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Full Version: Nintendo's mystery product revealed!!
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Wow, I didn't think we'd get to find out so soon! From IGN:

Quote:January 20, 2004 - For months Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has been offering Japanese newspapers vague comments about a new mystery hardware that the company would launch in 2004. Nintendo of America today pulled back the curtains on the top-secret device and it looks to be good news for Nintendo fans worldwide.

The company's mystery machine is in fact a dual-screened portable game device that is entirely separate from both the GameCube and the Game Boy Advance. It will be marketed completely free of its sister hardware. It's called Nintendo DS for Nintendo Dual-Screen.

Nintendo DS features two connected 3-inch TFT LCD display panels, separate processors, and semiconductor memory of up to 1 Gigabit, according to the manufacturer.

Nintendo explains the importance of the dual-screen setup: "Players can look forward to being able to manage their game progress from two different perspectives, enhancing both the speed and strategy of the challenge. For example in a soccer game, users can view the whole game on one screen while simultaneously focusing on an individual soccer player's tackle or goal on the other screen.

"Players will no longer be forced to interrupt game play to shift perspective, such as moving from a wide shot to a close up, or alternating between a character's ongoing battle and a map of the environment. Nintendo DS makes it possible to perform the tasks in real time by simply glancing from one screen to the other."

Today's revelation is just the beginning, according to the company. The bulk of information on the machine will be unveiled at May's Electronics Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles.

"We have developed Nintendo DS based upon a completely different concept from existing game devices in order to provide players with a unique entertainment experience for the 21st century," explained Satoru Iwata, Nintendo president.

Look for much more on the Nintendo DS soon.

Wow, now this is a surprise! I don't think it'll change gaming forever like Nintendo claims, but it is certainly intriguing. A portable gaming system that has two 3 inch LCD screens? What What the hell? I smell another Virtua Boy, but it's far too early to tell.

I'm just glad it's not the IQue or some lame peripheral. Man, so many questions. What kinds of games will it play? How will they look? If this isn't going to be the successor to the GBA but Nintendo does plan on using it to help ward off the PSP, then it has to be pretty damn good. Jeez, this is killing me. E3 is too far off!
what does "up to one gigabit of system memory" mean... and do they mean square 3" screens? And how will this look... that would be a big "handheld"... and how powerful is it...

Weird. Yeah, I agree it won't change gaming, but it's definitely different... and not what anyone, here or anywhere, was guessing.

Hmm, I think they spent a while too long looking at Zelda for the Game & Watch... :D
I have no idea what they have in mind. It could either be something really amazing or another Virtua Boy.
I was expecting the worst from the mysterious product, but this actually intrigues me. I really need to see screenshots to get a better understanding of how this will work.
Yeah, it definitely could go either way... well, at least porting will be somewhat discouraged... the only question is, how many games would honestly use both? Oh sure you can adapt stuff... but using the Virtual Boy as an example, most games didn't make much real use of the 3d...
More details from Game-Science:

Quote:Nintendo today confirmed preliminary details of their new game machine. The hype has been in constant flow for the past couple of months, but now firm details have been announced.

The Nintendo DS will be a portable game machine with two displays, both upper and lower screens being 3 inch colour TFT and backlit. Additionally the machine will be powered by 2 processors - the main one being ARM9-based and the sub-processor being ARM7-based. Software will come on semiconductor-based media up to 1 Gigabit in size.

As has always been stated, Nintendo hope to create a new kind of experience with this machine - specific examples being in a soccer game or an RPG you may see the full field on one screen, while having a close up of the player's character on the other screen. Of course, both screens can be used together as a single big screen if developers wish, but the core idea is to make games that give the player a deeper sense of involvement.

Nintendo plan to have a playable machine debuting at E3 in Los Angeles this May, and then to release the DS worldwide before the end of 2004.
First picture!


[Image: ndp.gif]


:D
Haha, that's great... :D

And this could be interesting... depends how the games turn out obviously. But I am definitely interested. Oh, and 'semiconductor-based media'... does that mean carts?
I think what they might be talking about is physical RAM, not the size of the media. Hopefully the media itself is going to be something that will be comparable to minidiscs so that we don't see a repeat of PSX vs. N64.

Well this is interesting, here we are talking about the PSP possibly taking over the handheld market and apparently Nintedo had this secretly planned all the time, not to mention tricked most the market into thinking it was the new console. Lets hope it works.
This is very interesting. I have a feeling that at first Nintendo will be the only developer working on it, because the concept is so different. I mean, if you are just going to make a traditional one-screen handheld game, you make a GBA SP game since it has a much larger audience. I don't think anyone wil make a game for this that only uses one screen, it wouldn't make sense unless the handheld is far more powerful thatn the GBA. I imagine Nintendo has some very unique ideas for this, or they wouldn't have bothered. I can't wait to find out more.
http://www.gamespy.com/editorials/january04/dscomment/

They make some good points... this thing is for Nintendo fans and will not help with Nintendo's key problem of expanding their userbase...

http://www.gameandwatch.com/
Hmm, you have a point there. Perhaps Nintendo knows that they're never going to regain the video game market, so the best thing they can do is keep their loyal fans and just target their games towards a particular audience. I've heard rumors of Nintendo making the N5 a niche machine with only first and second-party support, but I think it's too early for that.
Just because you are behind you shouldn't give up...
I guess we'll have to wait until E3 to find out what their plan is. I just want to see what the system looks like to what kinds of games it will play. I hope it's not as useless and gimmicky as the whole GBA-GC connectivity thing.
[Image: DS.jpg]

:)

And yes, I would like to see more... and hear more details. Oh, that "gigabit" thing is just idiotic. Say what you mean. And what you mean is "120 megabytes"...

And click that link, it has images of most (all?) the Game & Watches, including the dual-screen ones. :)
I hope we don't have to wait until E3 to get more info on this.
Yeah...
Interesting to say the least.

The "1 gigabyte" thing sounds like what the games will be held one, but it's hard to say for sure.
Do you not listen? Its one GigaBIT! BIT! As in ~125 Megabytes. As I said, they should use terms that people use... it's deceptive...

Oh, and I don't know what that is -- RAM? That's a lot of RAM for a console...
Well, excuse me for not taking a hundred hours out of my day to look over everyword in this thread to make sure that one word actually didn't end with an "E" and then mentioning it in my post and COMPLETELY RUINING YOUR PERFECT DAY, except that in the context that I used it it didn't matter whether I was talking about a gigabyte or a gigabit!! Rolleyes

I was kind of in a rush.

Anyway, I still think it's what the games come on. :far-out:
120 vs 1,000 matters, GR...

And your confusing the terms is exactly what I meant when I said Nintendo was misleading. I bet a lot of people still think that GBA games are measured in megabytes too...
Quote:120 vs 1,000 matters, GR...

In the context that I refered to it in it didn't matter, because the point of what I said didn't hinge on whether it was a bit or a byte.
http://www.gameinformer.com/News/Story/2....42530.htm

An interview! With some answers! Not all of them, but some... read.
So it is the storage medium.
Yeah, sounds like it... 128MB. She says that that's "16x the GBA's size". OB1, for your info, that means that she's saying the GBA holds 16MB... which is exactly what I said the largest used carts on the GBA have been...

So what's your response to that? :)
Wow...

OB1, it's Virtual Boy, with an L. I know, I have one.

Not sure what to think... For now, I'll just assume it'll be a failure of a device we wish we never saw... Sorry, but I just don't see this taking off.

Oh, and the idea of Nintendo making this because they know they are "going down" and they are trying to hang on to the only audience that still buys their games is silly. I mean, did you totally forget that the GBA still sells at PS2 levels and the GCN's sales are only increasing (though yes, I very much doubt they'll catch up to Sony on THAT front).
Quote:Yeah, sounds like it... 128MB. She says that that's "16x the GBA's size". OB1, for your info, that means that she's saying the GBA holds 16MB... which is exactly what I said the largest used carts on the GBA have been...

So what's your response to that?

First of all she said 8 times, not 16. The standard GBA cart is around 16MB, which is what she is referring to. GBA carts can get up to well over 64MB if developers needed the space. It's just more expensive. I already said that. It looks like they've found a way to make high capacity carts for a much lower price.

Quote:OB1, it's Virtual Boy, with an L. I know, I have one.

Oh no, I forgot to add the "L"!!! Whatever

Quote:Oh, and the idea of Nintendo making this because they know they are "going down" and they are trying to hang on to the only audience that still buys their games is silly. I mean, did you totally forget that the GBA still sells at PS2 levels and the GCN's sales are only increasing (though yes, I very much doubt they'll catch up to Sony on THAT front).

The GBA sells very well but it's not Nintendo's main console. Most of their development goes towards the Gamecube, and there's a reason for that. But that has nothing to do with the DS. If you read Iwata's comments you'll see that he doesn't expect this to be the next big thing, just something unique that some people will be intrigued by. Why are they doing this when they need much more than that, I have no idea. But so far it looks like the DS might be targeted towards a more narrow audience than the GBA and GC.
Quote:First of all she said 8 times, not 16. The standard GBA cart is around 16MB, which is what she is referring to. GBA carts can get up to well over 64MB if developers needed the space. It's just more expensive. I already said that. It looks like they've found a way to make high capacity carts for a much lower price.

Yeah, you're right, 8. But she sounded like GBA carts maxed at 16... I didn't think that was true either, really (I thought it was at least 32, maybe 64), but that's what it sounded like.

Quote:The GBA sells very well but it's not Nintendo's main console. Most of their development goes towards the Gamecube, and there's a reason for that. But that has nothing to do with the DS. If you read Iwata's comments you'll see that he doesn't expect this to be the next big thing, just something unique that some people will be intrigued by. Why are they doing this when they need much more than that, I have no idea. But so far it looks like the DS might be targeted towards a more narrow audience than the GBA and GC.

Their main problem here will be with all the trouble they have producing enough software to hold up two platforms, how in the world will they support three, especially when the third is even more first/second-party-reliant than the other two?
Quote:Yeah, you're right, 8. But she sounded like GBA carts maxed at 16... I didn't think that was true either, really (I thought it was at least 32, maybe 64), but that's what it sounded like.

The standard max is 32MB, which you can find in any press release that Nintendo released back when the GBA launched. But Nintendo still offers much larger carts to developers. It's just not affordable for most.

Quote:Their main problem here will be with all the trouble they have producing enough software to hold up two platforms, how in the world will they support three, especially when the third is even more first/second-party-reliant than the other two?

That's what I've been thinking. They can just barely support both the GBA and GC at once, and now they introduce another platform? Yeesh. Maybe they'll mostly be little Pacman Vs.-type games or something.
Quote:The standard max is 32MB, which you can find in any press release that Nintendo released back when the GBA launched. But Nintendo still offers much larger carts to developers. It's just not affordable for most.

I don't think there are any 32MB games, much less larger. It's obviously far too cost-inneficient.

Quote:That's what I've been thinking. They can just barely support both the GBA and GC at once, and now they introduce another platform? Yeesh. Maybe they'll mostly be little Pacman Vs.-type games or something.

I don't know, but it is worrying for sure...
Quote:I don't think there are any 32MB games, much less larger. It's obviously far too cost-inneficient.

*sigh* I said that the standard capacity from the very beginning has been 32 MB. Here's the official info Nintendo released before the GBA launch, from IGN Pocket:

"Cartridge
34.5mm x 60mm x 9.5mm
Maximum 256 Megabit (32 megabyte)
"

Then after the GBA came out, Nintendo did say that 32MB was just the standard max and that if developers needed more space they could get over 64MB.
Fine. But when the largest games I know of are all 16MB, and a lot of those are first party or published by Nintendo, that's clear indication that the price for more than 16 is too high... as it is anyone not Nintendo barely profits...
Rolleyes Oh boy... this is going to be tough.

If you have a 14 MB game you're going to want to USE a 16MB cart, not a 32MB one. So far there haven't been any GBA games that needed more than 16MB of space because they're pretty much all SNES-type games. Why use the 32MB cart when you only need 32MB? This is about capacity, ABF. C-A-P-A-C-I-T-Y.
Er... OB1, you know, developers HAVE made new games for the GBA, and I don't think any of them have used a 32MB cart... and yes it is about capacity, but more important than the theoretical capacity is what is actually *USED*...
I said SNES-TYPE games, not SNES ports. Meaning games without the need of huge carts.

And it doesn't matter how many games use that much space, what matters is the capacity. Most X-Box games don't even come close to using all 9GB of the disc space, but that doesn't matter. The capacity is 9GB.
There are plenty of GBA games that are quite definitely better technology than a SNES, you know...

But for carts it's different! All DVDs cost the same no matter the space usage. Carts cost more the more space you have in it. Thus what the company thinks it can actually afford -- especially once you factor in the tiny margins on GBA development -- is a major factor... and well may be for this next console too. The question is, what will be affordable... clearly larger than GBA stuff, given that size they say, but what sizes we'll actually see is unknown.
Quote:- Bloomberg reported that the estimated cost of Nintendo's new dual screen portable system is about 20,000 yen (US$187).

Magicbox today.
That's just a tad bit on the more-than-I-really-want-to-pay side.

It had better have some awesome games and do some awesome stuff, because there's no way I could justify paying that much for something that could turn out to be nothing more than another gimick.
Yeah, if it's s real console and not just a one-trick pony gimmick poopy pants device then that might be worth it.

Quote:There are plenty of GBA games that are quite definitely better technology than a SNES, you know...

True, but so far nothing that would require lots of space.

Quote:But for carts it's different! All DVDs cost the same no matter the space usage. Carts cost more the more space you have in it. Thus what the company thinks it can actually afford -- especially once you factor in the tiny margins on GBA development -- is a major factor... and well may be for this next console too. The question is, what will be affordable... clearly larger than GBA stuff, given that size they say, but what sizes we'll actually see is unknown.

Actually with discs it's the exact same. Well, for the PS2 at least. Developers can use 700 MB CDs, 4.5 GB single-layer DVDs, or 9 GB dual-layer DVDs. So far the only game that I know of that needed a dual-layered DVD was Xenogears, but even if no PS2 games used it that would be beside the point. The capacity remains the same.
[Image: nintendobs.jpg]

:)

Quote:True, but so far nothing that would require lots of space.

I'm sure some could have used it... more voice, maybe? Though with the GBA's technical limitations increasing use of voice would mean having to cut other things, but with more space maybe you could have more music in stuff like Max Payne that has a lot of voice...

Quote:Actually with discs it's the exact same. Well, for the PS2 at least. Developers can use 700 MB CDs, 4.5 GB single-layer DVDs, or 9 GB dual-layer DVDs. So far the only game that I know of that needed a dual-layered DVD was Xenogears, but even if no PS2 games used it that would be beside the point. The capacity remains the same.

Hmm, that is a point... the PS2 does have different sizes. I assume X-Box does too... NGC doesn't though. Well unless you make it multi-disc... but there's a better reason for them to use bigger discs on those things where the profits are much larger than GBA profits...

And yes, if it's that much it well might not be worth it. Wonder what it'll end up here... $150, maybe, for a low-end estimate? $175?
Quote:I'm sure some could have used it... more voice, maybe? Though with the GBA's technical limitations increasing use of voice would mean having to cut other things, but with more space maybe you could have more music in stuff like Max Payne that has a lot of voice...

There was FMV in Tomb Raider and I'm sure more developers would use that if Nintendo didn't charge so much for licensing and cart fees.

Quote:Hmm, that is a point... the PS2 does have different sizes. I assume X-Box does too... NGC doesn't though. Well unless you make it multi-disc... but there's a better reason for them to use bigger discs on those things where the profits are much larger than GBA profits...

All X-Box games use DVD-9s, even though most probably don't even use half the space.
Oh and I want to point out this quote from Nintendo, which proves you wrong about the PSP not being competition for the Gameboy:

"The next generation of Game Boy is well into its development. It will be this machine that competes directly with Sony’s PSP.”
Quote:There was FMV in Tomb Raider and I'm sure more developers would use that if Nintendo didn't charge so much for licensing and cart fees.

Yeah, that too. Certainly not things that are vitally important to games, but little extras that raise the overall 'look' of the game and might improve popularity.

Quote:All X-Box games use DVD-9s, even though most probably don't even use half the space.

Really? Huh... why use big ones when they aren't needed? So that you have a single standard? The thing must be able to read all three types, though...
All DVD players can read dual and single-layered DVDs, so of course the same is with the X-Box. But all X-Box games ship on DVD-9s. Even demo discs in the official xbox mag! It's not like DVD-9s are that much more expensive than DVD-5s. Most recent movie DVDs are DVD-9s as well.
Ah, so the price difference isn't big enough for it to really matter much? Then it definitely is different from carts...
Yes, carts are definitely more expensive than DVDs. Couple that with Nintendo's high licensing fees and you see why the GBA relies pretty much entirely on first and second-party support.
Blank DVDs are pretty expensive, but that's because people THINK they are worth that much. The cost to make them is much closer to what they are charging for blank CDs. Eventually, the price will drop when people figure that out. Hmm, how long did it take the public at large to figure out CDs are actually cheaper than cassettes? They DIDN'T?! Oh lovely... Stupid people! Even the ones that ARE aware of it are completely unaware that ALL customers are in COMPLETE control of what the price of something is!

Anyway, on a similar note, I'll wait for this thing to flop, like it will, and buy it when the stores are getting rid of them for about $20 each (like what happened to the Virtual Boy). You know, Dogbert was right. This whole project, DOOMED to failure, is meant to boost the career of whoever thought of it and nothing more!
Not true. Third party titles released by Nintendo, like the Square games, are a big part of it too... :)

But yes third party developed and published games are definitely not a big part of the GBA market. Oh, there are a lot of them, and a few rare ones are big titles (like Castlevania...), but the first/second party games sell way, way better... and in most cases are just better quality...
Nintendo published the Square games, and their second party Brownie Brown developed them (BB made Sword of Mana but I'm not sure if FFTA was done entirely by Square). Castlevania is one of the few third-party exceptions.

DJ, I'm surprised that you're more pessimistic about the DS than I am. I can imagine something Virtual Boy-like, but we know so little about it right now that I'm not going to completely dismiss it. Maybe Nintendo will surprise us and this will be the shiznit.
You must admit that it seems doubtful... even with good games it seems too limited in scope and too ... well, unique... to really be a big success. If Nintendo's hoping that this will defeat the PSP and keep that console from going anywhere they are going to be wrong...

The question is, how long until the GBA2? For how long will Nintendo let Sony slowly gain on them?
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