28th October 2016, 10:26 AM
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/re...ch-screen/
Reliable sources seem to have confirmed it does have a touch screen. That much I knew, but this also confirms it's capacitive touch. That means multitouch, but it also means that slight "give" on a 3DS/DS touch screen that lets you know you pressed it won't be there any more. It's a fine tradeoff. The bigger issue is that explains why they went without backwards compatibility. Nintendo has said in the past that moving to capacitive touch would make backwards compatibility with DS games "very difficult". The way that screen reports it's input is very different, and DS software has no idea how to handle hardware reporting multiple touched spots at the same time. That said, this is something that can be solved via the hardware interface for the screen, allowing it to be set to a mode that will only report one touch when multiple points are touched (perhaps just ignoring all subsequent touches until the first touched point leaves the screen, in the same way laptop touch pads deal with where to put the mouse cursor).
The other thing is I had actually been under the impression the screen was larger, but it's only just a bit bigger than my own cell phone screen, and further it's resolution is not a straight multiple of either DS or 3DS resolutions. That means displaying those old games would not just mean putting the two screens onto one screen, but also shrinking the image until it is a multiple if you wanted an unblurred image. In the end, they may have decided it just wasn't worth it, and I suppose I agree, since the result would be very hard to see. Sad, but I understand it now. An iPad, this ain't.
Reliable sources seem to have confirmed it does have a touch screen. That much I knew, but this also confirms it's capacitive touch. That means multitouch, but it also means that slight "give" on a 3DS/DS touch screen that lets you know you pressed it won't be there any more. It's a fine tradeoff. The bigger issue is that explains why they went without backwards compatibility. Nintendo has said in the past that moving to capacitive touch would make backwards compatibility with DS games "very difficult". The way that screen reports it's input is very different, and DS software has no idea how to handle hardware reporting multiple touched spots at the same time. That said, this is something that can be solved via the hardware interface for the screen, allowing it to be set to a mode that will only report one touch when multiple points are touched (perhaps just ignoring all subsequent touches until the first touched point leaves the screen, in the same way laptop touch pads deal with where to put the mouse cursor).
The other thing is I had actually been under the impression the screen was larger, but it's only just a bit bigger than my own cell phone screen, and further it's resolution is not a straight multiple of either DS or 3DS resolutions. That means displaying those old games would not just mean putting the two screens onto one screen, but also shrinking the image until it is a multiple if you wanted an unblurred image. In the end, they may have decided it just wasn't worth it, and I suppose I agree, since the result would be very hard to see. Sad, but I understand it now. An iPad, this ain't.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)