Topic: Peripherals for DS

[thepoga]

One of the many different things the DS can do is the ability to have peripherals. It's one of the indisputable strength's of the DS that the PSP absolutely cannot mimic.

In the future, the motion sensor or tilt sensor of GBA fame will probably be used. But what other things are there going to be and what games do you think they'll be for? The one confirmed peripheral is the rumble pak that was used in Metroid Pinball at E3. Could it be used as a standard option in other games too later on? Maybe in Mario Kart! Metroid Prime Hunter would be good as an indicator to whether you're getting hurt, landing from a high spot, etc. What other peripherals do you think would work well for regular games, as well as those that interact with the touchscreen?

[Flames_of_chaos]

Since Kojima is making a Boktai for DS I wouldn't be surprised that there will be a sun sensor in form of a GBA  cart. Maybe some 3rd party might make a range extender that uses the GBA port or maybe some crazy Majesco peripheral.

[Robotor]

Actually the PSP has a USB port for the same purpose IIRC.  I remember reading about a tilt sensor for mercury.

[Nephilim]

well PSP wont have a rumble pack, and seem DS might in the future

[MarioAllStar]

Also, having the GBA/peripheral slot allows for them to put in more electronics without it protruding out from the system much. A tilt sensor could but put into the slot and you might not even see it in there. Versus a USB port which means that the entire accessory would be revealed.  

[Robotor]

Quote
Originally posted by: thepoga
One of the many different things the DS can do is the ability to have peripherals. It's one of the indisputable strength's of the DS that the PSP absolutely cannot mimic.

I was correcting poga.  I know that the whole USB thing would be obtrusive, but the PSP can do it.  The gba carts might be cheaper as well, I'm not sure.

Although there really could be some cool periphials for the DS.  The rumblecart, maybe a camera, and tilt sensors are always fun.  Although, I don't know how nessacary these devices could be, they never really appealed to me.  Unless the can get some bongos to come outta that GBA slot I won't pay much attention.
A lot of the periphials could be mimiced with the touchscreen.  And periphials always come of as gimmicky.


All and all never been a big fan of them is all.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Maybe if some people complain enough *looks at Ian* a control stick  on a GBA cart peripheral.

[Strell]

I've talked to a guy that has made mods for various systems (LED replacement, VGA cable for Gamecube, etc) and asked him about a somehow, maybe, adding a controller to the DS so that we could get true analog with 3D games.  I asked him if it could be done through the headphone/power port, especially since the GBA and SP use that port for Gamecube connections (forgive me if I'm way off, I'm at work and in between calls).  Anyway, I asked him if a cord could be hacked to allow a Gamecube controller to work.

He said that, unfortunately, it wouldn't really be possible (I will mention he's in the middle of an SNES->GBA cord for the record) unless the controller could be hacked in wirelessly.  So I guess in theory, you could somehow probably do this by making the GBA cart a sort of receiver, and THEN using that to hack into the system to use a wavebird OR some sort of proprietary wireless controller.  Or there might be a way to hack into the wireless system itself, but I think you'd still need a receiver of some sort.

That was be awesome, though.  Playing all the 3D games with a true analog stick. Probably just a pipe dream though.

[thepoga]

Robotor: "Actually the PSP has a USB port for the same purpose IIRC. I remember reading about a tilt sensor for mercury. "

http://ps2.gamespy.com/playstation-portable/mercury/600399p1.html

Ummm... it says nothing about a tilt sensor. According to the people here the idea was scrapped. I still don't think you can have that sort of thing, because it would stick out of the side of the PSP. Unless they made it really small.

[Don'tHate742]

Well, you guys aren't thinking big here.

I'd love to see a PDA peripheral in the shape of a GBA cart.

What about a mini-HD with SD-card input? That would be great for music and pictures.

The DS could even have a picture editor. Add a camera and you have a hell of a peripheral.

I mean...who wouldn't buy a PDA/mini-HD/camera add-on that already owns a DS? If it was $50 dollars, everyone and their mom's would.

[KDR_11k]

I mean...who wouldn't buy a PDA/mini-HD/camera add-on that already owns a DS?

I wouldn't. My PDA works well enough as-is and has a higher resolution and beefier processor. The battery is much more powerful (though it won't last as long, PDAs require a lot of power) and it only suspends, i.e. no bootup times. It can run standard PocketPC ARM binaries and is an open platform.

Hm, how about a N64 middle prong with a GBA cart interface? Obviously some mechanism to secure it to the back of the DS would have to be added but why not?

Of course you can't just add true analog control to DS games, the games expect digital input unless they use the touchscreen. An official peripherial by Nintendo would probably not see enough adaption for third parties to use it (unless Nintendo produces a unified API that will give you analog and digital input with the same API call and maybe additional calls that can read the stick and pad individually).

[Robotor]

Poga:
So they scrapped the tilt sensor?  Thats kind of a bummer.  When the PSP was first announced I saw in a PSM all sorts of periphials using that port, going as far as a GPS system.  Sony was really proud of it's USB thing.  And the periphials that they were showing were designed in a way to be unobtruisive.  If anything the tilt sensor was scrapped due to time restraints.

Don'tHate:
That would be cool, in fact using the GBA slot as a hard-drive would be great.  Using it to store demos, or other things like that.

The whole added joystick thing seems like it would end up being akward.

[nickmitch]

I'm sure that there are people that are working on this kind of crap right now.