from the horse seems like an awesome idea.

    • I don't understand why a "realistic" Zelda game is a good idea.

      Because its hard to take a hero seriously who's head is a perfect sphere. (I have nothing against non-photorealistic rendering, it just needs to be done right. Windwaker was an experiment. They got most things right, but they also got a few things wrong, including Link's head and the whole sailing-forever-to-get-anywhere thing. And no, I'm not sorry I bought it, but it from my perspective it could have been better than it was. I expect th

      • It's not a sphere you boneheaded cretin, I think it's more than obvious to anyone with a rudimentary frontal lobe that Link's head is an oval. An oval with a droopy elf hat. Sheesh.

        You're obviously thinking of Charlie Brown, who never gets past Level One and always whiffs with his sword, and whose dog collects all the rupees before he can reach them.

        And I sincerely doubt this will reach the epic level of the great vi vs. emacs feud, for the simple reason that "Church of Oval Link's Head" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

        • How about "Church of the Heroic Cranial Ellipsoid" ?.

          Maybe this will be a less controversial subject once the new Zelda comes out. On the other hand, I still occasionally talk to people who don't consider the Adventures of Link a real Zelda game because it was a side scroller.

          -jim

          • Well, it *was* very different from what came before it.

            It was a Zelda game in terms of scenario, but, in retrospect, the gameplay is the most atypical of the series. (Of course, when it came out it was only the second game, so people didn't know back then.)

            I think Zelda II has gotten a bad rap over the years. While it supports random exploration and item acquition and usage much less than the typical Zelda, has markedly less complex dungeons, and has that whole side-scrolling thing, it has an excellent

      • the whole sailing-forever-to-get-anywhere thing

        I guess you didn't bother to learn how to use the wind waker, then, huh? You have to sail early in the game, but not far. You also have to sail late in the game if you want to visit every square and get every item, but you don't have to sail everywhere forever. That's what the waterspout warp stuff was for.

        I just watched the trailer. Very nice. I'm looking forward to it coming out.

        I was torn on the trailer. Some things looked nice (a few of the

        • Actually it seems to me like they're reusing material from Ocarina of Time as placeholders in the video, compare the first scene with link on the horse wih the opening of OOT, they use the exact same animations, the pixelated textures seem the same, etc. As we've seen with Metroid Prime, Nintendo doesn't finalize the graphics that early on.

        • Even with warping, it still took too long to get anywhere, in my opinion.

          Was the remake of Majora's mask etc good? I was a little sad that they didn't increase the framerate a little for Ocarina of Time, but it was still fun to play the Master Quest version even though it made my eyes hurt.

          -jim

          • Was the remake of Majora's mask etc good? I was a little sad that they didn't increase the framerate a little for Ocarina of Time, but it was still fun to play the Master Quest version even though it made my eyes hurt.

            I don't know. I went to all the trouble to register the GBA games that qualified for the Zelda disc, and then never played it. The manual does warn that some of the music and sound effects are screwed up, apparently due to the N64 emulation they're using. I expect it's of the same cali

    • Despite the down grade in graphics,

      What were you watching, the DS trailer for animal crossing? The new Zelda trailer blew most/all existing games out of the water. You can point to it and say, this is what wind waker should've been

      • Im quite sure that the new Zelda game is going to be for the GameCube, not the DS.
        • I never said it was for the DS. He said the new zelda look was a downgrade in graphics, which it is obviously not. So the logical assumption is that he was in fact looking at a different game which does look worse, like animal crossing crossing DS. No one would call the new zelda look a downgrade
          • No one would call the new zelda look a downgrade

            I did, and I meant it. I saw the trailer, and I wasn't impressed at all. The graphics are any better than any other game out there that tries to be "realistic." I don't see why real == better. Especially on the GameCube, where the hardware just isn't up to the task of making it actually look real. I loved the fact that wind waker embraced the technology they had and gave it character. Zelda is a fantasy game, and giving it a cartoon feel seemed to fit

      • I think he was talking aesthetics. There was a great deal of aesthetic pleasantness in the cel shaded look which is all being thrown away to make the photorealistic one. Personally the SNES series of Zelda was the most memorable for me until the cel shaded one showed up with the cartoony appearance, and that struck the right chord. The N64 versions never really felt like Zelda, though they were certainly good in their own rights.

        I hope they bring back the cel shading at a later date and they probably wi

    • Re:New Zelda look a Let Down (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Weird. Were you also disappointed by the N64 Zelda games? They weren't cel-shaded; they were done in a semi-realistic, solid 3d style.

      If you liked Wind Waker _because_ of the cel shading, then you're an exception. Most Zelda fans who liked Wind Waker fall into one of two categories: (1) liked it because it's a good Zelda game, as well as liking the graphics, and (2) liked it because it's a good Zelda game, despite disliking the graphics. I've never, before now, heard of anyone liking Wind Waker _speci

      • And to the AC below, there isn't one definitive Link in one definitive Zelda universe. The Zelda games almost all take place in pairs, with two or three games (at most) taking place in the same universe. But these universes are separate. In the Wind Waker, we see Link as a very young kid, which was the designers' goal. In Ocarina and Majora, he might have been 10-12. The Zelda games aren't chronological, except within universes.

        Well, legends are often told in many different ways throughout history. I fi

      • Were you also disappointed by the N64 Zelda games?

        No, because they seemed reasonable given the technology in the N64. If they could have used cel-shading, it would have made them better games I would think. I certainly wasn't let down by those games, because it wasn't until I saw Wind Waker that I realized how cool Zelda could look.

        If you liked Wind Waker _because_ of the cel shading, then you're an exception.

        I liked Wind Waker because it had awsome game play. However, the only reason I bought a
    • The sole reason I was pleased when I heard that nintendo was releasing a "realistic" Zelda was because that was what the consumer base was clearly demanding.

      I loved Wind Waker, and I anticipate seeing a new generation of cell shading from nintendo, regardless of franchise, but it was clear that the cell shaded zelda was a point of contention amongst the fanbase.

      The customer may be many things, but even if your last name is Miyamoto, you must concede the customer is always right. Because even if he's wron
      • It was only a point of contention because Nintendo showed one thing then released another. Everybody watched the preview video a million and a quarter times and got all excited for a game that didn't come out.

        The customer may be many things, but even if your last name is Miyamoto, you must concede the customer is always right. Because even if he's wrong, he's still not buying your product.

        Don't you have that a little backwards? After all the crap on the internet about how it was going to "suck" it's sti
      • Miyamoto did not direct Wind Waker. Or Majora's Mask for that matter. Both were directed by Eiji Aonuma.
    • First, the news Zelda is running on the Wind Waker engine. Watch the trailers again, and you'll see some of those Wind Waker effects, including Link looking at things.

      The new look (I won't say realistic because it's NOT, it's still cartoony, just less so), is actually an upgrade. A minor one, but an upgrade nonetheless.
  • I was really skeptical when I first heard the announcement of the DS. The two-screen configuration had me a bit baffled. I was pleasantly surprised to see the re-emergence of the old game-and-watch configuration as well as the full compliment of SNES buttons.


    The battery life and the backwards compatability are big selling points for me. The ability to pick it up and still be able to play all the old GB games I have amassed is probably the clinching point for a sale...

  • Nintendo Conference (Score:5, Informative)

    by MMaestro ( 585010 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:22AM (#9147880)
    Theres a video you can download on the Nintendo conference online. The quality is bad though (shaky cam) and the angle which the video was taken isn't that great (glare). Sorry I don't know how to make the link clickable, so you'll have to copy and paste.

    http://www.eurogamer.net/file_service_files.php

    • You can get a much better one, the one I have has an IGN watermark on it. It cuts to different camera angles, switches to feeds when movies are displayed...a shame to miss the cheers (I assume there were cheers) when everybody realized the last trailer was for Zelda, but, ah well.

  • PSP a threat? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by wheresdrew ( 735202 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:39AM (#9147973) Journal
    It doesn't seem to be shaping up to be one, according to some of the big guys in the industry.

    Asian Wall Street Journal story: http://tinyurl.com/2mqoj

    What's more, Sony's decision to put out a machine that plays movies as well as games has some creators scratching their heads.

    "Will it be a game machine or a video Walkman?" asks Michihiro Sasaki, general manager of corporate strategy at Japanese video-game maker Square Enix Co. "We're still not sure what Sony wants to do with it -- that's a problem."

    Mr. Sasaki says Square Enix, known for its Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, eventually hopes to provide content for the PSP but wants to hear more about the PSP's business model before deciding what to prepare.

    Still, some game developers worry that it may be hard to balance competing technical demands -- as well as figure out the price and audience -- for a gadget that combines the functions of a Walkman, video player and game machine.

    "It would be better if [the PSP] were just a game machine," says Kazumi Kitaue, executive in charge of video games at Konami Corp., which puts out the popular Metal Gear Solid series. "It's silly to talk about watching movies anywhere anytime; you want to concentrate."

    Mr. Kitaue says that Konami has started developing games for the PSP and that he has high hopes for the machine. But he worries that the product release could be delayed in Japan -- as it was in the U.S.

    I don't think Nintendo's all that worried about the PSP.

    • Re:PSP a threat? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by hords ( 619030 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:54AM (#9148059)
      "It's silly to talk about watching movies anywhere anytime; you want to concentrate"

      Agreed. How are you going to watch movies on this thing anyway? It's not like a DVD will fit in it. Are they going to release movies in this disc format? It seems a little silly. Buy a movie and all you can watch it on is a portable gaming device. You couldn't even watch two average length movies on one full battery charge since they claim that it can only run for 2 1/2 hours during video playback.

      • Re:PSP a threat? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by NeMon'ess ( 160583 )
        Y e s, sony obviously considered releasing movies for the format. the screen is 480 x 272. that's a bit better than VHS. the video will easily fit into 1.8GB. how many people will want to watch more than one movie in a row? most laptops can't do two movies in a row either.

        Seems to me the way to market movies for it is price them at $8 and people will buy both it and the DVD copy. People will buy their favorites to take with them travelling.
        • No, the only way for that to work is to provide some reasonably-priced mechanism for people to convert their DVD movies into a PSP-understandable format.

          Which is just another in a long list of reasons that the movie companies are inhibiting innovation by being so grabby with their content. This time, they are inhibiting their own innovation.

          There is no way without this that the movie-watching capabilities of the PSP will ever mature. There is no way Sony will ever produce anything like this. There are too
      • Sony is using UMD's (Universal Mini Discs) that will allow it to hold close to 2 GB's of Data. Thiw will allow them to fit a very high quality movie onto the UMD (not DVD quality).

        One of the best parts about Sony's Press Conference was watching the Spiderman 2 trailer playing directly off the PSP's screen. Not to mention they also played a trailer to a little movie known as Final Fantasy Advent Children which will be released in UMD format alongside the DVD format.

        Also in case anyone can confirm thi
    • Sony isn't trying to compete with Nintendo in the hand held market and that's the point. It's NOT just a portable gaming system - it's meant to be more. Whether or not this is going to work in the long run remains to be seen, but I for one don't see what the big issue with it playing movies is. So it's added functionality - who's to complain? As for the DS...I think it's going to be a flop and it'll have nothing to do with it's "competition." But that's just me. Fully expect me to buy one.
    • This is Sony's BIG mistake. I will not be buying all my movies again just to play them on the go. And since the discs aren't writeable, I can't take the ones I have on the road. Sorry, but this isn't smart.

      It'll probably be a great little game machine, and I'll get one anyway (anytime you can get hardware below the cost to manufacture it, it's good). I just won't be watching movies on it.

  • Zelda (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Cuthalion ( 65550 ) on Friday May 14, 2004 @12:53AM (#9148056) Homepage
    I think it's a sad reflection of the state of the games industry when people immediately conclude "Windwaker was a mistake" from "We're not doing it exactly the same this time".
    • I have a friend who simply refuses to take the jump to 3-D versions of his favorite NES games, such as Zelda, Metroid, etc. Unreasonable, IMO, but some people are just not really welcome to change.
      • I own and play the newer 3D versions of all the major NES franchises, starting w/ Mario 64, then playing Ocarina, Metroid Prime, Wind Waker and Mario Sunshine. They're all great games, but it has to be said that they're completely different than the originals. Not that that's a good thing or a bad thing...they're very good in they're own right. But I do often find myself loading up ZSNES and busting out Super Metroid or Super Mario World or Link to the Past. For some reason, I'll never stop playing tho
  • I'm almost certain the PSP will fail for the reasons outlined here [curmudgeongamer.com].

    It's not just that it looks geeky to carry such a brick around, it's also big enough to be inconvenient. Judging by the announced titles, the game library will also be nothing like the GBA's. And lastly, with such a giant I'm very skeptic on the battery life - that screen must eat a lot of power.

    • Re:The PSP will fail (Score:3, Interesting)

      by tweder ( 22759 )
      It's not just the screen -- don't forget that it's going to need to power a motor to spin the optical media, and a laser to read the data from said disc.

      That said, PSP looks impressive -- but only being able to play for 2 hours doesn't seem reasonable for a handheld. I think it's a home system for the antisocial.
    • I think games are going to be the most important aspect of the PSP's success, and they need to be games for the portable market. For example, everyone is talking about the Metal Gear game shown. While I love MG games, I don't think they will translate well to a portable. What happens when you need to turn off the PSP cause its your stop on the subway and your in the middle of a codec cut scene? The DS games shown seemed to be the perfect type of games for a portable. Nintendo know how to produce a syste
  • Doesn't anyone recall? Nintendo had dominance in the market. Sony released a more expensive system, which differed from Nintendo's in that it had games on a medium which gave them far more impressive impact, due to the inclusion of cut scenes and pre-rendered video. Nintendo stuck with smaller cartridges with less capacity.

    The average buyer looked at both, and preferred the system that had the cooler looking games. I suspect history is about to repeat itself.

    ---
    In the beginning, there was nothing, the
    • Here's how it broke down:
      Sony sold 100,000,000 PS1s.
      Nintendo sold 30,000,000 N64s.

      Now the funny thing is that Nintendo sold only a small percentage more SNESs than they sold N64s.

      So... what happened? Sony GREW the market... A LOT. Nintendo kept their fanbase(and continues to keep them into this generation), but didn't get too many new converts.

      Also, going into the N64/PS/Saturn era, Nintendo was not dominant. They shared the thrown with a player called SEGA because they were horribly late to the

      • Comparing the modern console market to the modern handheld market doesn't hold up either. There are different considerations that buyers take into account when buying a portable versus a non-portable product.

        Battery-life is a big one, and one Sony appears to have lost(regardless of their claims that they get 8 hours of life, I don't see how it's possible they get more than the 2-2 1/2 hours they claim to get with video in real life with the current model). If they can't wring 6 hours+(minimum, no exceptio

        • I suspect the 2 1/2 hour figure is playing a movie from the internal drive, i.e., the drive is being accessed and read continuously, something which would draw more power (MPEG decoding not considered.) Typical gameplay would access the disk far less, which could explain the disparity.

          Ok maybe, but a lot of PS2 games rely heavily on FMVs, and they seem to IIRC(I'm dead tired atm hence using thrown instead of throne) read from the disk an awful lot. So if that's the cause, Final Fantasy and a lot of other
    • Except in one case it was a home console, in this case it's for a portable game player.

      when i'm looking to play games on the road, i don't want a gigantor game system taking up precious space in my laptop bag. the smaller the game system the better.

      but then again, time will tell.

      • when i'm looking to play games on the road, i don't want a gigantor game system taking up precious space in my laptop bag. the smaller the game system the better.

        I guess I don't understand this. I've seen pictures of the PSP and the original Gameboy Advance side-by-side (well, actually, one above the other) and the PSP is slightly longer, and slightly narrower. Otherwise, they are of comparable size. The GBA did very well (I have one.) The GBA SP is certainly smaller and easier to carry about (I have

    • "I suspect history is about to repeat itself."

      If history repeats itself, then the PSP will crash and burn.

      • If history repeats itself, then the PSP will crash and burn.

        An interesting comment, without any explanation. Neither the PS1 nor the PS2 crashed and burned. Why would the PSP?

        ---
        In the beginning, there was nothing, then God said, "Let there be light." And there was light. There was still nothing, but you could see it a lot better.
        • "An interesting comment, without any explanation. Neither the PS1 nor the PS2 crashed and burned. Why would the PSP?"

          I apologize, I should have clarified. Take a look at how portables have done against Nintendo in the past. The 1 mhz 8-bit Gameboy has defeated like 5 or 6 MAJOR portables. Sony is breaking some of the same rules the other ones did. It just simply isn't clear that Sony will win. Based on previous history (look up Turbo Express, Game Gear, Nomad, Neo Geo Pocket, Game.Com, etc) Sony sta
          • Yes, but Sony kicking the crap out of Nintendo in the console market could prove to be a glimpse of things to come (PS1 over N64, PS2 over Gamecube). Do you think Sony has learned nothing in these past couple years? The PSP looks pretty slick and more professional as well. The original gameboy sold very well with professionals (mostly due to Tetris).

            All in all, its great to have competition in the marketplace.

            • "Yes, but Sony kicking the crap out of Nintendo in the console market could prove to be a glimpse of things to come (PS1 over N64, PS2 over Gamecube)."

              Yep. It's for this reason I'm not being all that dismissive of PSP. (Unfortunately, you'd have to see some of my previous posts to really undestand a fleshed out reason of what I think...) Let me put it to you this way: I'm a Nintendo fanboy/zealot. Nintendo can do no wrong with me. Despite that, I'm still afraid of the PSP. (At the same time, I feel
            • The PSP looks pretty slick and more professional as well

              The DS design is not final. Look for an updated design within the next few months.
    • Where do I start with this flawed logic?

      Sony made a smart decision in including DVD playback in the PS2. Most households didn't have a DVD player at all yet, and as the latest issue of Wired will explain, the Critical Price threshold for DVD players was $400. Sony launched at $299, starting not only a game console revolution, but a DVD revolution as well.

      The problem (if there is one with the uber-successful PS2) is that most people bought the PS2 initially as a cheap DVD player, because at the time, it
  • "We knew that people were going to say, 'Oh, is the new Zelda because you made a mistake with Windwaker?' You don't make a mistake when you sell something in the millions and millions"
    I actually think moving back to realism will be a big mistake. While playing Windwaker it was easy to forget you were playing a game, it was just a beautiful interactive cartoon. This just looks like OoT with some new features (using the sword on horseback for example) and higher res textures. Until realistic games get to the
  • IGN reported that several third parties, which asked to keep their companies' names anonymous, reported that initial hardware tests ran for less than an hour.

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