Author Topic: Sony may lose steam challenging Nintendo here!!! (Read 34042 times)

SuperMario35 · « **Reply #100 on:** June 13, 2004, 03:21:08 PM »

I was wondering if the DS can have the same amount of memory that the UMD compared to the DS cards? Would that be a problem for developers? I heard the PSP has 1.8 giga byte in the UMD. But I also heard that the DS has 1 gigabyte and beyond. What do they mean by Beyond? Will it top off Sony's UMD?

Bloodworth · « **Reply #101 on:** June 13, 2004, 04:01:55 PM »

Well, there's one mistake in your info. The DS media is one gigabit, not one gigabyte. A bit is one eighth of a byte.

However, the kind of media the DS uses doesn't have an upper limit like optical media does. So it's possible that one day the DS could have the larger sized media.

The N64 and SNES cartridge formats increased about 8x over their life cycles, but the DS media is a new technology, so it's hard for me to say how likely it is that it could meet or surpass the UMD size.

reverend_tod · « **Reply #102 on:** June 14, 2004, 01:03:26 PM »

I think N64 games were plenty involving on those cartridges, and how big were thier memories? Even originally?

GCN has the lowest "muscle" or horsepower or whatever you wanna call it out of any of the three consoles out right now but in fact the games are just fine. I haven't seen that slow anybody down one bit; having a huge disc or cart to make a game lets the designers get sloppy, it doesn't really make a better game.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #103 on:** June 14, 2004, 10:27:27 PM »

reverend: Um, the PS2 is the weakest, the GC is actually close to the XBox.

mouse_clicker · « **Reply #104 on:** June 14, 2004, 10:29:58 PM »

If not surpassing it. All in all, though, I doubt we've seen the true power of any of the consoles, so at the moment a game's graphical quality is more up to the talent of its particular developer than anything else- the PS2 may be the weakest, but Ico is one damn beautiful game.

ruby_onix · « **Reply #105 on:** June 15, 2004, 12:41:43 AM »

Quote
I think N64 games were plenty involving on those cartridges, and how big were thier memories? Even originally?

The N64's base cart size was 32 megabits. The biggest ever N64 cart was 512 megabits, used by Resident Evil 2-64, and Ogre Battle 64 (IIRC). But the larger number of "big N64 games" used 256 megabits.

The 64DD was supposed to deliver 512 megabit disks, with a whopping 304 megabits of that being potentially set aside for writability (Sony's PS2 memory card is 64 megabits), at a low cost, launching shortly after the N64's launch, but after Square and Enix bailed on the N64, the 64DD pretty much died on the drawing board.

BTW, FF7 could've fit on a 64DD disk (or a 512 megabit cart) with absolutely zero compression, if only it didn't have two CDs full of FMV. The PC version of FF7 clearly proves it.

BTW, you could also potentially do multi-disk games with the 64DD, of course.

The GameBoy Advance has a minimum cart size of 32 megabits (BTW, most "big SNES RPGs" were 32 megabits). It's current biggest games are (last I heard) 128 megabits. The biggest cart possible on a GBA is 256 megabits, although the GBA-SP can handle bigger (even though that would be pointless).

The 128 megabit GBA carts came out a while ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if the 256 ones become available any time now (if they aren't already).

Nintendo has said the DS "cards" will be more than 1 gigabit, but they don't seem to have said if that's the base size, or the maximum size, or just what they think the average will be.

BTW, after 256 megabits, comes 512 megabits (assuming it keeps doubling), and after 512 megabits comes 1024 megabits, which is one gigabit.

Considering that Nintendo is reinventing a second input slot for the DS, it must have some sort of payoff for Nintendo to warrant the extra cost, so you'd think DS cards would have to be significantly cheaper and/or bigger than previous GameBoy carts (which could already be carrying technological "baggage" because of their classic design). And Nintendo said more than 1 gigabit, so I'm guessing that's the absolute minimum. Which would be sweet. I'm just hoping that they're not expensive, but I guess we'll find out about that soon enough.

Edit: According to nintendo.com, Ogre Battle 64 was 320 megabits, and "the second-largest game in N64 history". So it was bigger than 256 megabits, but was some sort of "custom" size, not 512 megabits. RE2-64 was still 512 megabits.

couchmonkey · « **Reply #106 on:** June 15, 2004, 07:46:09 AM »

I remember Nintendo emphasizing pricing when talking about the DS game cards, which probably means that they were chosen for a combination of cost and size. Hopefully they will be significantly cheaper to produce than cartridges because I think that could be a major factor in third party support for the DS vs. PSP; if PSP gets and keeps better third party support than DS, that could make all the difference in the handheld battle.

KDR_11k · « **Reply #107 on:** June 15, 2004, 08:02:45 AM »

They claimed DS carts would be as cheap as CDs while Sony stated UMDs will be more expensive than standard DVDs...

Jale · « **Reply #108 on:** June 15, 2004, 09:09:27 AM »

DS carts will probably cost the same as GBA carts. It's only logical since thats what GBC carts used to cost.

BlackGriffen · « **Reply #109 on:** June 15, 2004, 02:34:10 PM »

Froogle Search
Clicking that link should give you some idea about how much a 1 gigabit (128 MB) SD card costs at cheapest (~$30) to the consumer. The cost to Nintendo should be lower, but it's debatable by how much (~$60 straight from Panasonic).

If you look at the pricing for the various SD car models, the price decrease levels off below the 128 MB card. This suggests a few things to me. First and foremost is that the price of that card is not driven by technological constraints like the higher end ones are, but by profit concerns. It's quite possible, for instance, that the 128 MB cards cost close to same as the 16 MB cards to produce now (I think). If the DS games sell like they should, the economics of scale should come into play and permit even lower costs for these cards.

Nintendo would be stupid, though, to not make lower end cards (at least as low as 256 Mbit/32 MByte) available at lower cost to devs who don't need the space.

It'll also be interesting to see if the SD cards serve as the memory card...

I'm a little antsy about this, though, cause I remember looking at SD card prices when the GC was announced to have SD card compatability (

) and it seems like they weren't much higher than they are now, in spite of Panasonic's roadmaps at the time that pointed contrary. We'll see if the DS gives them enough volume to pick up SD progress.

BlackGriffen

Draygaia · « **Reply #110 on:** June 15, 2004, 04:40:53 PM »

With DS I really don't want it to connect with GBA or GCN. Only if we are transfering some data between the two to get some cool but not something big that it requires a lot of money for multiplayer.

Chongman · « **Reply #111 on:** June 15, 2004, 05:59:21 PM »

I thought it was stated that DS cartridges would be cheaper to manufacture than gba catridges...

at least that's the impression I was under

KDR_11k · « **Reply #112 on:** June 15, 2004, 08:27:17 PM »

Yes. Some time ago they even claimed the things would be as cheap as CDs, but it seems like they backed away from those claims by now. Still, they probably are cheaper than the GBA carts, after all N is still mentioning the card costs...

Jale · « **Reply #113 on:** June 15, 2004, 09:39:11 PM »

A cart will be significantly (edit) LESS (edit) than $30 for nintendo because they are making them in bulk and in factories that are either theirs or working for them. It will probaly cost them pennies to make a single cart.

Berny · « **Reply #114 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:48:16 AM »

I love it when people forget important words in their sentences like "greater" or "less" and the meaning of the sentence is ruined because of it. But that's just me.

Wait...I thought the DS was using miniCDs not carts.... Wow. I'm out of the loop on this one apparently.

Jale · « **Reply #115 on:** June 16, 2004, 09:55:57 AM »

I'm pretty sure its carts but I'm not certain.

norebonomis · « **Reply #116 on:** June 16, 2004, 02:54:57 PM »

the ds is most definetly using carts they are square looking. almost like old school gameboy carts, haha, except sleeker

Zach · « **Reply #117 on:** June 19, 2004, 06:22:48 PM »

We are all arguing about memory and speed and all of that, but I think that in the long run, the winner of this battle is gonna come down to innovation, which the ds has and the psp does not. The ds has double screens, a touch screen and a few other innovations that have never been done before on a handheld or a console, these are original ideas. The psp is concentrating on power and memory, also movies and music. sony is simply taking ideas from their console and enhancing them as much as possible, this is cool, but not innovation or original ideas.

I think that the ds has a clear advantage on the psp, but I am biased and I can only hope that the population agrees with me.

One thing I want to add is that we still have all of the nintendo games on the ds that I have always loved.

Berny · « **Reply #118 on:** June 19, 2004, 07:10:43 PM »

Oh, and by the way, GamePro is saying that this thing WILL be GBA (and therefore all GB) compatable. This could be more GamePro lies, but I hope they are right. I doubt they are though. Third Pillar and all.

ghostVi · « **Reply #119 on:** June 19, 2004, 07:37:46 PM »

Yep, DS is going to be GBA compatible

And yes, the DS games will come in carts, not regular flash memory though (e.g. SD), it's a new (cheaper) technology - http://www.matrixsemi.com/ AFAIK

evil intentions · « **Reply #120 on:** June 19, 2004, 08:04:25 PM »

Sorry if this sounds really dumb or something, but what exactly is the point of Nintendo DS having two screens?

Chongman · « **Reply #121 on:** June 19, 2004, 08:38:30 PM »

nah, that's not dumb, just simple...

there's more you can do with two screens, or more acurately one regular and one touch screen, than you can do with a traditional one screen portable. It's akin to asking why have and analog stick when you can just use a D-pad...well you can do more with an analog stick, innovate (ever play ape escape?) and create new games based on what the stick can do in comparison to what a D-pad cannot. Of course its a lot broader than that, but the basic point of two screens is to innovate an bring about fresh new gaming opportunities.

that's my take on it at least...

norebonomis · « **Reply #122 on:** June 20, 2004, 09:23:02 AM »

will sonly sell less psp's than nokia's n-gage? hehehe, makes me giggle, hehehe

engaget news linkme

ruby_onix · « **Reply #123 on:** June 20, 2004, 11:15:35 AM »

GameInformer.com put up some editorials listing what they see as the pros and cons of the PSP and the DS.

PlayStation Portable
Nintendo DS

evil intentions · « **Reply #124 on:** June 21, 2004, 07:38:01 AM »

I think the PSP is just damn ugly. I don't even enjoy playing PS2 games very much so why would I waste money buying crap like that?

I didn't know that the Nintendo DS could let you chat online...did I read that wrong?

"No analog stick makes Game Informer Online very cranky. The PSP features a tiny, sexy little analog stick, making the unit not only even more sexy, but also more user-friendly when it comes to 3D gaming. So far, the DS doesn’t sport an analog stick, which has us worried. "

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

News:

Author Topic: Sony may lose steam challenging Nintendo here!!! (Read 34042 times)