Live in Japan? Well then you can download music, games, and movies to your GBA or DS!

[Great Rumbler]

Nintendo's new Play Yan media player, which allows you to play music and movies on your GBA or DS, launched in Japan today. Alongside it, Nintendo unveiled a new section of the Play Yan site, featuring downloadable "Garage Games" for the device, which communicates with your PC via Panasonic SD cards. The first game available is Insect, and a new game will be unveiled each week, for a total of twelve games. A thirteenth game is available to Japanese Club Nintendo members.

So when are we going to see something like this in the States?

Planet Gamecube

Planet Gamecube

[A Black Falcon]

PGC and Gamespot call it Play-Yan, IGN called it Play-Chan, the official website is in Japanese so who knows (and it doesn't translate exactly enough via online translator), but the address says 'playan'... what exactly IS the official name of this thing?

Oh, and one rumor IGN had was that the V-Pocket thing could potentially be a name for this thing... or it could not. Maybe not. We'll have to wait and see what they say about both these things.

[Great Rumbler]

This could be pretty cool if they do it right, as in don't just put up a few things and then forget about it. Think about it though, you want to play a demo of game so you just download it directly to your DS or GBA, or you can turn your DS/GBA into your own, much cheaper I-pod. It could work.

[Dark Jaguar]

This device is not really an amazing thing, but rather is basically catch up for NIntendo's failures with the DS.

Okay, I have to get this off my chest, the DS is terribly designed!

The good points? It has the screen protecting and space saving laptop folding design. It also has the nice responsive buttons. Also, the touch screen is very well designed in and of itself, and both screens are very sharp and crisp and other adjectives. Being able to play GBA games is also nice. Further more, wifi is a great addition and Nintendo was right to include it.

The rest of the system is sheer missed potential. That sums up my disappointments.

First of all, it is clear N64 games will be ported left and right. That being said, controlling a platformer via the touch screen is TERRIBLE. I used the dpad for the ENTIRE game of Mario 64 just because it sucked so very much to use the screen! The screen is useful, but NOT in that way! Same reason I can't stand touch pad mice... (Maybe if the cursor was directly placed on the screen equivalent of where you touched the touch pad...).

They should have added pressure sensitive buttons. Namely, the d-pad should have been pressure sensitive, if nothing else.

Also, the system is heavy. I can understand why it is heavy, but the weight should have been better balanced. Holding a large amount of weight way off from the center of gravity puts a twisting force on my wrists that hurts after 10 minutes. Oh yes, and that makes me a baby I guess. It HURTS and is NOT healthy for my wrists! Ergonomics people!

The GBA support is nice, but no muliplayer. Okay, I use my SP for all my GBA playing needs anyway due to the wrist pain issue, but still it's a downside. Just find 3 nearby systems and randomly assign the player numbers. In a crowded area, players can be willingly selected via the OS before starting the GBA game. Another strike is lacking GB/GBC support. Look, I don't care what Nintendo's marketting is, people are calling it the Gameboy DS.

The DS games were small on flash card SIZED cartridges, all with built in save space so all makers have rewritable space from the start. However, they missed a very nice opportunity. They could have gone the whole distance and just made the cards very similar to SD cards (but not fully writable and with a security system to prevent being able to load games from normal DS cards). Then, the support for SD cards would be right there! That said, they could simply have set up the wifi, and a little program you could download from Nintendo, to let you send MP3s and demos directly to the system THAT way. What I'm saying is this external device could have been built in features of the system.

I know they had limited time, but honestly of late I am much more willing to endure delays. It's no big deal, I have other games I can play in the mean time! I really don't care if Nintendo is "the best", I just want them to be around.

Oh and, interesting that Nintendo really isn't all "we only make games" like they used to be. Anyone else notice that?

[OB1]

Haha, DJ is too girly to handle the DS.

*giggles*

I agree about the controls though. Too heavy? Not at all. But I'm not the best one to judge that...

[Great Rumbler]

I didn't really think it was too heavy. Yeah, it was heavier than the SP or regular GBA, but it wasn't too much to handle for any reasonable amount of time.

[Dark Jaguar]

The weight really isn't that bad. I mean it's about as heavy as my Game Gear and I handled that fine. The problem is the balancing of the weight. Half the weight is hovering in front of me. It does get to be a burden that hurts my wrists. I have never been one to have an issue with controls. Even the large XBox controller wasn't that bad. This however is just uncomfortable. If I'm laying on my back, I hold the whole thing in place by using my index fingers on the top part (tried the lower part, the power button is in a terrible place, so I stopped). I'm sure you can imagine the issues with that whole stabalizing method. If the weight was more balanced, it wouldn't be a problem.

Look, my wrists never hurt until I used this thing. Now they sound like a cement mixer...

[OB1]

Heh. Well now you have an excuse to lift some weights and get into shape! Or just do reps with the DS!