Here's an idea...

[Dark Jaguar]

So the DS is now out in Korea.

I just thought of a possibility that would result in a graham's number of sales. Blizzard releases Starcraft on the DS (with full online, the expansion, and the ability to be patched), and translates it into Korean. The combined allure of Starcraft and DS will be more than any human created market could comprehend!

[Great Rumbler]

The DS is getting Maple Story, which it's supposed to be quite popular.

[Dark Jaguar]

What's that? The adventures of Mrs. Butterworth?

[Great Rumbler]

A Korean-developed 2D MMORPG.

Which, incidentally, you can download and play for free on the PC.

[Dark Jaguar]

I guess, though that's not really my idea,

[A Black Falcon]

Starcraft DS would sell the thing in Korea for sure, yes...

... it'd probably be better than Starcraft 64, too, though like that one it'd also have to have almost all of the voice acting and CG cutscenes removed...

[Great Rumbler]

though like that one it'd also have to have almost all of the voice acting and CG cutscenes removed...

The Nintendo 64 cartridges could only hold 64MB at most and it was able to handle Resident Evil 2 in its entirety. DS cards can hold up to 128MB, twice that of the Nintendo 64. There's absolutely no reason why it would have to be taken out.

[Dark Jaguar]

Correction! DS cards can hold up to a gig, but those are the costlier ones.

Point is, they could store ALL the movies and audio from both SC and the expansion.

[lazyfatbum]

...doesnt interest me at all!!!!!!!!!!!!

I play Excite Truck and make Rad Racer sound effects with my mouth

[A Black Falcon]

Correction! DS cards can hold up to a gig, but those are the costlier ones.

No, I'm pretty sure that the max size is actually 128MB, or one gigabit. DS games vary in size from 8MB (64Mbit) to 128MB (1024Mbit, one gigabit). GBA games in comparison were from 4MB to 32MB (though the Famicom Mini/NES Classics and a couple of other really cheap games are 1MB, everything else is 4MB and up).

The Nintendo 64 cartridges could only hold 64MB at most and it was able to handle Resident Evil 2 in its entirety. DS cards can hold up to 128MB, twice that of the Nintendo 64. There's absolutely no reason why it would have to be taken out.

Uh... what? PC! This is a PC game! Of course the N64 version had no voice acting in the briefings and no cutscenes (I think that the units still said some things when you clicked on them, but fewer than the PC game I believe), that's what I was talking about -- that this version almost certainly wouldn't either...

[Weltall]

It is my understanding that the DS cards are modified/based upon the SD design (lazy told me this and I didn't believe him until I read it elsewhere and verified). This being the case, I couldn't imagine why the storage capacity of the DS cards could not be made larger when needed.

[A Black Falcon]

They well might be able to make them larger. That depends on if the hardware can support it, I'd expect, not on whether a card that large could be make. As you say, the physical card is certainly possible... maybe we'll see DS games larger than 128MB sometime. Maybe not. Larger sizes cost more, after all, so controlling size is always important to publishers...

[Dark Jaguar]

I see I misread. I read Mb (Megabit) as MB (Megabyte). That's roughly an order of magnitude off...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS

Here's some interesting info. The rumble pack for the DS was rereleased in a shorter version for the DS Lite in Japan. Also, Japan has a headset for special games that support voice communication online. There's a step in the right direction. Considering the sheer verbal abuse that'll lead to, it's a wonder they still haven't revised their online system...

[Great Rumbler]

Uh... what? PC! This is a PC game! Of course the N64 version had no voice acting in the briefings and no cutscenes (I think that the units still said some things when you clicked on them, but fewer than the PC game I believe), that's what I was talking about -- that this version almost certainly wouldn't either...

What does it being an PC game have to do with anything? PSX games and PC games come on CD's that hold the same amount of space and Resident Evil 2 came on TWO CD's. It was compacted to a 64MB catridge with NOTHING being taken out, all the voice-acting and cut-scenes remained. There's NO REASON why a DS version of Starcraft WOULD NEED TO TAKE OUT ANYTHING WHEN IT HAS TWICE THE SPACE.

And I know very well that the N64 version lacked those things because I owned it.

[Dark Jaguar]

Actually RE did have one thing removed. The second ending song.

[Great Rumbler]

Actually RE did have one thing removed. The second ending song.

Well, okay. But all the voice-acting and cutscenes were left in.

[A Black Falcon]

RE-PSX later had a one CD release though, so you could say they just compressed one CD's worth of stuff... and Starcraft is really two CDs, since there's the original game and the expansion. Maybe it could be done, but all that speech and those CG videos... even with 128MB, I'm not sure...

I see I misread. I read Mb (Megabit) as MB (Megabyte). That's roughly an order of magnitude off...

Exactly what Nintendo wanted people to do by using that term.

[Great Rumbler]

RE-PSX later had a one CD release though, so you could say they just compressed one CD's worth of stuff... and Starcraft is really two CDs, since there's the original game and the expansion. Maybe it could be done, but all that speech and those CG videos... even with 128MB, I'm not sure...

128MB is twice as much as 64MB.

64MB = 1CD
128MB = 2CDs

Amazing!

I repeat, there would be NO reason to take anything out. And Resident Evil 64 came out almost seven years ago, I don't think it's too big of a stretch to say that compression technology has advanced since then.

[A Black Falcon]

Even if they managed to keep all of the speech and video somehown, it would not look very good. A 640x480 PC game squished onto those two little screens? Not good... SC64 didn't work well at all because of controls and how PC displays are better, but DS... the controls would be a bit better with touchscreen support, but screen size is a big issue. Unless you design the game from the beginning to be for that size screen, it's probably not going to work great.

[Great Rumbler]

Way to change the subject, Brian. :p

[Weltall]

You mean a screen resolution exists that even Brian/A considers too low?

[A Black Falcon]

Way to change the subject, Brian.

Oh, I'm far from convinced that SC for DS could have all of the speech and CG video, but the resolution thing is an even more important reason why it would not work well.

One note though: SC64 is 32MB, not 64. I looked it up.

[Great Rumbler]

One note though: SC64 is 32MB, not 64. I looked it up.

Which isn't particularly relevant...

but the resolution thing is an even more important reason why it would not work well.

I agree, they'd need to figure out some way of scaling everything down. They'd probably have to make the units really small in comparison to the view area without making them so small that you wouldn't be able to see them.

[A Black Falcon]

Which isn't particularly relevant...

Yes it is... if they used a max-size DS card they'd have 4x the space of SC64, making having at least some of the video or something possible...

I agree, they'd need to figure out some way of scaling everything down. They'd probably have to make the units really small in comparison to the view area without making them so small that you wouldn't be able to see them.

WarLocked worked on the GBC, but that was a very, very simple RTS...

[Great Rumbler]

Yes it is... if they used a max-size DS card they'd have 4x the space of SC64, making having at least some of the video or something possible...

All of it would be possible, Brian. All of it. Although that doesn't mean that wouldn't cut some stuff out anyway.

[A Black Falcon]

All of it would be possible, Brian. All of it. Although that doesn't mean that wouldn't cut some stuff out anyway.

You'd have to hugely compress the audio to fit that much in, though...

[Great Rumbler]

The quality of the audio on a DS game wouldn't need to be nearly as high as on the PC and, again, Resident Evil 2 on the N64 had all of the voice-acting left intact on a catridge that was only 64MB.

[A Black Falcon]

True, but SC must have far, far more voice acting than RE2... the largest thing in that game was the prerendered backgrounds, I believe.

[lazyfatbum]

it had FMV too.

...

*licks ABF's anus*

[Great Rumbler]

True, but SC must have far, far more voice acting than RE2... the largest thing in that game was the prerendered backgrounds, I believe.

Prerendered CG cut-scenes? Quite a bit of voice-acting?

Good grief, Brian.

[Weltall]

True, but SC must have far, far more voice acting than RE2... the largest thing in that game was the prerendered backgrounds, I believe.

RE2 filled a pair of CDs, so there was a compression ratio of almost 20-1, and that was eight years ago. Regardless of what was taking up space, RE2 needed twice as much as Starcraft.

[A Black Falcon]

Lazy: yeah, I said so several times.

Ryan: Erm, no. Starcraft and Brood War. Two CDs. And unlike RE2, there wasn't a later release that combined them onto one disc...

[Great Rumbler]

Ryan: Erm, no. Starcraft and Brood War. Two CDs. And unlike RE2, there wasn't a later release that combined them onto one disc...

And unlike the N64, DS cartridges have 128MB which is TWICE THE SPACE. WHAT ABOUT THAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!

[A Black Falcon]

And unlike the N64, DS cartridges have 128MB which is TWICE THE SPACE. WHAT ABOUT THAT IS SO HARD TO UNDERSTAND?!

How you'd be able to understand audio that compressed? :)

[Great Rumbler]

How you'd be able to understand audio that compressed? :)

Yeah, the voice-acting in Resident Evil 2 on the N64 was really hard to understand. Oh wait, no it wasn't.

Seriously, Brian, are you trying to take over OB1's position as "The Anti-Logic Head Chief President Crazy Person"?

[A Black Falcon]

But I already said that I think that SC has far, far more audio than RE2 and that most of that CD space for RE2 is taken up with the rendered backgrounds; audio is a chunk, as is video, but not as significant as the backgrounds in RE2's case.

[Weltall]

Modern compression techniques would undoubtedly be able to heavily compress the audio while preserving enough quality to be intelligible. As pointed out many times, the DS isn't exactly an audio powerhouse. The speech could be compressed into low-bitrate mono in any of a dozen formats and you'd eliminate 80% of the filesize while suffering no appreciable drop in quality.

[lazyfatbum]

Yeah and your anus tastes like shit too.