6 ms·

This would be the stupidest thing Nintendo could do. Ever. There's a market for phones, and there's a market for consoles and handheld games consoles. The game

This would be the stupidest thing Nintendo could do. Ever. There's a market for phones, and there's a market for consoles and handheld games consoles. The games on each platform are also completely different -- as they should be. Casual gaming is great, but the market for real games is also great. Not everything is a zero sum game.

chrischen 15y ago
I think Microsoft and Sony currently dominate "real" games. Most of what runs and plays on DS units can run and play on iPhones. I think the one leg up Nintendo has over Apple is that no one is going to buy their under 14 year old an iPhone. But for anyone older, a iPhone would make more economical sense.
- georgemcbay 15y ago
  "Most of what runs and plays on DS units can run and play on iPhones." All of what can run and play on a DS unit can run and play on an iPhone, if you're talking about pixel pushing horsepower. But a lot of it will never play correctly (in terms of gameplay feel) because of the iPhone's lack of any physical controller. There are quite a few games (eg. Plants vs Zombies) that work great on a touchscreen, but there's an entire universe of games that really need a physical controller to feel right -- which is why many, many DS games are d-pad controller focused for main gameplay despite the touchscreen being available as an option. It'll be a horribly sad day when Nintendo (and to a lesser degree, Sony) concede the entire market to touchscreen-only devices. As a for-example, you will never play a true Mario Brothers platformer game on an iPhone. You simply can't capture the feel of that experience on a touchscreen-only device.
  - cageface 15y ago
    I refuse to play any game that uses a virtual d-pad on a touch device. It's the absolute worst of both worlds.
  - Sephr 15y ago
    They could sell input devices along with their games. Most mobile devices aren't "touchscreen-only" devices. Android, for example, supports bluetooth and therefore wiimotes as input with the proper IME app. Since Honeycomb, you can also use bluetooth and USB mice and other USB peripherals, such as PS3 controllers.
  - kalleboo 15y ago
    It would be nice if more Android manufacturers could create devices like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - phones with physical game controls. Sadly it seems to be a dead-end, since developers won't rewrite games for a single handset.
  - chrischen 15y ago
    People don't play Call of Duty on a DS. Most of those DS games don't require precision or complicated dual analog stick controls. There's no reason why something like Pokemon can't run on an iPhone with good controls.
    - georgemcbay 15y ago
      Well, I should hope "those" DS games don't require complicated dual analog stick controls since the DS only has one input pad (though some games do use the 4 cross buttons as something of a second dpad) and it is digital. Pokemon could arguably work okay on a touchscreen-only device, but that's one title cherry picked out of thousands, there are tons of DS games that would suffer greatly by being stuffed into a touchscreen control scheme, and that includes lots of games that are nothing like "Call of Duty". It isn't about how complicated the control scheme is, it is about the need for actual physical switch controls. Even games with dead-simple control schemes like Bomberman or Tetris have this issue (and yes, I know there is Tetris for the iOS -- it is an abomination that proves my point nicely, IMO).
      - chrischen 15y ago
        Actually the DS has a touch screen which allows it to almost replicate the dual-analog sticks. So there are FPS games for the DS that use this. Admittedly it's a bit tough to play FPSs on the iPhone still. I've played Tetris for iPod (with the circular wheel) and that was playable and enjoyable. Controls just need to be adapted properly. There's no reason the D-pad and physical buttons are required for good controls. Just because current game ports have bad touchscreen control implementations doesn't mean it's impossible. In fact, the bad implementations are probably due to the fact a lot of them naively try to simulate DS-style controls on a touch screen. There are tons of iOS games that utilize the iphones touchscreen perfectly for good controls, so it's absolutely possible to design good controls into games. It's just like when the DS came out and they started designing games to take advantage of dual screens, touch screens, microphones, and cameras.
        georgemcbay 15y ago
- pagekalisedown 15y ago
  No need to buy a kid an iPhone when an iPod will do.
  - chrischen 15y ago
    Ipod Touch still costs more than a DS Lite, and isn't really a kid-focused device.
    - myspy 15y ago
      But you can do so much more with it. Music + Connecting with others + gaming + videos + everything a dev is coming up with. And you don't have to pay 40$ for a game, only 1-15$. As they said in Penny Arcade: Who has more fun, you with a 40$ game or me with 40 one dollar games?
      - chrischen 15y ago
        The kid will most likely make the decision on this one. iPod touches are not marketed to them. They don't care about apps or watching mobile porn. They want the games they see ads for. Their parents will succumb because the DS has a smaller up front cost. Why risk the extra money for the extra features the kid didn't even beg his parents for? In addition to that kids usually know exactly what games they want and don't care if they can get 50 games they've never heard about for $1. You don't reason with kids. You get them what they ask for if they deserve it.
        pagekalisedown 15y ago
        True. My son wanted his own "Angry Bird machine" and he got it. :)
        chrischen 15y ago
        You sir, are rich.
axian 15y ago
Same was said about Sega. Controlling hardware consoles and nurturing brand new ecosystems is no longer a winning proposition in today's market. There's too much competition and title lifespans are shorter. By the time Nintendo releases a new gaming console it's already obsolete. They need to ship games, not cling to outdated models.
- sandGorgon 15y ago
  this is a solved problem - the PCIe interconnect for desktop graphics and MxM for laptop graphics give an extremely tested and viable way to upgrade graphics cards. Hell, even the latest Sony Vaio Z comes with an external graphics card (http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-vaio-z-with-external-graphics-hits-the-us-14-07-2011/ http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-vaio-z-with-external-graph...) It is completely viable to create an upgradable platform that does not obsolete itself by the time it is released - the problem is not technology itself, it is the console manufacturer management notion that it is a good idea to have planned obsoletion every 3 years or so to get people to buy new hardware. Give me an upgradeable PS3 with an SSD and Steam (rather than the 10 times slower Bluray) - and tell me that it wont kill desktop gaming. Nintendo, MS and Sony will be killed by mobile gaming - the latest Kal El pre-production silicon has a 12-core GPU and a 4-core CPU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBvaDtshLY8&feature=player_embedded#at=36 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBvaDtshLY8&feature=playe... Just a matter of time before Crysis 2 works on your big screen TV through mini HDMI - what remains to be figured out are the controllers
  - etha 15y ago
    Actually, Nintendo's old cartridge-based games already did this to some extent. You were simply plugging in a circuit board, which could, and often did have additional processors, memory, etc on it.
    - illumin8 15y ago
      Usually they didn't. Zelda was the first NES cartridge with battery backed memory for save games, which was unique at the time, but all games still had to run on the 6502 processor.

chrischen 15y ago

I think Microsoft and Sony currently dominate "real" games. Most of what runs and plays on DS units can run and play on iPhones. I think the one leg up Nintendo has over Apple is that no one is going to buy their under 14 year old an iPhone. But for anyone older, a iPhone would make more economical sense.

georgemcbay 15y ago
"Most of what runs and plays on DS units can run and play on iPhones." All of what can run and play on a DS unit can run and play on an iPhone, if you're talking about pixel pushing horsepower. But a lot of it will never play correctly (in terms of gameplay feel) because of the iPhone's lack of any physical controller. There are quite a few games (eg. Plants vs Zombies) that work great on a touchscreen, but there's an entire universe of games that really need a physical controller to feel right -- which is why many, many DS games are d-pad controller focused for main gameplay despite the touchscreen being available as an option. It'll be a horribly sad day when Nintendo (and to a lesser degree, Sony) concede the entire market to touchscreen-only devices. As a for-example, you will never play a true Mario Brothers platformer game on an iPhone. You simply can't capture the feel of that experience on a touchscreen-only device.
- cageface 15y ago
  I refuse to play any game that uses a virtual d-pad on a touch device. It's the absolute worst of both worlds.
- Sephr 15y ago
  They could sell input devices along with their games. Most mobile devices aren't "touchscreen-only" devices. Android, for example, supports bluetooth and therefore wiimotes as input with the proper IME app. Since Honeycomb, you can also use bluetooth and USB mice and other USB peripherals, such as PS3 controllers.
- kalleboo 15y ago
  It would be nice if more Android manufacturers could create devices like the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play - phones with physical game controls. Sadly it seems to be a dead-end, since developers won't rewrite games for a single handset.
- chrischen 15y ago
  People don't play Call of Duty on a DS. Most of those DS games don't require precision or complicated dual analog stick controls. There's no reason why something like Pokemon can't run on an iPhone with good controls.
  - georgemcbay 15y ago
    Well, I should hope "those" DS games don't require complicated dual analog stick controls since the DS only has one input pad (though some games do use the 4 cross buttons as something of a second dpad) and it is digital. Pokemon could arguably work okay on a touchscreen-only device, but that's one title cherry picked out of thousands, there are tons of DS games that would suffer greatly by being stuffed into a touchscreen control scheme, and that includes lots of games that are nothing like "Call of Duty". It isn't about how complicated the control scheme is, it is about the need for actual physical switch controls. Even games with dead-simple control schemes like Bomberman or Tetris have this issue (and yes, I know there is Tetris for the iOS -- it is an abomination that proves my point nicely, IMO).
    - chrischen 15y ago
      Actually the DS has a touch screen which allows it to almost replicate the dual-analog sticks. So there are FPS games for the DS that use this. Admittedly it's a bit tough to play FPSs on the iPhone still. I've played Tetris for iPod (with the circular wheel) and that was playable and enjoyable. Controls just need to be adapted properly. There's no reason the D-pad and physical buttons are required for good controls. Just because current game ports have bad touchscreen control implementations doesn't mean it's impossible. In fact, the bad implementations are probably due to the fact a lot of them naively try to simulate DS-style controls on a touch screen. There are tons of iOS games that utilize the iphones touchscreen perfectly for good controls, so it's absolutely possible to design good controls into games. It's just like when the DS came out and they started designing games to take advantage of dual screens, touch screens, microphones, and cameras.
      - georgemcbay 15y ago
pagekalisedown 15y ago
No need to buy a kid an iPhone when an iPod will do.
- chrischen 15y ago
  Ipod Touch still costs more than a DS Lite, and isn't really a kid-focused device.
  - myspy 15y ago
    But you can do so much more with it. Music + Connecting with others + gaming + videos + everything a dev is coming up with. And you don't have to pay 40$ for a game, only 1-15$. As they said in Penny Arcade: Who has more fun, you with a 40$ game or me with 40 one dollar games?
    - chrischen 15y ago
      The kid will most likely make the decision on this one. iPod touches are not marketed to them. They don't care about apps or watching mobile porn. They want the games they see ads for. Their parents will succumb because the DS has a smaller up front cost. Why risk the extra money for the extra features the kid didn't even beg his parents for? In addition to that kids usually know exactly what games they want and don't care if they can get 50 games they've never heard about for $1. You don't reason with kids. You get them what they ask for if they deserve it.
      - pagekalisedown 15y ago
        True. My son wanted his own "Angry Bird machine" and he got it. :)
        chrischen 15y ago
        You sir, are rich.

axian 15y ago

Same was said about Sega. Controlling hardware consoles and nurturing brand new ecosystems is no longer a winning proposition in today's market. There's too much competition and title lifespans are shorter. By the time Nintendo releases a new gaming console it's already obsolete. They need to ship games, not cling to outdated models.

sandGorgon 15y ago
this is a solved problem - the PCIe interconnect for desktop graphics and MxM for laptop graphics give an extremely tested and viable way to upgrade graphics cards. Hell, even the latest Sony Vaio Z comes with an external graphics card (http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-vaio-z-with-external-graphics-hits-the-us-14-07-2011/ http://www.geeky-gadgets.com/sony-vaio-z-with-external-graph...) It is completely viable to create an upgradable platform that does not obsolete itself by the time it is released - the problem is not technology itself, it is the console manufacturer management notion that it is a good idea to have planned obsoletion every 3 years or so to get people to buy new hardware. Give me an upgradeable PS3 with an SSD and Steam (rather than the 10 times slower Bluray) - and tell me that it wont kill desktop gaming. Nintendo, MS and Sony will be killed by mobile gaming - the latest Kal El pre-production silicon has a 12-core GPU and a 4-core CPU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBvaDtshLY8&feature=player_embedded#at=36 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBvaDtshLY8&feature=playe... Just a matter of time before Crysis 2 works on your big screen TV through mini HDMI - what remains to be figured out are the controllers
- etha 15y ago
  Actually, Nintendo's old cartridge-based games already did this to some extent. You were simply plugging in a circuit board, which could, and often did have additional processors, memory, etc on it.
  - illumin8 15y ago
    Usually they didn't. Zelda was the first NES cartridge with battery backed memory for save games, which was unique at the time, but all games still had to run on the 6502 processor.