itwbennett writes "'Nintendo is feeling the sting of competition from the iPhone,' writes Peter Smith in a recent post. 'At least, that's the feeling one gets when reading Nintendo president Satoru Iwata's thoughts on the future of Nintendo handhelds. According to a Financial Times piece, Iwata suggests the next Nintendo handheld (and to be clear, he isn't talking about the big screen DS launching in Japan next month) might include free 3G wireless, much like the Amazon Kindle does. The challenge is to offer the immediacy of downloading an inexpensive new game, anywhere, anytime, without forcing the user into some kind of monthly data plan.' From the FT piece: 'Only people who can pay thousands of yen a month [in mobile phone subscriptions] can be iPhone customers. That doesn't fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products,' Mr Iwata said."
You have to bear in mind that none of this will really be free. The 3G connection will be used to download content, which will cost money. Some of that money will go to the 3G network provider.
Just like with Kindle, where a ebook sales provide Amazon enough money to pay for all that "free" browsing.
Does he mean "in Japan" or "everywhere in the world"?
This sure won't work in Canada, where the cellphone providers have a stronghold on almost anything wireless.
It'll probably work much like the Kindle does...
Amazon has partnered with various wireless providers for the Kindle. The wireless isn't exactly free... You're paying for the Kindle, and you're using your wireless to download content purchases - part of that money goes to pay for the wireless access. So the wireless providers are getting paid for your usage. And it is in Amazon's (or Nintendo's) best interest to get as many wireless providers on-board as possible.
Are you kidding? Bell, Rogers and Telus will be at each other's throats to offer the hottest new Nintendo product. They really don't care whether you pay for your data plan or if Nintendo does. Nintendo's habit of locking their devices down is also likely to appeal to these companies, since their goal is to collect monthly revenue without users doing anything on the network.
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
I don't understand. Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price? Because you can forget the former, and I hope you will forget the latter. Nintendo consoles have plenty of developers. I don't see why you assume that there is a shortage. So Nintendo runs a different business model, which obviously produces different results, and pays off. Would you much rather have 3 clones of console makers, than the two already existing (Microsoft & Sony) one
Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price?
No, emag and I are saying that Nintendo should follow Apple's model of the iPhone developer program and the App Store, which in turn is a carbon copy of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games. But instead, Nintendo chooses to discriminate against people for whom developing video games is something other than a day job.
Playing devil's advocate for a moment: what truly amazing stuff have we seen from the "not-a-day-job" indie devs on the Microsoft and Apple stores? There have been several excellent indie games of late (Braid and World of Goo come to mind immediately), but I notice that they came from small teams who put their money where their mouths were and took on game dev full-time. The biggest exception I can think of is the fabled Cave Story, which saw enough success as a freeware game on Win/Mac/PSP that it's get
what truly amazing stuff have we seen from the "not-a-day-job" indie devs on the Microsoft and Apple stores?
As far as I can tell, the route to a career in video game development is as follows:
Release some freeware for Windows or Mac OS X in college.
Find a full-time job, which will be outside the video game industry because you were born in the wrong city. Hold this job while working on some freeware and/or shareware in your spare time.
Once step 2 produces enough money to live on for a year, move to a city that has a commercial video game development scene, and pick your highlights from steps 1 and 2 for your re
More or less my point exactly (2DBoy satisfied Nintendo's requirements even as a tiny two-many indie outfit). Actually, all things considered Nintendo is doing *fantastic* with indie PC devs - they have 2DBoy (World of Goo), Nicalis (Cave Story, La Mulana, and Night Game), and the Super Meat Boy guys. Microsoft's presently got Jonathan Blow for Braid and Derek Yu for Spelunky, and Sony has Jenova Chen (flOw, Flower, etc) and Jonathan Mak (Everyday Shooter).
Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price?
No, emag and I are saying that Nintendo should follow Apple's model of the iPhone developer program and the App Store, which in turn is a carbon copy of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games. But instead, Nintendo chooses to discriminate against people for whom developing video games is something other than a day job.
Wait what? Discriminate? Are you fucking serious? It's a source of income to match the revenue forecast. Either that comes from raising console prices/lowering dev kit prices, or keeping it the way it is. Not everybody is a homebrewer, so why should dev kits be considered as something "enjoyed by everyone"? Also as I clearly stated Nintendo is choosing another strategy, if you want to be a homebrewer perhaps it's not the console for you. But we already know that consoles cannot meet all criterias. However i
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
I disagree.
Nintendo has always produced entertainment devices. Sure, there have been a few productivity apps shoehorned into the GameBoy in the past... But the vast majority of their software is games. I don't see Nintendo selling a device that is primarily a PDA or GPS or phone anytime soon.
The iPhone is competing in the smartphone arena. Folks with smartphones are used to being able to buy random apps on-line and install them. Folks with smartphones are used to being able to buy small little utilitie
Yawn, getting tired of this excuse. You don't _really_ want a dev kit to make games on it, you want a dev kit so you can pirate games. There are other open portable gaming devices you could use for your supposed home-brew-game-programming desires.
If there were more than the 250 people other than you that actually cared about a dev kit, they would do something about it. Quit deluding yourself into thinking your desires are an important market segment worth catering to.
You don't _really_ want a dev kit to make games on it, you want a dev kit so you can pirate games.
Say I start by making a PC-based demo of the game in question. "I made this game, but Nintendo and Sony won't let me port it to their hardware." Would such a whine sound more credible?
There are other open portable gaming devices
Which of them have a distributor in the United States? Best Buy has never heard of a "GP2X" or a "Dingoo", and Pandora isn't out yet.
The ebook readers can get away with this cheaply because ebooks don't take up much space. Games on the other hand can be quite large, and I imagine the next-gen games meant to compete with the iPhone 3GS (which has more powerful hardware than both the current DSi and and PSP Go) will be even larger. Can Nintendo really front the costs to provide access to this service without increasing game price?
How large? Classic NES, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color games are 4 MiB or less (with a handful of exceptions). Even a DS-native game like Animal Crossing: Wild World is only 32 MiB. Compare that to the 256 MB of internal memory on a DSi or the 4 GB card in the DSi's SDHC slot.
more powerful hardware
Wii has more powerful hardware than the DS, but Wii Shop Channel games still weigh in less than 48 MB. (There are roughly eight "blocks" in 1 MB.)
Can Nintendo really front the costs to provide access to this service without increasing game price?
Full-size games cost $30 to $40 in the United States, partly due to the cost of making and shipping Game Cards. Do you think the 3G airtime to download, say, a 64 MB game will cost more than making and shipping a Game Card?
Do you think the 3G airtime to download, say, a 64 MB game will cost more than making and shipping a Game Card?
On a national level it wouldn't be a problem, but don't forget that international data roaming charges are insane (EUR 2/MB for me). That would make downloading games rather expensive.
I have no doubt that Nintendo would be able to strike a much better deal, but with 200MB DS games out there they will have to get quite a bargain if they want to make this cost-effective internationally.
You are thinking too much in terms of current mobile contracts. Your DS wouldn't have international roaming because you wouldn't have a contract to give it a 'home country'. Instead Nintendo has agreements with various networks in different countries, so that when you download a game in Germany Nintendo pays the local provider the negotiated rate, not the rate your American network dreamed up together with the German network for when you visit with your American cell phone.
Your handheld won't even try to download games while on another continent as a side effect of the region coding that Nintendo has been using since DSi.
I loved my dslite, and played it a lot, and there are lots of games (lots and lots) of games that I had a lot of fun with (Mario Kart especially). I don't think I'll get another one only because the games I have on the iPhone, while not Mario Kart or Nintendo-quality, are good enough for what I want to do, which is kill some time on the bus or in a line. Plus, as it's my phone, I'm going to always have it with me.
Comparing the games I've played on the ds and the iphone, the only difference is that a majority of the games on the iphone seem to be trial balloons from established companies (EA, Sega), and home-brew games that are of varying degrees of quality. What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone. Yes I can pull out the game cart quickly get going with another game, but I've lost several carts and that's $40+ down the drain. With the phone, the app is actually installed and I don't see any excessive start lag that wouldn't be there in a cart game too (setting up the db, loading graphics, initializing the engine, etc.). From a graphics, sound, networking, etc., standpoint, I don't see anything the ds can do that the iphone can't (okay, yes, there are two screens, but that's not a "killer features" as far as I'm concerned; if anything, I've never been very good at keeping focus on the "right" screen at the right time).
I can appreciate we won't see Mario Kart on the iPhone soon, if ever, but I'd think that there are plenty of other companies developing for the ds who, if they wrote an iphone version, would be opening up a whole new market for themselves. I know there's been articles about iphone app piracy that you don't have as much with a cart, so I guess that's a legitimate concern. That said, I know lots of iphone users, none of them even know what jailbreaking is; are there really more iphone users "in the know" about how to pirate an app than users who just buy their apps and go about their business?
I appreciate this sounds very fanboy-ish, but as someone who had an ipod, a phone, and a dslite...I was carrying around a lot of stuff. The iphone, for me, consolidates everything into one package and there's no reason I'd want to go back.
What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone.
A lot of DS and PSP fanboys on Slashdot prefer the tactile response of the directional pad and physical buttons on the "traditional" handhelds over the flat multitouch screen of an iPod Touch. Some of the members of tetrisconcept.net and harddrop.com (forums for hardcore Tetris fans) have tried Tetris on an iPhone, and the control scheme wasn't suitable for the sort of 100+ piece per minute play that they're used to.
as someone who had an ipod, a phone, and a dslite...I was carrying around a lot of stuff. The iphone, for me, consolidates everything into one package
I'm currently on a $5 per month plan at Virgin Mobile because I don't text or use a lot of minutes. I looked into an iPhone and found the convenience of a single device not worth the money for the required voice and data plans.
What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone. Yes I can pull out the game cart quickly get going with another game, but I've lost several carts and that's $40+ down the drain.
Except when their DRM server or whatever thing the device phones home to is discontinued, or your device's memory gets corrupt, or you want to play those games on another device without paying for them all again, or you want to sell a game to someone else. A physical cartridge doesn't have any of the above pr
The challenge is to offer the immediacy of downloading an inexpensive new game, anywhere, anytime, without forcing the user into some kind of monthly data plan.
There won't be a monthly plan, because it was be bundled into the price upfront. I also wouldn't be surprised if the median owner rarely used their 3G connection, and were subsidizing the small minority who uses it. There's a problem when Nintendo's handheld is more expensive than their full console. Especially when a large part of the success for the Wii is attributed to it's low price point.
A 3G chip adds manufacturing cost, won't play well in all countries (look at how the kindle has had functionality removed outside the US), can be incredibly slow depending on the network and location, will be incredibly expensive for the 500mb+ downloads that will probably make up DS2 games...
A 3G chip adds manufacturing cost, won't play well in all countries (look at how the kindle has had functionality removed outside the US), can be incredibly slow depending on the network and location, will be incredibly expensive for the 500mb+ downloads that will probably make up DS2 games...
Go back and read tepples' post about the typical size of current Nintendo games...
Current DS games are only around 32MB. Wii Ware games tend to be around 50MB. Do you really think the games in Nintendo's next handheld are going to be over ten times that size?
I'm skeptical of how successful this can be. For one thing, their analogy is flawed. It's easy to build the price wireless of service for ebooks into the purchase price because ebooks are, on average, less than 1MB in size. Contrast that with modern portable games, which can regularly exceed 1GB in file size. If Nintendo plans to build that cost into the price of games, they could be looking at a substantial markup. Also, acquiring the game is not the only consideration for portable game buyers. They'
Perhaps I'm biased, since I love my DS, but I really don't see how the iPhone is hurting the DS in any way. My girlfriend owns both a DS and an iPhone and beyond the initial "Oh look at this cool game!" reaction, I've never seen her play a single game on the iPhone. Are there really games on the iPhone that people would be willing to invest time on? Even with all the hype and articles about the issue, I really don't get the sense at all that the iPhone is in any way taking customers from Nintendo or Sony. Saying iPhone games are convenient is like saying regular cell phone brick games or tetris games are convenient - it doesn't change the fact that it'll drain your battery in an hour and fifteen minutes and isn't particularly engaging anyway.
There's no way an iPhone replicates "70-80%" of the functionality of a DS or PSP, they're two different things.
The way I see it, Nintendo isn't looking to gain back market share or anything - its sales definitely are not weak or faltering in any way, 115 million units compared to the PSP's 56 (or the iPhone's 21). Instead, they're probably just looking to expand their market more and more, and they may feel that downloading little or full-size games whenever the user wants may be the way to do it.
I don't really have much to say about your argument other than I think your personal experience is somewhat subjective. As evidence I'd just point out that the iPhone games market is something that is clearly on the minds of people at Sony and Nintendo. Since the iPhone has launched both Sony and Nintendo have introduces low priced, downloable tiers to their platforms (DSiWare and "snackable" games on the PSN) to compete directly with the game market on the iPhone. And in this very article, Iwata directl
Nintendo is famous for not buying into the "all-in-one" device and has always focused on games only. Adding 3g sounds interesting but its reality is really limiting. This would likely be only for access to DSi type mini game downloads since actually supporting online gaming with "free" g3 is financially impossible unless the handheld is prohibitively expensive. There is also the added cost of supporting different architectures since there is no real global standard for cellular technology.
Okay, we need to get moving faster on wireless networking oversight. It's getting worse than the cable/dsl nightmare of crappy service and quality they provide. How about we unbundle these wireless connections from their devices and simply allow us to select the right one and drop in the appropriate chip? Someone put some pressure on the US market to standardize on something. then have them compete on price, speed, service, and support. Right now they compete with lock in and fancy stupid commercials.
And it's not "free". At the very least, it's included with the price of the device. And how does one exactly subsidize that on a single device? It's $30 a month for the iPhone data plan, that's $360 a year in fees. Are they going to tack on $360 to the price of the device? And how do they expect to do this in multiple countries? And in the US will anyone accept the hit their network is going to take? They saw the iPhone, they should be wary of the nintendo with 3G wireless.
There are too many questions here, and so many fail points. The best way to serve consumers is to UNBundle the wireless component so we can all make choices. I'd love to be able to do that on all the networks, and I'd sacrifice visual voicemail to do it.
I don't have a Kindle, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the concept is, the Kindle isn't a 'general purpose' Internet device, like a smart phone - that is, I don't think you can really just browse the web, stream audio and video from youtube, hulu, or whatever. Basically, the data connection on the Kindle is special-purpose - for downloading Kindle eBooks/eZines/eNewspapers, which are a) relatively small, and b) the price of the 3G network bandwidth for the download is essentially bundled in the price of the content you purchase.
So, Amazon, I think, worked out a deal with carriers in different countries to pay for the cost of the downloads, by sharing the revenue generated by the content purchases with the network operators(granted, there is also some activity, like the user browsing the amazon kindle 'store', which doesn't directly generate revenue, but which is recovered by the user purchases).
In such a business model, the individual users are probably generating, collectively, much less bandwidth-use per device (on average) than your average smart-phone user, so the costs to the 3G network operator are relatively small. Any users who are using a lot more bandwidth than the average user are also paying a lot more for content than the average user, so the high-use users pay for themselves (as do the low-use users).
I could very easily see Nintendo working out such a deal with network operators if the only thing the online connectivity is used for is browsing the Nintendo store to find and purchase games/DLC, and then download the games after purchase. If, however, the Nintendo device allows web browsing and online play against/with other Nintendo users, then I have a harder time seeing that business model succeed (because the users, then, aren't necessarily paying indirectly for all the network bandwidth they use).
From the FT piece: 'Only people who can pay thousands of yen a month [in mobile phone subscriptions] can be iPhone customers.'
Ummm, 1000 Yen ~= $10 USD. So paying thousands == between $10 and $100 per month (I think most people here fall into the higher end of that range). I fail to see how that's an astonishing figure worth pointing out...
$100 per month just for access to a mobile data network is a fair chunk of change to most people and considering that kids are a big segment of Nintendo's consumer base...
It's worth pointing out, because if their next gaming device cost $90, $50, or $20 a month to use its features, it would fail miserably. I don't think Nintendo is competing with the iPhone at all; but if it is, it's by owning the audience from 8 to 18 years old, and then holding on to them as they age.
Nintendo is a smart and conservative company, and they're looking at the long haul. Apple's model is far more unstable; it'll collapse again as soon as the fashion tides change.
Not really innovative they are just in the first in the hand held gaming industry to want to offer free access to a network. No doubt it will end up being some what similar to Amazons evdo network for their kindle. Think Nintendo kindle for games (at least that's what I get from the article)
While it might not be revolutionary (the Kindle DID do it first:P), it is certainly something I would be interested in. I would never buy/use an iPhone (ridiculously overpriced, and the way Apple handles apps pisses me off), and I'm not a big one for ebooks (I like to have something with pages, that smells like paper and glue:) ). However, I do like having a portable gaming system for long drives/flights, or just waiting around. One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play, or you have to be happy with one/two, and if you finish them or grow bored, you're SoL. The ability to DL a new game on the fly would make the purchase of this system a no-brainer for me... even if I only used it once every few months, I feel like I would be getting worthwhile value out of it.
One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play
Not on the DSi. It has a 256 MB microSD card soldered onto the motherboard for storing apps downloaded from the DSi Shop. The only thing that the article would change is that you don't have to walk to a restaurant to buy new apps.
The ability to DL a new game on the fly
Except 3G doesn't work so well on a jet airliner: too many handoffs per minute. You'd have to use the onboard Wi-Fi, which airlines would likely price for executives of medium to large businesses. And at that point, you could just use the DSi Shop.
A 3 hour flight is ten bucks for airplane WiFi. Now, I do acknowledge that is expensive (though on par with in-terminal WiFi access), but when you already paid $300+ on a plane ticket, another $10 is definitely not priced towards executives. Just factor that into your cost of airplane tickets next time you fly.
The airplane's monopoly ISP's terms of service ban WLAN-to-WLAN bridges. Here's why: There are only three channels considered non-overlapping in Wi-Fi: 1, 6, and 11. If the network uses channel 11, what channels can three families of passengers use for their bridges?
The DSi does has on-board flash storage... but why do you say it has a "microSD card"?
Because the interface between the system bus and the on-board flash is said to be identical to MMC or SD. This contrasts with the Wii, which uses a raw NAND flash chip that acts more like an xD-Picture card.
One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play, or you have to be happy with one/two, and if you finish them or grow bored, you're SoL.
On pre-DS systems I used to have the same complaint, but really, the cartridges for the DS are so small that I can carry 5-6 of them without even noticing (though I usually never end up playing more than 1 or 2).
Just like there was such a flurry of hacks to get cheap access thorough the Peek? Granted, I don't think it's 3G and it _is_ still $15 a month, but it's also incredibly cheap (both initially and per month). And like that frenzy of hacks for the Amazon Kindle? I mean that thing has free 3G....
Besides, all they'll have to do is put in some kind of bandwidth limit...or simply limit the connection to specific sites. I mean it's being used to download games, there's no reason not to lock it in to only be allowed
How does that work? (Score:2)
Does he mean "in Japan" or "everywhere in the world"?
This sure won't work in Canada, where the cellphone providers have a stronghold on almost anything wireless.
Re:How does that work? (Score:4, Interesting)
Who knows. Probably Japan at first.
You have to bear in mind that none of this will really be free. The 3G connection will be used to download content, which will cost money. Some of that money will go to the 3G network provider.
Just like with Kindle, where a ebook sales provide Amazon enough money to pay for all that "free" browsing.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Does he mean "in Japan" or "everywhere in the world"?
This sure won't work in Canada, where the cellphone providers have a stronghold on almost anything wireless.
It'll probably work much like the Kindle does...
Amazon has partnered with various wireless providers for the Kindle. The wireless isn't exactly free... You're paying for the Kindle, and you're using your wireless to download content purchases - part of that money goes to pay for the wireless access. So the wireless providers are getting paid for your usage. And it is in Amazon's (or Nintendo's) best interest to get as many wireless providers on-board as possible.
But to you, the user, it appears to be fr
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you kidding? Bell, Rogers and Telus will be at each other's throats to offer the hottest new Nintendo product. They really don't care whether you pay for your data plan or if Nintendo does. Nintendo's habit of locking their devices down is also likely to appeal to these companies, since their goal is to collect monthly revenue without users doing anything on the network.
Is 3G really the problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
Re: (Score:2)
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
I don't understand. Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price? Because you can forget the former, and I hope you will forget the latter. Nintendo consoles have plenty of developers. I don't see why you assume that there is a shortage.
So Nintendo runs a different business model, which obviously produces different results, and pays off. Would you much rather have 3 clones of console makers, than the two already existing (Microsoft & Sony) one
App Store (Score:2)
Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price?
No, emag and I are saying that Nintendo should follow Apple's model of the iPhone developer program and the App Store, which in turn is a carbon copy of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games. But instead, Nintendo chooses to discriminate against people for whom developing video games is something other than a day job.
Re: (Score:2)
Playing devil's advocate for a moment: what truly amazing stuff have we seen from the "not-a-day-job" indie devs on the Microsoft and Apple stores? There have been several excellent indie games of late (Braid and World of Goo come to mind immediately), but I notice that they came from small teams who put their money where their mouths were and took on game dev full-time. The biggest exception I can think of is the fabled Cave Story, which saw enough success as a freeware game on Win/Mac/PSP that it's get
Re: (Score:2)
what truly amazing stuff have we seen from the "not-a-day-job" indie devs on the Microsoft and Apple stores?
As far as I can tell, the route to a career in video game development is as follows:
Re: (Score:2)
More or less my point exactly (2DBoy satisfied Nintendo's requirements even as a tiny two-many indie outfit). Actually, all things considered Nintendo is doing *fantastic* with indie PC devs - they have 2DBoy (World of Goo), Nicalis (Cave Story, La Mulana, and Night Game), and the Super Meat Boy guys. Microsoft's presently got Jonathan Blow for Braid and Derek Yu for Spelunky, and Sony has Jenova Chen (flOw, Flower, etc) and Jonathan Mak (Everyday Shooter).
All in all, a good time to be a talented indie
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying that Nintendo should intentionally lower their revenue or raise the consumer price?
No, emag and I are saying that Nintendo should follow Apple's model of the iPhone developer program and the App Store, which in turn is a carbon copy of Microsoft's XNA Creators Club and Xbox Live Indie Games. But instead, Nintendo chooses to discriminate against people for whom developing video games is something other than a day job.
Wait what? Discriminate? Are you fucking serious? It's a source of income to match the revenue forecast. Either that comes from raising console prices/lowering dev kit prices, or keeping it the way it is. Not everybody is a homebrewer, so why should dev kits be considered as something "enjoyed by everyone"? Also as I clearly stated Nintendo is choosing another strategy, if you want to be a homebrewer perhaps it's not the console for you. But we already know that consoles cannot meet all criterias. However i
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems to me that it's more the large number of developers, and the diversity of games/apps, that could be a bigger issue. Sure, immediacy is nice, but...if Nintendo keeps up the policy of charging multi-thousands of dollars for a dev kit, with a requirement that it _must_ be a business location (no home offices), I don't see 3G as being much help...
I disagree.
Nintendo has always produced entertainment devices. Sure, there have been a few productivity apps shoehorned into the GameBoy in the past... But the vast majority of their software is games. I don't see Nintendo selling a device that is primarily a PDA or GPS or phone anytime soon.
The iPhone is competing in the smartphone arena. Folks with smartphones are used to being able to buy random apps on-line and install them. Folks with smartphones are used to being able to buy small little utilitie
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yawn, getting tired of this excuse. You don't _really_ want a dev kit to make games on it, you want a dev kit so you can pirate games.
There are other open portable gaming devices you could use for your supposed home-brew-game-programming desires.
If there were more than the 250 people other than you that actually cared about a dev kit, they would do something about it.
Quit deluding yourself into thinking your desires are an important market segment worth catering to.
Re:Is 3G really the problem? (Score:4, Interesting)
You don't _really_ want a dev kit to make games on it, you want a dev kit so you can pirate games.
Say I start by making a PC-based demo of the game in question. "I made this game, but Nintendo and Sony won't let me port it to their hardware." Would such a whine sound more credible?
There are other open portable gaming devices
Which of them have a distributor in the United States? Best Buy has never heard of a "GP2X" or a "Dingoo", and Pandora isn't out yet.
Parent
I don't see this working (Score:4, Interesting)
Size of Wii Shop Channel games (Score:5, Informative)
Games on the other hand can be quite large
How large? Classic NES, Super NES, Game Boy, and Game Boy Color games are 4 MiB or less (with a handful of exceptions). Even a DS-native game like Animal Crossing: Wild World is only 32 MiB. Compare that to the 256 MB of internal memory on a DSi or the 4 GB card in the DSi's SDHC slot.
more powerful hardware
Wii has more powerful hardware than the DS, but Wii Shop Channel games still weigh in less than 48 MB. (There are roughly eight "blocks" in 1 MB.)
Can Nintendo really front the costs to provide access to this service without increasing game price?
Full-size games cost $30 to $40 in the United States, partly due to the cost of making and shipping Game Cards. Do you think the 3G airtime to download, say, a 64 MB game will cost more than making and shipping a Game Card?
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
On a national level it wouldn't be a problem, but don't forget that international data roaming charges are insane (EUR 2/MB for me). That would make downloading games rather expensive.
I have no doubt that Nintendo would be able to strike a much better deal, but with 200MB DS games out there they will have to get quite a bargain if they want to make this cost-effective internationally.
Re: (Score:2)
Region coding saves money this time (Score:2)
international data roaming charges
Your handheld won't even try to download games while on another continent as a side effect of the region coding that Nintendo has been using since DSi.
Re: (Score:2)
Translation flavor (Score:2, Interesting)
"That doesn't fit Nintendo customers because we make amusement products,' Mr Iwata said."
This guy sounds sane, unlike the crazies in the US industry where the sleazebags ramble on about "life style" and what not.
I'll stick with the iPhone (Score:3, Interesting)
I loved my dslite, and played it a lot, and there are lots of games (lots and lots) of games that I had a lot of fun with (Mario Kart especially). I don't think I'll get another one only because the games I have on the iPhone, while not Mario Kart or Nintendo-quality, are good enough for what I want to do, which is kill some time on the bus or in a line. Plus, as it's my phone, I'm going to always have it with me.
Comparing the games I've played on the ds and the iphone, the only difference is that a majority of the games on the iphone seem to be trial balloons from established companies (EA, Sega), and home-brew games that are of varying degrees of quality. What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone. Yes I can pull out the game cart quickly get going with another game, but I've lost several carts and that's $40+ down the drain. With the phone, the app is actually installed and I don't see any excessive start lag that wouldn't be there in a cart game too (setting up the db, loading graphics, initializing the engine, etc.). From a graphics, sound, networking, etc., standpoint, I don't see anything the ds can do that the iphone can't (okay, yes, there are two screens, but that's not a "killer features" as far as I'm concerned; if anything, I've never been very good at keeping focus on the "right" screen at the right time).
I can appreciate we won't see Mario Kart on the iPhone soon, if ever, but I'd think that there are plenty of other companies developing for the ds who, if they wrote an iphone version, would be opening up a whole new market for themselves. I know there's been articles about iphone app piracy that you don't have as much with a cart, so I guess that's a legitimate concern. That said, I know lots of iphone users, none of them even know what jailbreaking is; are there really more iphone users "in the know" about how to pirate an app than users who just buy their apps and go about their business?
I appreciate this sounds very fanboy-ish, but as someone who had an ipod, a phone, and a dslite...I was carrying around a lot of stuff. The iphone, for me, consolidates everything into one package and there's no reason I'd want to go back.
DS and PSP have D-pad and buttons (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't see is a major benefit of the ds hardware over the iphone.
A lot of DS and PSP fanboys on Slashdot prefer the tactile response of the directional pad and physical buttons on the "traditional" handhelds over the flat multitouch screen of an iPod Touch. Some of the members of tetrisconcept.net and harddrop.com (forums for hardcore Tetris fans) have tried Tetris on an iPhone, and the control scheme wasn't suitable for the sort of 100+ piece per minute play that they're used to.
as someone who had an ipod, a phone, and a dslite...I was carrying around a lot of stuff. The iphone, for me, consolidates everything into one package
I'm currently on a $5 per month plan at Virgin Mobile because I don't text or use a lot of minutes. I looked into an iPhone and found the convenience of a single device not worth the money for the required voice and data plans.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Except when their DRM server or whatever thing the device phones home to is discontinued, or your device's memory gets corrupt, or you want to play those games on another device without paying for them all again, or you want to sell a game to someone else. A physical cartridge doesn't have any of the above pr
Price Points (Score:4, Insightful)
The challenge is to offer the immediacy of downloading an inexpensive new game, anywhere, anytime, without forcing the user into some kind of monthly data plan.
There won't be a monthly plan, because it was be bundled into the price upfront. I also wouldn't be surprised if the median owner rarely used their 3G connection, and were subsidizing the small minority who uses it. There's a problem when Nintendo's handheld is more expensive than their full console. Especially when a large part of the success for the Wii is attributed to it's low price point.
Not gonna happen (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A 3G chip adds manufacturing cost, won't play well in all countries (look at how the kindle has had functionality removed outside the US), can be incredibly slow depending on the network and location, will be incredibly expensive for the 500mb+ downloads that will probably make up DS2 games...
Go back and read tepples' post about the typical size of current Nintendo games...
Current DS games are only around 32MB. Wii Ware games tend to be around 50MB. Do you really think the games in Nintendo's next handheld are going to be over ten times that size?
Holy hell (Score:2)
that'll be expensive...
Good luck Nintendo. They better be building this cost into online game sales...
Skeptical (Score:2)
I'm skeptical of how successful this can be. For one thing, their analogy is flawed. It's easy to build the price wireless of service for ebooks into the purchase price because ebooks are, on average, less than 1MB in size. Contrast that with modern portable games, which can regularly exceed 1GB in file size. If Nintendo plans to build that cost into the price of games, they could be looking at a substantial markup. Also, acquiring the game is not the only consideration for portable game buyers. They'
Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm biased, since I love my DS, but I really don't see how the iPhone is hurting the DS in any way. My girlfriend owns both a DS and an iPhone and beyond the initial "Oh look at this cool game!" reaction, I've never seen her play a single game on the iPhone.
Are there really games on the iPhone that people would be willing to invest time on? Even with all the hype and articles about the issue, I really don't get the sense at all that the iPhone is in any way taking customers from Nintendo or Sony. Saying iPhone games are convenient is like saying regular cell phone brick games or tetris games are convenient - it doesn't change the fact that it'll drain your battery in an hour and fifteen minutes and isn't particularly engaging anyway.
There's no way an iPhone replicates "70-80%" of the functionality of a DS or PSP, they're two different things.
The way I see it, Nintendo isn't looking to gain back market share or anything - its sales definitely are not weak or faltering in any way, 115 million units compared to the PSP's 56 (or the iPhone's 21). Instead, they're probably just looking to expand their market more and more, and they may feel that downloading little or full-size games whenever the user wants may be the way to do it.
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
I don't really have much to say about your argument other than I think your personal experience is somewhat subjective. As evidence I'd just point out that the iPhone games market is something that is clearly on the minds of people at Sony and Nintendo. Since the iPhone has launched both Sony and Nintendo have introduces low priced, downloable tiers to their platforms (DSiWare and "snackable" games on the PSN) to compete directly with the game market on the iPhone. And in this very article, Iwata directl
Next Up!!! (Score:2)
Sabotage their own market? (Score:2)
Nintendo is famous for not buying into the "all-in-one" device and has always focused on games only. Adding 3g sounds interesting but its reality is really limiting. This would likely be only for access to DSi type mini game downloads since actually supporting online gaming with "free" g3 is financially impossible unless the handheld is prohibitively expensive. There is also the added cost of supporting different architectures since there is no real global standard for cellular technology.
UNBundle the connection, then sell separately (Score:3, Insightful)
Okay, we need to get moving faster on wireless networking oversight. It's getting worse than the cable/dsl nightmare of crappy service and quality they provide. How about we unbundle these wireless connections from their devices and simply allow us to select the right one and drop in the appropriate chip? Someone put some pressure on the US market to standardize on something. then have them compete on price, speed, service, and support. Right now they compete with lock in and fancy stupid commercials.
And it's not "free". At the very least, it's included with the price of the device. And how does one exactly subsidize that on a single device? It's $30 a month for the iPhone data plan, that's $360 a year in fees. Are they going to tack on $360 to the price of the device? And how do they expect to do this in multiple countries? And in the US will anyone accept the hit their network is going to take? They saw the iPhone, they should be wary of the nintendo with 3G wireless.
There are too many questions here, and so many fail points. The best way to serve consumers is to UNBundle the wireless component so we can all make choices. I'd love to be able to do that on all the networks, and I'd sacrifice visual voicemail to do it.
If it follows the Kindle model. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have a Kindle, so someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the concept is, the Kindle isn't a 'general purpose' Internet device, like a smart phone - that is, I don't think you can really just browse the web, stream audio and video from youtube, hulu, or whatever. Basically, the data connection on the Kindle is special-purpose - for downloading Kindle eBooks/eZines/eNewspapers, which are a) relatively small, and b) the price of the 3G network bandwidth for the download is essentially bundled in the price of the content you purchase.
So, Amazon, I think, worked out a deal with carriers in different countries to pay for the cost of the downloads, by sharing the revenue generated by the content purchases with the network operators(granted, there is also some activity, like the user browsing the amazon kindle 'store', which doesn't directly generate revenue, but which is recovered by the user purchases).
In such a business model, the individual users are probably generating, collectively, much less bandwidth-use per device (on average) than your average smart-phone user, so the costs to the 3G network operator are relatively small. Any users who are using a lot more bandwidth than the average user are also paying a lot more for content than the average user, so the high-use users pay for themselves (as do the low-use users).
I could very easily see Nintendo working out such a deal with network operators if the only thing the online connectivity is used for is browsing the Nintendo store to find and purchase games/DLC, and then download the games after purchase. If, however, the Nintendo device allows web browsing and online play against/with other Nintendo users, then I have a harder time seeing that business model succeed (because the users, then, aren't necessarily paying indirectly for all the network bandwidth they use).
Parent
Thousands of yen per month? (Score:2)
Ummm, 1000 Yen ~= $10 USD. So paying thousands == between $10 and $100 per month (I think most people here fall into the higher end of that range). I fail to see how that's an astonishing figure worth pointing out...
Re: (Score:2)
$100 per month just for access to a mobile data network is a fair chunk of change to most people and considering that kids are a big segment of Nintendo's consumer base...
Re: (Score:2)
Nintendo is a smart and conservative company, and they're looking at the long haul. Apple's model is far more unstable; it'll collapse again as soon as the fashion tides change.
Re:Yet another revolution (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't know, I think until someone else does it first in the realm of gaming I'd say it still qualifies as innovative.
You don't say "Meh, automobiles aren't very innovative. They're really just a horse drawn carriage without the horse."
CAR ANALOGY ALERT (Score:2)
You don't say "Meh, automobiles aren't very innovative. They're really just a horse drawn carriage without the horse."
Well, that's because it's a pain in the ass to drag a horse-drawn carriage around places when you don't have a horse...
Re:Yet another revolution (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
There's already the DSi Shop (Score:3, Informative)
One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play
Not on the DSi. It has a 256 MB microSD card soldered onto the motherboard for storing apps downloaded from the DSi Shop. The only thing that the article would change is that you don't have to walk to a restaurant to buy new apps.
The ability to DL a new game on the fly
Except 3G doesn't work so well on a jet airliner: too many handoffs per minute. You'd have to use the onboard Wi-Fi, which airlines would likely price for executives of medium to large businesses. And at that point, you could just use the DSi Shop.
Re: (Score:2)
A 3 hour flight is ten bucks for airplane WiFi. Now, I do acknowledge that is expensive (though on par with in-terminal WiFi access), but when you already paid $300+ on a plane ticket, another $10 is definitely not priced towards executives. Just factor that into your cost of airplane tickets next time you fly.
Re: (Score:2)
That's why you bring a wireless bridge.
And get TOSsed off the net (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The DSi does has on-board flash storage... but why do you say it has a "microSD card"?
Because the interface between the system bus and the on-board flash is said to be identical to MMC or SD. This contrasts with the Wii, which uses a raw NAND flash chip that acts more like an xD-Picture card.
Re: (Score:2)
One of the biggest problems I've had with the Nintendo systems is that you either have to carry around a ton of cartridges in order to play, or you have to be happy with one/two, and if you finish them or grow bored, you're SoL.
On pre-DS systems I used to have the same complaint, but really, the cartridges for the DS are so small that I can carry 5-6 of them without even noticing (though I usually never end up playing more than 1 or 2).
The idea of free 3G is kinda cool though....
Re:Hack Frenzy (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just like there was such a flurry of hacks to get cheap access thorough the Peek? Granted, I don't think it's 3G and it _is_ still $15 a month, but it's also incredibly cheap (both initially and per month). And like that frenzy of hacks for the Amazon Kindle? I mean that thing has free 3G....
Besides, all they'll have to do is put in some kind of bandwidth limit...or simply limit the connection to specific sites. I mean it's being used to download games, there's no reason not to lock it in to only be allowed