Messages

1

TalkBack / RE: More DS Units for Japan

« on: December 09, 2004, 05:45:56 PM »

I agree that all this talk about "the formula" being different for Nintendo is a bit of a Red Herring.  I really think Nintendo is going to surprise everyone with the Revolution. Just because it promisses to be something different, doesn't mean it won't be powerful and able to run traditional games as well.

I don't think anyon expected the DS to be the success it is turning out to be, and I have a feeling Revolution will be the same....

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Gameboy DS

« on: December 02, 2004, 10:23:18 AM »

add my voice to the choir, there is no next gameboy. ds is it. I have been saying this for months actually. Nintendo's third pillar nonsense was a way to covere their asses in case ds flopped. If the DS was a third pillar, and experiment, and it flopped, no biggie, no harm the the gameboy name, and nintendo can put a rush on the next "standard" gameboy to counter PSP. Nintendo HAD to release a new handheld, they could not put the GBA up against PSP for obvious reasons. But they were in a very, very tough spot, releasing a successor to the GBA only four years after the GBA's launch, and only a year after the SP would have made joe consumer very upset with them. Solution? Third PILLAR!

But,  since the DS has so far been a grand success, and is looking like it will easilly be the market leader against the PSP, nintendo will quietly drop the third pillar line, and establish DS as its new handheld standard. I worte a rather extensive essay on this subject, but to the point: It would me totally ridiculous to try and market to seperate handheld lines at the same time, which frankly have simialr games, one more powerful but trdationally single screened, and one somewhat less powerful but with touch screen et al. Unfirendly to consumers to make them have both, and brutal to developers to ask them to support both. And that's before it comes time to release successor to DS. Now you have a ulltra powerful dual screend handheld, and a less powerful standard handheld side by side. It's just a mess.

DS may not be gameboy DS, but it is the next "gameboy".

P.S. all these anecdotes about elementary aged kids not knowing the DS is out already tell me one thing. The DS ads really have been targetting and older crowed......also at best buy i havent had one kid ask about the DS, its all teens and adults....

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Mario 64 DS reviews

« on: November 30, 2004, 08:19:21 PM »

i use the touch screen for everything. takes some getting used to, but after the first hour i wasnt even thinking about it anymore.

4

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Control on the Nintendo DS

« on: November 26, 2004, 07:47:31 PM »

the control in mario DS does take a little geting used to, i dont think anyone could argue against that. however once you do get used to it, which is only a matter of practice (or about 7 or 8 stars) it becomes really natural. in some cases the touch screen actually works better than the analog stick, sliding levels for instance.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Mario 64 DS reviews

« on: November 22, 2004, 03:23:28 PM »

what we need to fix the touch screen issue, is a circular "rim" that can be fixed onto the ds touch screen, to give us some obvious boundaries....ellegent? no, but i think t would solve the problem.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: The Billy sounds off on the DS

« on: November 19, 2004, 07:55:56 PM »

I don't think Billy likes the control......


;-);-)

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Spider-Man 2

« on: October 14, 2004, 11:44:01 AM »

it does have a neat look to it, gives me great hope for the DS Castlevania, but those games doesn't interest me at all.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: those new batch of screenshots look incredible!

« on: October 08, 2004, 08:44:02 PM »

gamecube graphics arent gonna happen. But certainly what i have seen is pretty impressive, certainly adequate if not amazing. I'd love to see a Ds style handheld with the power of PSP, but theres no way i would want to sacrifice battery life and price to get there.

Nevermind the fact that I don't belive we will see many games that really push the PSP except for ports, because the development costs are going to be insanled high for a handheld.

9

Nintendo Gaming / those new batch of screenshots look incredible!

« on: October 07, 2004, 12:00:38 PM »

I was of the opinion that Mario 64X4 looked pretty sucky back at e3. Well, no more, the new screenshots posted on Nintendo's japanese website (http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/index.html) are a revelation. The character models are fantastic, gamecube quality for sure. the overall grpahics of course are something short of that, but they are certainly a step above N64 quality. Ditto for MarioKart. Remarkable transformations.  

10

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Metroid Hunters to be a pack in game

« on: September 21, 2004, 12:02:15 PM »

im still seeing conflicting reports. it seems there is now consensus that this is a demo, but still disagreement about whether or not any single player levels will be included. hmm.

i am impressed. the fact that it is cost effective to release a demo on a memory card bodes very well for the future. this stacked memory technology must be very cheap indeed....

11

Nintendo Gaming / RE: Metroid Hunters to be a pack in game

« on: September 20, 2004, 11:51:30 PM »

lol @ ruby.....

before someone says its a demo, think, does releasing a demo on a memory card style medium seem cost effevtive to you? Yeah it cheaper than GBA cartridge meda, but it is STILL pricy to manufacture compared to a disc.

[transflective]

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Nintendo Gaming / Metroid Hunters to be a pack in game

« on: September 20, 2004, 10:51:10 PM »

Seems Nintendo plans to kill the PSP off right proper, and send sony wimpering off, tail between legs.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/gear/entertainment/2004-09-21-nintendo-ds-launch_x.htm

Let's see, 149 price point, wi-fi, two screens, touch screen, 3d capable, 10 hour battery, backlit transflective screens (the best of both worlds!), card media for no load times and no moving parts, GBA compatablity, voice reconiftion wilth built in mic, pictochat built in, built in clock etc, and if that wasn't enough we get the news that the days of a PACK IN GAME AT LAUNCH are back.

Competition is a great  thing, and it looks like Nintendo has decided to wipe the floor with it.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Potential Killer Ap for the DS!!!

« on: September 17, 2004, 07:54:59 PM »

sieken densetsu 3 sucks.

i want ff6 too.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Goldeneye 007 DS

« on: August 25, 2004, 09:03:02 PM »

i like the ea games, especially nightfire, and i really will never understand why they are so maligned. I especially liked the driving levels, it was nice to shake things up a bit rather than have a straight FPS.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: DS Exclusive - Inside & Out w/ pics

« on: August 17, 2004, 06:29:06 PM »

860mAH isn't much. It would be easy to make a 1500+ mAH battery for DS....

[Castlevania]

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Nintendo Gaming / specualtion on how newly anounced games will use DS features

« on: August 14, 2004, 09:26:52 AM »

About a year ago when the PSP was first anounced, I posted on the Gaming-Age boards that nintendo better not sit back and think that the GBA can survive against the PSP, that they better get cracking on something to answer it. Well they did. And I'm impressed. I also commented that they would need ot kick the hype machine into full gear, hype has never been something Nintendo has generated very well, they've been such a "polite" compnay. Well, if there isn't a mountain of DS hype, and growing every day......

So while Nintendo keeps us waiting for actual screenshots, deatils on the final specs of the hardware, and gameplay information, I figure I'd speculate a little about a few of the games anounced so far, and genres in general. I'll start with....


Castlevania I am glad to hear that this is expected to be another side scrolling RPG style game. I fully expect to see grpahics on an equal or surpasing Symphony of the Night, given the DS power. And I feel pretty confident that the sound will rock too. But what is going to set this apart from the other four games like it?

What if you were required to speak a password at a certain location? What if that password was hidden somewhere else in the castle? What if it was necessary to makr certain walls using the stylus? what if there was an opportuity to conduct an "orchestra of the undead". Forget using the second screen as a map, why not display the "second caslte" and the same time?

As a side note I would LOVE to see a game where you could once again travel outside the castle, into towns, forrests and so on, ala simon's quest.....

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: how much memory?

« on: August 10, 2004, 04:09:33 PM »

the absolute largest N64 games was 64 megabytes, and there was only ONE game that size. DS smallest size is 128mbytes, and it only gets bigger from there.

Nothing to worry about. Heck, there were MANY PC games in the mid 90's that had full voice acting and still were under 200mbytes in size.  

[Blackknight131]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Square considering Final Fantasy ports

« on: August 06, 2004, 09:08:37 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Blackknight131
Oh, one more thing: I am of the mind that the DS games actually are not starting at 128 MB as the standard. Reggie's words, more or less "capacities of up to 1 gigabit (128 MB) and beyond". In other words, its my belief that some DS games will come on smaller size cards (32 MB, 64 MB flavas, perhaps). Totally doable, since we are looking at a N64 approximate system here. The largest N64 cart was 64 MB afterall.
Anyways, its not a big deal, I thought it was technically interesting.

okay, while you;ve shown you at least know the difference between bits and bytes.... Now just apply that to your knowledge of SNES game sizes....

[Blackknight131]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Square considering Final Fantasy ports

« on: August 06, 2004, 09:04:24 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Blackknight131

But Im serious when I say that the SNES definitely featured games larger than 6 MB. There is no argument to that...Street Fighter II at 16 MB, Breath of Fire at 12 MB. Then we have FF3 which was 16-24 MB, DKC, Killer Instinct, Chrono Trigger (24 MB) itself....and really, many many more over 6 MB. This is truth, it is SNES canon.
It MIGHT be possible to put 4, 5 and 6 on a 32 MB cart as you mentioned tho...it would depend on how large 4 and 5 are. I am almost 98% that FF 6 is 20 or more MB, and I would think that FF 4 alone would be 8 MB.

But Im too lazy to verify. Yay. Me.

Sorry, but you are dead wrong. you obviously do not know the difference between bits and bytes. street fighter may have been 16 magabits, but that is only 2 megabytes. What you claim is not truth, nor is it SNES canon. Even if 4,5,6 were all 32megabit games, that is altogether only 12megabytes total, small enough to fit on a 128mb gba cart (the most common size) with room to spare. And on a DS card? It's less than one tenth of the available space.

For future reference. 8 bits to a byte. The lagrest SNES game EVER MADE period WAS 6 megabytes, or 48megabits.

[Pikkcuber]

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Square considering Final Fantasy ports

« on: August 06, 2004, 02:46:09 PM »

Quote
Originally posted by: Pikkcuber
Exactly Blacknight.  I personally thought ff3/6 wasnt to long at all.  Everybody who played that game remebers Kefka's laugh, or playing a part in the opera scene, its what Todays RPG's are hoping to be.  I think asking for 3 games on one card is asking alittle to much.  The card that nitnendo is using for the DS does not have a big storage capacity (but still better than going with cd's)  If they put the jappannese final fantasys (3 and 5) and then put the snes games (2/3 or 4/6 if your jappanesse) on one that would be great.  They could really make 2 and 3 (4/6) very good remakes if they add extras and stuff.  I always go on and on about 3(6) but 2(4) is no slouch of a game by any means.  Darn Square for screwing up the numbering for us.

Ridiculous. A DS card is 128megabytes, minumum. The largest SNES game ever made was 6megabytes, total. and FF6 was not it.

Heck, 4,5,6 could be put on one 256megabit GBA cartridge with little problem.

As for being econimically feasable, of course it is. These games have all bean released and re-released to death. As a quick port job it would be more than feasble. considering that Square listed them as a group on their survey, it suggest that's what they are planning anyway....but as remakes, NO.

That's why i said I would like a FF 4,5,6 compilation cart, or better yet FF6 on it's own as a remake rather than a port. It remains to this day my favourite RPG ever.

(BTW, I don't care much for Chorno Trigger either....)
 

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Square considering Final Fantasy ports

« on: August 03, 2004, 12:21:52 PM »

i want  4, 5 and 6 on one cart, but honeslty what would be evn more cool is a completely updated remake (NOT PORT) of FF6....

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Third Pillar?

« on: June 05, 2004, 12:30:21 PM »

exactly. the line that DS is a third pillar is just that, a LINE. It's a way for Nintendo to diffuse to anger that would have surged had they announced a new much more powerful gameboy only a year after everyone re-bought a new version of the last gameboy. It would have been public realtions suicide.

Nintendo was in a diffcult sitation. Do they release a new gameboy to compete with PSP from a techincal standpoint, but risk pissing of people who just bought and SP, and an original GBA before that? Or do stick with the GBA an pray that the PSP doesn't catch on? Neither is an attractive option.

Solution? Release a new gameboy, but make it just different enough to pretend that it isn't a gameboy....let everyone know that the GBA will coexist, bevcause it will for a while, and then let it dies a quiet, gradual death.

I would predict that the dual screen format will be the new standard for Nintendo handhelds.  

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: *** Changes I'd make to the actual NDS (Photoshop)

« on: May 26, 2004, 09:22:24 AM »

If Nintendo had had the forsight to make the top screen wide as in your mock-up, I would have zero hesitations about the DS. As it is I am experiencing a muted excitment. Like being a a Ferris wheel instead of a hellevator,

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Nintendo Gaming / RE: Am I the only one excited about DS emulating OTHER SYSTEMS?

« on: May 22, 2004, 08:30:07 AM »

"Dude, I don't think there'd be a single PC out there now that couldn't do Neo Geo. My old 450 could do Neo Geo even with the later games"

It's not the porcessor speed, it's lack of memory. If your PC has less than 256mb of memory, some Neo-geo games presentd a real problem. Makes senese that this issue would be magnified greatly on the DS.

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Nintendo Gaming / RE:Am I the only one excited about DS emulating OTHER SYSTEMS?

« on: May 21, 2004, 07:03:14 PM »

The largest size possible for Neo Geo games was 128megabytes, or 1 gigabit, which, conveniently is the same size as a DS card. Of all the memory, only a small portion of it was actually used for storage of the game, due to the fact that the neo geo system did not have any memory, it was all embedded with the game on the cart. So storage capacity is not an issue.

However as I understand it, a an encryption system used for some game means that even powerful PCS can have trouble emulating Neo Geo. With that in mind I will leave it people with more knowledge than myself to speculate further.

http://darkwatcher.psxfanatics.com/console/details/neogeo.htm