I'd actually WANT them to redesign the DS at some point.

I've never bought two of the same Nintendo system, and aren't about to. When me and my brother got into Pokémon, we had a Game Boy Pocket and a Game Boy Color. When we got into Ruby/Sapphire (as well as to play Four Swords Adventures and Crystal Chronicles), we had a GBA and a GBA SP.

So if I'm to play DS games with my brother, a redesigned DS would be more worth getting than another DS. Sure, there's nothing wrong with another DS, and now they have red and blue and special edition colours, I'm sure, but if an upgrade is ever to come, I'd rather have that.

I haven't heard any redesign rumours. Personally the timing would be kind of sucky since I just bought the Mario Kart DS about a month ago. But then I'm pretty satisfied with the DS as is so it wouldn't bother me as much as the GBA redesign because the originally GBA was severely flawed. I felt like I got ripped off by the original GBA but I don't have any complaints here so I wouldn't have the same feeling with the DS. Still I think Nintendo should lay off redesigns unless there's a huge flaw to address. If this becomes a common pattern people might start to take a wait and see approach before purchasing. After all there's no point in buying the system early on if the "real" version is going to come out shortly after.

Nintendo has been denying a lot of rumors recently. Well, two that I can think of offhand, but that's a lot for them.

SUSPICIOUS

I really doubt people will take the wait and see approach to redesigned Nintendo handhelds. It has yet to happen and redesigns are NOTHING new to Nintendo's handhelds. The new redesigns usually sell just as well as the old designs, in fact the only redesign that I can remember that didn't go over too well was the GB Micro, and even that was a huge failure. People will always have the mentality about getting something early even though it may have flaws, whether it be design or games!

I haven't heard of the Micro as being described as a failure yet, but with the DS being really hot, apparently, and also being capable of playing GBA games, why get one? Not to mention that the GBA/GBA SP had been pretty hot for a long time beforehand, so I wouldn't be surprised if the Micro didn't have the sales numbers as the other GBA iterations. I'm guessing it should've raised overall GBA sales somewhat though, didn't it?

A reiteration of the DS, however inevitable it actually is, probably won't hurt.

The buttons on the DS suck badly so I for one would appreciate a redesign... Well, if I didn't have to pay money again.

"The buttons on the DS suck badly so I for one would appreciate a redesign"

Yeah I'll agree they're not that hot. But it's somewhat of a necessary evil because of left handers having to use the touchscreen. My biggest complaints with the DS are router incompatibilities (I haven't got online yet and I'm pretty annoyed about that) and the fact that Mario Kart DS doesn't let you customize the controls. Using the A button for gas just murders my thumbs.

I see how it could be necessary, and how the buttons are arranged to allow it, but I haven't actually seen it in use yet. The thing about left handers, I mean. What games require constant control with the D-Pad and the stylus?

Yeah, and bigger buttons don't condone a redesign. Since there is only that one flaw, the system would pretty much be the same. Nintendo COULD change the shape and make it smaller, but there'd be no point in that.

Using the A button for gas just murders my thumbs.

As a regular Blender user I'd say any prolonged holding of buttons should be abolished. In the case of MK they could easily invert A (not pushing A accellerates) because otherwise you're holding it down 99% of the time.

Quote

---

Originally posted by: JonLeung
I see how it could be necessary, and how the buttons are arranged to allow it, but I haven't actually seen it in use yet. The thing about left handers, I mean. What games require constant control with the D-Pad and the stylus?

---

what do you think of the DS directional pad Ian?

redesign gamecube and make it 50 bucks. Xbox is dead... time to take second place

"what do you think of the DS directional pad Ian?"

I like it so far though I've never used it for something like Street Fighter II and that's usually the big testing point. Nintendo typically makes good d-pads and this seems to follow that tradition (the Cube one wasn't bad for the GBA it just was too small for a console). I like how it's less rough then the classic Nintendo d-pad. I can't say for sure but it looks like getting blisters with it would be much harder since it has a pretty smooth surface.

Quote

---

Originally posted by: KDR_11k

As a regular Blender user I'd say any prolonged holding of buttons should be abolished. In the case of MK they could easily invert A (not pushing A accellerates) because otherwise you're holding it down 99% of the time.

---

Quote

---

Originally posted by: KDR_11k
Using the A button for gas just murders my thumbs.

As a regular Blender user I'd say any prolonged holding of buttons should be abolished. In the case of MK they could easily invert A (not pushing A accellerates) because otherwise you're holding it down 99% of the time.

---

It's natural to hold down the trigger in a shooter yet I had to switch to "simple" (i.e. toggle) fire mode in Gunstar Super Heroes. A car's accellerator isn't placed as badly and isn't operated with your thumb.

The feature the DS needs most of all is MP3 and movie playing capability. Think about it... if Nintendo released a DS SP that could play MP3s and movies (and maybe e-books and homebrew games) on some removable memory cards then that would eliminate a huge edge that the PSP has over it. Oh yeah, and maybe the ability to play old gameboy and color games as well. Perhaps a USB port and a web browser, while we're at it.

Im left handed and I can play the Hunters demo fine, maybe the only inconvenient is that the "virtual" buttons to change to missiles are on the right side of the screen and thus somewhat difficult to reach, but for right handed people the morph ball is also on the oposite side. The big problem as Ive mentioned in another thread is sidescrolling when the sidescrolling occures in the touchscreen and the stylus is the main method of input, in other words, Im afraid I wont be able to enjoy Kirby Canvas Curse.

I played Kirby left handed on the DS just fine

NO REDESIGNS.

FIRMWARE UPDATES PLZ.

GIMME DSPEAK/ONLINE PICTOCHAT.

OK T/Y.

A firmware update won't fix the A button horribly violating my thumb.

"A car's accellerator isn't placed as badly and isn't operated with your thumb."

If the accellerator was B it wouldn't matter. F-Zero: Maximum Velocity has the same problem but it had control options so I just changed accelerate to B and there was no problem. There's no need for them to rethink how a driving game works they just need to offer more flexibility. Realistically every game should allow you to customize the controls even if they only let you swap face buttons with face buttons.

I am quite surprised that the severe agony of using the A button didn't come up in testing. I imagine it would take like ten seconds of coding to assign a function to a different button (unless they did REALLY crappy coding where they hardcoded "A" to a million places) so you figure once all the testers started having to put ice on their thumb they would address the issue. Stuff like that always blows me away. How does a team of proffessionals miss something that is incredibly obvious to everyone else ten minutes in?

I really have no problem with the A button being the accelerator and I've played Mario Kart for at least 20 hours by now.

Button redesign, the rounding of those sharpish edges, well actually just more ergonomic in general. Also change out the speakers so that the only setting is no longer loud. I have a first run DS so they might have fixed it but if you try to set the sound so that your the only one that can hear it the speakers gets scratchy. Automatic sleeping when you close the shell on GBA games. Just like the DS games. Yeah that would be nice. Online Picto chat be fun.

I'm a lefty and I don't remember having any problems with Kirby, unlike walking the dog in Nintendogs where I could only look at the map!

if you try to set the sound so that your the only one that can hear it the speakers gets scratchy.

I don't know what you define as "so that you're the only one who can hear it" but I usually operate my DS as slightly above half volume, if I have sound turned on, that is (which is rare since I use it mostly on public transport where I don't want to disturb others). It doesn't sound perfect but I'm not sure whether that's really the speakers or the sound chip itself.