Topic: Maximum Number of Games /UI design defect?

[Mannypon]

I wish Nintendo would borrow from the PS3 UI design for their channel setup.  For example, if you were to scroll to the right and find a 3dsware channel, you'll then have your game channels listed under that.  Scroll again to the right and you'll have a channel for NES games where you then scroll up and down through your list of titles.  You'll still navigate from left to right as it currently is set up but stack everything into sections that you can navigate through up and down.  It'll make it a lot easier to find a specific game especially to those who are really stacked on titles. 

[UncleBob]

Hm.  Interesting.  I went through each of the 3DS eShop menu groups and typed out each game available.

Tennis
Fortified Zone
Alleyway
Baseball

These four don't seem to be listed in any of the groups - but you can find them by searching for them or digging through the entire list.  Weird.

So, to go back to my numbers...

If you've had your system since launch, you should have
21 Ambassador Icons
5 Free Downloads (Including Four Swords - 112 of your DSiWare Blocks)
13 System Icons
20 Free Video Icons (including the three new videos)

That's 59/120

There have been 38 titles released for exclusively 3DS - ExciteBike, 34 other games... and the 3 Dreamworks Animation videos...

That would bump you up to 96/120, meaning you'd only need 25 DSiWare downloads.

To do this, I'd need to spend nearly $125 (~$80 more than I currently have in credit).

Then, I'd actually have 122 titles (I currently have 26 pieces of DSiWare on my system).

Who wants to send me $80?

Oh yeah, the 15 minutes I spent on this was totally worthwhile.

Let's not discuss how much time I spent playing with all of this.

I wish Nintendo would borrow from the PS3 UI design for their channel setup.  For example, if you were to scroll to the right and find a 3dsware channel, you'll then have your game channels listed under that.  Scroll again to the right and you'll have a channel for NES games where you then scroll up and down through your list of titles.  You'll still navigate from left to right as it currently is set up but stack everything into sections that you can navigate through up and down.  It'll make it a lot easier to find a specific game especially to those who are really stacked on titles. 

While I'd love to see more options for organizing the games, I don't care much for this particular suggestion.  I like being able to group, say, my Zelda games together... even if one's an NES game, ones a DSiWare title and ones a Game Boy Color game.

[oohhboy]

The PS3 UI is a controller based UI, the 3DS is pretty much "mouse" based. They are inherently different and what works for one, is clunky on another. The 3DS UI gives you relatively pretty meaningful customisations compared to other game systems. Skins don't count since they functionally change nothing. It's by no means peerfect since it's basically a grid based desktop which functionally degrades as you add more items. The ability to add user controlled folders would  greatly alleviate this problem. But given enough items, any system would collapse without a search function.

Adding pages to the 3DS would be the clumsy way of doing things and would be little different that the current UI except now you placed arbitrarily breaks.

[UncleBob]

Personally I'd like  the ability to organize your games/apps somewhat like how the eShop is set up. Where you could select a slot and have many slots within selected slot.  You could organize your apps/games by game or genre or system or  whatever. 

I'd like something like this - you could have "folders", but also somehow tag the game/app so it is in more than one location - like, I could have both a "Game Boy" and a "Game and Watch" folder and the "Game and Watch Gallery" could be in both.  "Mario vs. Donkey Kong" could be in folders labeled "Mario", "Donkey Kong" and "GBA"...

If they let you customize it to that level, of course...

[NWR_insanolord]

How the hell did you fit 26 DSiWare games on the internal memory? I can only get about half that (at the moment I have exactly half that).

What you're describing, essentially GMail's labels feature with a couple tweaks, would be perfect, and now I hate you for raising my hopes to a level Nintendo will never achieve.

[TJ Spyke]

If you buy only the smallest size games, you could get 26 games in 402 blocks (if you include DSiWare Apps, you could get that down to 362).

[UncleBob]

How the hell did you fit 26 DSiWare games on the internal memory? I can only get about half that (at the moment I have exactly half that).

Whoops... I only have 25.

 Title - Blocks
Birds & Beans   11
Game and Watch: Ball   13
Game and Watch: Vermin   14
Game and Watch: Manhole   14
Game and Watch: Judge   14
Game and Watch: Helmet   14
Game and Watch: Flagman   14
Game and Watch: Chef   14
Game and Watch: Mario's Cement Factory   15
Game and Watch: Donkey Kong Jr   15
Spotto!   23
Mario Clock   23
Clubhouse Games: Strategy Pack   31
Dr. Mario Express   31
Clubhouse Games: Card Classics   32
Clubhouse Games:Family Favorites   37
Number Battle   37
Puzzle Leage   44
Cave Story   47
Bomberman Blitz   50
Rummikub   71
Starship Defense   73
Stratego   95
Four Swords   112
Plants vs. Zombies   121
 
 Adding those file sizes along with the 90 empty blocks I have (that I could fit a few more small titles into), the system appears to have 1055 empty blocks (I have no idea how much it is supposed to have) for DSiWare titles.
 
 Using the numbers provided by Wikipedia, you could actually have a little over 50 titles, if you weren't very picky...
 
 

Title	Blocks	Running Total
Touch Solitaire	5	5
Photo Clock	6	11
Bird and Beans	11	22
Paper Airplane Chase	12	34
Game & Watch: Ball	13	47
Game & Watch: Vermin	13	60
Hard-Hat Domo	13	73
Master of Illusion Express: Mind Probe	13	86
Nintendo DSi Metronome	13	99
Game & Watch: Chef	14	113
Game & Watch: Flagman	14	127
Game & Watch: Helmet	14	141
Game & Watch: Judge	14	155
Game & Watch: Manhole	14	169
Game & Watch: Mario's Cement Factory	14	183
Mario Calculator	14	197
Calculator	15	212
Game & Watch: Donkey Kong Jr.	15	227
Animal Crossing Clock	16	243
Fizz	16	259
Nintendo DSi Instrument Tuner	16	275
16 Shot! Shooting Watch	17	292
Animal Crossing Calculator	17	309
Whack-A-Friend	17	326
Crash-Course Domo	18	344
Master of Illusion Express: Deep Psyche	18	362
Master of Illusion Express: Shuffle Games	18	380
Sudoku 4Pockets	18	398
Ante Up: Texas Hold'em Poker	19	417
Crazy Sudoku	19	436
Master of Illusion Express: Funny Face	19	455
Electroplankton Varvoice	20	475
G.G Series DRIFT CIRCUIT	20	495
White-Water Domo	20	515
24/7 Solitaire	21	536
Electroplankton Nanocarp	21	557
Fire Panic	21	578
G.G Series Z•ONE	21	599
Master of Illusion Express: Matchmaker	21	620
Electroplankton Hanenbow	22	642
Electroplankton Marine-Crystals	22	664
G.G Series HORIZONTAL BAR	22	686
Mario Clock	22	708
Master of Illusion Express: Psychic Camera	22	730
Spotto!	22	752
Electroplankton Luminarrow	23	775
Electroplankton Sun-Animalcule	23	798
Electroplankton Trapy	23	821
Flashlight	23	844
G.G Series NINJA KARAKURI DEN	23	867
Discolight	24	891
Electroplankton Beatnes	24	915
Flips: More Bloody Horowitz	24	939
High Stakes Texas Hold'em	24	963
Pop+ Solo	24	987
QuickPick Farmer	24	1011
Surfacer+	24	1035

[NWR_insanolord]

It's still inexcusable that they didn't include a fix for the DSi storage limit. I'd put that as a higher priority than folders.

[UncleBob]

It's still inexcusable that they didn't include a fix for the DSi storage limit. I'd put that as a higher priority than folders.

Yes, please.

I'd have several other DSiWare titles (and, in fact, would buy more) if not for this limit.

[NWR_insanolord]

The crazy thing is that both of these seem like they would be incredibly easy to fix, at least given my limited understanding of programming. Basically just take the Wii storage solution they already did and tie it a bit more into the standard UI, and tell the menu to automatically extend the field whenever you have fewer than X open slots. Folders might be tougher, but it doesn't seem like they'd be that hard.

[leahsdad]

It's still inexcusable that they didn't include a fix for the DSi storage limit. I'd put that as a higher priority than folders.

Yes, please.

I'd have several other DSiWare titles (and, in fact, would buy more) if not for this limit.

Amen, I have put a moratorium on Dsiware purchases for exactly this reason.  Antipole has fallen casualty to this.  If only Nintendo let us put Dsiware on the SD card....

[UncleBob]

It's still inexcusable that they didn't include a fix for the DSi storage limit. I'd put that as a higher priority than folders.

Yes, please.

I'd have several other DSiWare titles (and, in fact, would buy more) if not for this limit.

Amen, I have put a moratorium on Dsiware purchases for exactly this reason.  Antipole has fallen casualty to this.  If only Nintendo let us put Dsiware on the SD card....

Sadly, this may even prevent what would be 3DS eShop purchases from me.  I had Mighty Flip Champs, Shante and Mighty Milky Way on my 3DS... had to move them to my SD card to make some room (for Four Swords).  It makes me sad they can't all be on my 3DS menu together, so I'll probably hold off on purchasing it for awhile.. which means my odds of purchasing it decrease as other games I want come out.

[UncleBob]

Oooh... bad news - according to the 3DS manual, there are some limits on what you can have saved.

Apparently, you can only have a maximum of 300 "3DS Download Software titles and Virtual Console Titles on an SD Card".  Then, you can have a "maximum of 40 Nintendo DSiWare titles"... though now I'm really, really curious what happens if you try to get more than 40...

All very interesting...

[leahsdad]

Oooh... bad news - according to the 3DS manual, there are some limits on what you can have saved.

Apparently, you can only have a maximum of 300 "3DS Download Software titles and Virtual Console Titles on an SD Card".  Then, you can have a "maximum of 40 Nintendo DSiWare titles"... though now I'm really, really curious what happens if you try to get more than 40...

All very interesting...

Oh darn.   300 is a lot, but still...I wonder if "3DS Download Software titles" means anything you downloaded (Nintendo Video, Netflix, 4 Swords, Demo Videos) or if they are referring specifically to games.   Time will tell.

[NWR_insanolord]

Still though, the current limit of menu spaces is only 120, and that's including DSiWare and built-in channels, so there's a long way to go before we hit that. Also, the Wii SD card channel only held 240 games, so this is an improvement.

[UncleBob]

I'm working right now to break the DSiWare limit and see what happens.

This means I'm downloading such hits as "Calculator" and "Metronome" on my DSi (using ill-gotten DSiWare Points, thanks again Pepsi)... then, I have to transfer them to my 3DS...

All very slowly.

At least they're small titles.

[UncleBob]

Hm. Apparently, the Domo games don't transfer... sucks.  Got them for about nothing then...
Two of the titles had 500 point price tags... skipped over them and picked two more in the list (slightly more memory, but shouldn't be an issue)... still moving some games over, then I'll have to download a pair of games to replace the two Domo titles... so slow...

[UncleBob]

Well, after I transfered the titles I could (again, still need to download some games to replace the two Domo games), I went back out to my 3DS menu...  it's expanded!  It popped out to 180 slots.

So, we answered that one.

[NWR_insanolord]

Excellent!

[UncleBob]

Went through and counted while downloading the two Domo replacement titles (by the way, had another title that I would have gotten but it was 500 points too... so makers of Sudoku 4Pockets, Ante Up: Texas Hold'em Poker, and 24/7 Solitaire - y'all lost sales tonight.) and had 107 titles on my menu. 

AND... I was just about to get really po'd...  Fire Panic had the little "no" icon on it... I thought it was ineligible for transfer... was so ticked... then, thought - wait, that's my 41st title!  So, I checked it out... "This Nintendo DSiWare title cannot be transferred as there is no free space on the target system's HOME Menu."

I went through a lot of work for that message.

[NWR_insanolord]

The 40 DSiWare game limit is annoying in theory, but there's almost no chance of hitting it without doing so intentionally. At my current rate I will definitely hit the 300 3DS downloads limit, it's just a matter of how Nintendo decides to space out VC releases.

[UncleBob]

OH MY GAWD!  Why didn't anyone tell me!

The DSi Metronome app is AWESOME!  It has a Rhythm game in it based off of the Arcade Donkey Kong!  GAH!  I would have downloaded this when it came out if I had known!!!!!

[UncleBob]

GAH!  The Instrument Tuner has a Sound-based game with a Balloon Fight skin!  Amazing!

[leahsdad]

The 40 DSiWare game limit is annoying in theory, but there's almost no chance of hitting it without doing so intentionally. At my current rate I will definitely hit the 300 3DS downloads limit, it's just a matter of how Nintendo decides to space out VC releases.

Yeah...I don't know if it's because of the relatively lower price or because of the portability, but I could definitely see myself hitting 300.   Maybe in a year or two or three, depending more on Nintendo than myself, but it does seem inevitable.  Which seems crazy, because I have less than 50 downloadables on my Wii (excluding RB2 tracks).   And I can't really blame the portability and price, because my IOS device has cheaper prices (or no prices) and I have barely 15 or so apps+games on that, and that's shared by my wife and my daughter.

But the 3DS...it's actually changed the way I live my life.   Seriously.  I used to buy lunch everyday, but now I brownbag, thinking "Well, I saved $5 today, that'll pay for Gargoyle's Quest last Thursday!"  I almost never go into Starbucks for coffee anymore.   Paying $3 for coffee seems ridiculous to me now.  I just think "Damn, I can buy something on Thursday for that amount of money."  Hell, when Thursday rolls around and there's something good on the eshop that day, I am in a significantly better mood than I was in the morning.

[leahsdad]

Well, after I transfered the titles I could (again, still need to download some games to replace the two Domo games), I went back out to my 3DS menu...  it's expanded!  It popped out to 180 slots.

So, we answered that one.

Is it terribly niche of me to think that this should be on the front page of the site as a news item?  Because Uncle Bob, I am filled with admiration right now.   A great discovery!

Or would that scare off new visitors, making them think "Oh my god, these NWR people are crazy hardcore!"