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Portables (Games)

State Of The Handheld Industry 2005 68

Posted by Zonk from the i-heart-my-ds dept.
Jack writes "The State of the Handheld Industry 2005 is back. The yearly feature includes roundtables with journalists and handheld developers. A report by GCAdvanced indicates that this year it is a 4-day feature at Nintendo Insider. The developer roundtable is already up. It talks about not only the GBA, DS, and PSP, but the Gizmondo, N-Gage, and mobile phone gaming. GCAdvanced also reports there is an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan. Although she seems to dodge some questions, it gives new information about the Game Boy Micro faceplates and Nintendo DS online with the Wi-Fi connection." To provide some first hand opinions, The Game Chair has a piece on the meaning behind handheld gaming.
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State Of The Handheld Industry 2005 More

State Of The Handheld Industry 2005

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  • Xbox (Score:3, Funny)

    by turtled ( 845180 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @04:53PM (#13057357)
    Good thing there isn't a portable Xbox... man, that thing would weigh like 10 lbs. =)

  • SP (Score:1)

    by Is0m0rph ( 819726 )
    I play my GBA SP usually everyday and have no desire to get a DS or PSP. I'm sure I'm not alone feeling that way.
    • Just wait till Christmas. Everybody release their games at $49.99. The gaming industry loves to stall the entire summer. Nothing new.

    • I'm sure I'm not alone feeling that way.

      I'm sure you're not too - I was happy with my GBA SP for a while, and couldn't see how the DS (particularly the touchscreen) was so great.

      Then I found one on special and picked it up just to see what it was like. Answer: fantastic. The touchscreen really is a neat way to play some of these games, and really does bring about some new ways of playing.

      IMHO, the physical styling of the device leaves a bit to be desired - it looks kinda clunky. More than made-up-for by
  • What I'd really love to see is a PDA/Pocket PC that has a built in analogue pad like the PSP's and some decent face buttons...plus you'd already have the touch screen for normal PDA type use. Throw in one of those mobile nvidia chips and a nice size flash drive or something on it for downloading games, and hell lets add in music too while we're at it...

  • Handheld gaming's future never looked brighter (Score:4, Interesting)

    by alvinrod ( 889928 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @05:54PM (#13057831)
    Up until now consumers have had one choice for the most part, and that was the GameBoy. Everything else that was put up against the GameBoy was slaughtered by it. Now Sony has come with deep pockets and the ability to support something else.

    Personally, I really don't like the PSP (it's just an expensive portable PS2 for the most part), but I can see the advantages that it brings. The graphics on the GameBoy have never been all that great. Many games have looked good despite the GB or GBA's inability to throw out high polygon counts. The PSP makes 3D gaming possible on a handheld in ways that it has never been before. However, it seems as though most companies are intent on throwing rehashes of PS2 games on it. I really haven't seen any originality on the system. It has a lot of potential, but right now it seems a lot of that potential is being wasted. The only reason I'd buy one is Lumines, but I'm not paying almost $300 for the experience.

    The DS on the other hand is really an odd duck. Like the PSP there is a lot of untapped potential on the system that's going to waste. However after playing games like Kirby's Canvas Curse, I've been blown away by some of the possibilities of the system. The DS is just begging people to think outside of the box and come up with something new and innovative.

    The most important thing though, is that consumers have a choice in what type of gaming philosophy they want to subscribe to. You can buy into the innovation and new style of gaming brought about by the DS, or you can get the mainstream rich-graphic games that the PSP has to offer. No matter what your preference is, consumers have more of a choice now.

  • Warning: article might be just a tad biased. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AzraelKans ( 697974 ) on Wednesday July 13, 2005 @06:53PM (#13058249) Homepage
    A report by GCAdvanced indicates that this year it is a 4-day feature at Nintendo Insider. The developer roundtable is already up. It talks about not only the GBA, DS, and PSP, but the Gizmondo, N-Gage, and mobile phone gaming. GCAdvanced also reports there is an interview with Nintendo's Perrin Kaplan.

    Yeah, that sounds totally unbiased to me.
    • It's only hosted at a Nintendo site because for the past four years, Nintendo hasn't had any recognizeable competition.

      Nintendo Insider itself hasn't actually written any of the content so far. Day 1 was an interview with several developers in the handheld sector, and it was pretty evenly matched between PSP/DS developers.

      Day 2 was an interview with a Nintendo executive, but it's pretty obvious what sort of bias she might have. ;)
      Day 3 is an interview with eight gaming journalists, and again, they'r
      • I agree, it's not biased to Nintendo at all, in fact some of the so-called "journalists" they interview are so dismissive of the DS because it doesn't do pretty graphics like the PSP I have to wonder how they can objectively review anything. Then again, one of them is aptly called The Game Dork...

        My favourite interviewee was David Thomas of the Denver Post as he quite openly admitted that most journalists were seduced by the shiny PSP and hyped it massively without bothering to look at the quality of the g
        • David Thomas was definitely the funniest to read. Although he seemed a little biased against the PSP, he was way more fair than "The Game Dork", who kept ranting about the wonders of the PSP, but seemed to think that it should have included a built-in theater projector. He also suggested that Sony release "blank PSPs" to burn music to, leading me to believe that he very little about video games. It sounds like he may have started gaming on the Xbox or PS2, because he clearly doesn't understand how the indus

  • Will people buy a PSP solely for watching movies? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by LKM ( 227954 ) on Thursday July 14, 2005 @05:41AM (#13061447)

    On page three of the developer roundtable, there's a question asking whether the developers think that the non-gaming features of the PSP could eat into game sales. Almost all interviewees seem to think that the opposite is true: People will buy the PSP for watching UMD movies and then discover that it can play games, too, thereby bringing in new gamers.

    I think this is a bit delusional, but I'm wondering: Has anyone of you bought a PSP solely as a portable movie player? Do you know anyone who has? If you own a PSP, have you even bought a UMD movie?

    • Whereas many of the people posting have mentioned that they are interesting in having a device that does one thing [and does it well]. there are alot of parents that are interested in buying one device for their kids instead of 4. thats the PSP appeal. im not going on record saying whether thats better or not, but as a parent on a budget and kids that want an ipod, a portable media viewer, a playstation, and portable video games for the ride to and from school, etc. i think the PSP would appeal to that dem
      • Dude. Playing music is not something the PSP does well. It's far too big. 1gb flash players cost the same as a 1gb memory cart for the PSP.

        Playing movies on the PSP is a real pain in the neck and the wallet. If you have more than 1 kid all bets are off. Can you imagine the fighting going on in the back seat? A few GBA SP's and a bunch of games would keep kids far more entertained.

        I'm sure there are a few people out there who actually have a use for watching movies on the thing, but even then a portable dv
        • you apparently have not had your hands on this thing. first and foremost the 16:9 screen on the PSP [even at the smaller size] will beat most portable dvd players at the same price. you should definitely check one out. the screen is usually what sucks most people in. its superb quality and after you actually watch video on it, you would never try to compare it to a huge bulky portable dvd player again.

          Dude. Playing music is not something the PSP does well. It's far too big. 1gb flash players cost the sam
    • I've actually heard that UMD movies have been selling better than PSP games for some time. But that's mostly because of the big drought of games between launch and the holidays, and people want to justify their purchase. I don't know anyone who wants to buy a PSP solely for the movie playback. They'd all much rather get a cheap laptop or a portable DVD player. The general consensus for the new Final Fantasy movie is that PSP owners will probably buy the UMD version, but everyone else will buy it on DVD rath

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