12th October 2003, 12:27 AM
It's not that their main selling point, portable online gaming, isn't a cool idea. It's that they suck :D. Really though, far be it from me to just out and out judge a system or anything, but really. The controls are bad, the screen is tiny, and the thing is uncomfortable both to hold AND to use as a phone. That's just cosmetic and comfort issues. The main issue for me? The games. There's not a single exclusive title on it. A few ports add a few things, like that online play, but that's it. MAYBE there's some original game on it somewhere, in fact likely there's got to be. No company could make a system without ONE exclusive game unless they were TOTALLY retarded. However, it's so low on the radar that I manage to avoid it every time I try looking for it. I notice the gaming press on the whole is trying their best to make it look like a competitor. I think Nokia must have paid them all or something. In any case, a portable that costs more than a console but offers a lot less, unless you want a cell-phone or MP3 player I guess (but you can get both of those much cheaper, and I don't want a cell phone), and ends up having ONLY superior graphical capabilities and online play (and you can't even tell the graphics are that good when it's on a stamp sized screen), is NOT going to put even a dent in Nintendo's shiny armor o' SP.
I think we all kinda expected this though. It's the whole reason the only system any of us even mention as a potential threat to the GBA is the PSX. Kinda sad really. I really DO want the GBA to have healthy competition, something like a half and half thing would work wonders, just like in the 16-bit era. However, Nintendo has had MUCH better competition than this and it all failed. The Wonderswan Crystal, the NeoGeo Pocket Color... Those two were great systems (series of systems in fact) that really had all they SHOULD have needed to succeed. The hardware was great (though the duel control pad on the left side of the WS was really weird looking to me in those screen shots...). The software was REALLY great (WS had various FF remakes exclusive to it, and NG had all manner of SNK and Capcom games). They failed due sheerly to lack of any advertising... at all. Actually, Nokia made that mistake too... Anyway, yet another failed entry. It's just a shame that this particular system managed to make every single mistake a system can POSSIBLY make, most fatal being NO decent exclusive games at all.
I think we all kinda expected this though. It's the whole reason the only system any of us even mention as a potential threat to the GBA is the PSX. Kinda sad really. I really DO want the GBA to have healthy competition, something like a half and half thing would work wonders, just like in the 16-bit era. However, Nintendo has had MUCH better competition than this and it all failed. The Wonderswan Crystal, the NeoGeo Pocket Color... Those two were great systems (series of systems in fact) that really had all they SHOULD have needed to succeed. The hardware was great (though the duel control pad on the left side of the WS was really weird looking to me in those screen shots...). The software was REALLY great (WS had various FF remakes exclusive to it, and NG had all manner of SNK and Capcom games). They failed due sheerly to lack of any advertising... at all. Actually, Nokia made that mistake too... Anyway, yet another failed entry. It's just a shame that this particular system managed to make every single mistake a system can POSSIBLY make, most fatal being NO decent exclusive games at all.
"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)