Topic: Gaming & Touch Screen - My experiences so far

[laiyl]

I've read a lot about how people are saying that the DS Touch Screen thing is not a big deal, and thought it's about time that I shore up the meat behind why it's a really big deal. For those naysayers, I think you're only thinking of gaming in terms of what you've seen now, but let me just say that having a touch screen is a huge jump in gaming, much like how we moved from using the keyboard only to using the keyboard and mouse in computers.

I've lived in Japan for close to 2 years now, and one of the big pluses have been that the mobile phones here are leaps ahead of everyone else in the world (while everyone's still talking about 65K colour screens, I've been using 256K for quite a long time already). My latest upgrade happens to be a DoCoMo F900Ti manufactured by Fujitsu. To take a look at how the phone looks like, go to the URL below (in Japanese)

http://www.fmworld.net/product/phone/f900it/index.html?fmwfrom=phone_foma

One of the ground-breaking features of this phone is - no surprises here - a touch screen feature that allows the user to do a full range of features with the use of a stylus, such as editing photos and of course, playing games. Through the touch-screen games that have already been built-into the system (there are more to be downloaded), with each day of use, I become more and more convinced on how great the touch screen. Simple things that count a lot:

(1) Menu Navigation
With most conventional gaming systems, it's a huge hassle to go through very deep menus, having to press the D-pad many times to select some options some times. With a touch screen, selecting options and going through menus is a breeze.

(2) Drag-and-drop
There's Freecell included in the phone - sure it's a simple game, but can you imaging using a cursor to go around selecting cards? Try playing Solitaire on the iPod - it really isn't very fun (I do have an iPod, for the record). With the touch screen, drag-and-drop actually makes playing Freecell rather easy and enjoyable - something that has not been sufficiently explored in the Palm games that have been in existence.

(3) Puzzle Games
Paired-up Mahjong is another game that's included in the system, and here, touch screen makes a huge difference. With puzzle games, you often need to select different items, blocks etc. - think games like FreeCell. The touch screen makes such games much more playable, and speedier. For Mahjong, selecting tiles is much easier, and you don't need to push your cursor all over the place.

In a nutshell - the touch screen IS a BIG DEAL. Don't like those naysayers tell you otherwise - they really haven't tried enough to know what difference it makes. My experiences so far really do show that the possibilities are huge and open for more creativitiy and ideas.

Ying

[Jale]

Also it is more natural to hold. Styluses are designed to be perfect for our hands and have been around since before history!

[Renny]

This is entirely OT, but... did they really need to make the SD card any smaller? Shrinking media cards is just a form of fetishism anymore.

[UncleBob]

You know, ya don't have to live in Japan to experience some touch screen gaming goodness before the DS comes out.  Go to some pizza places, truckstops, restraunts, movie theatres and (for those 21 years or older) bars and look for something called a "MegaTouch".  These awesome little machines come in many different shapes, color and styles are, in my humble opinion, are the best things to happen to planet earth in a long time.

Mega Touch machines typically have collections of 50+ games on them, ranging from card games, word games, puzzle games, strategy games and sports games.  And while some of these game could be played with a cursor (via joystick, + pad or mouse) most games just wouldn't work or just wouldn't be as fun.

Anywhoo, I highly reccomend going out and playing one of these before making any decisions on touch screen gaming. It'll make quite the impression on you.

[laiyl]

Yes, like the Memory Stick Duo, which is a shrunk version of the Memory Stick, there is now a mini-SD card, which is about 25% smaller than the original SD card. Prices have dropped significantly as well, and I think the size is currently up to about 128MB if I'm not mistaken.

[StrikerObi]

Quote
Originally posted by: Renny
This is entirely OT, but... did they really need to make the SD card any smaller? Shrinking media cards is just a form of fetishism anymore.

Uhh, Nintendo DS games aren't stored on SD Memory cards. They are stored on carts. The difference is that these new carts are hella small and hold a lot more data than GBA carts.

[Renny]

Re: unformatted link in first post.

Oh, and... uhhhhhhhhhh. [I was gonna break the tables, but I guess you aren't quite that much of a prick.]

[Blackknight131]

The Nintendo DS media is more akin to an SD card than the MASK ROMs that Nintendo carts have used.
Are they still essentially carts? Yes. Particularly since Nintendo will likely give it a custom casing such that people cant try to just stuff their actual SD cards into the DS.
But is the memory in which DS games are stored on manufactured by essentially the same fabrication facilities and equipment that pump out memory cards like the SD card? Its my belief that it is...  

[Lost101]

I still think carts are best for portable systems.  CDs are way too sensitive and drain batteries too much.  Besides, I dont wanna sit down and watch long CGI sequences on my Gameboy/DS

[KDR_11k]

Who said anything about CDs? the PSP uses UMDs, which are like MDs but with higher storage capacity.

[Lost101]

But arent UMDs very similar to CDs?  What are the differences?  If the system still has to spin it and it can still be easily scratched it still has the disadvantages...

[Blackknight131]

You are mechanically correct when you compare CDs to the PSP's UMDs. Drive spins, seeks, laser reads, etc.
The form factor and capacity are the main differences. UMDs actually come in little caddies....plastic containers if you will, kinda making it look like a thin lil' cart. This does help protect the disc....and its quite essential as I read that Sony disc tech like Blu Ray and these UMDs are still nowhere near as durable as DVDs and require these caddies for protection.