With these two new systems being released, the DS already out and the PSP on the way soon.
Which, if either, will you be getting and why?
sorry the post is short and boring, i know
Probably a DS, since it already has a vast assortment of games that will work on it (gameboy advance), and nintendo has a proven track record with portables.
I’m gonna wait and see on the PSP. It may rock, it may flop.
Personally, I would get a DS. We know that Nintendo can do handhelds well, and from what I’ve seen, it is a good system. I has backwards compatablity to GBA games (but not regular or color gameboy games,) and will have a fair amount of its own games. Dual screens is cool, cause it lets you have a mpa, or inventory or status screen always up, which I like. And a touchscreen can be heklpful in some games, though in others I hear it’s a burden, but in most of them you can change the configuraton to not use it.
Plus, you have picto-chat! Who doesn’t love sending crudely drawn genitalia to your friend across the room?
I prefer the DS’s gameplay enhancing features (two screens, touch screen, microphone, etc.) to the PSP’s unrelated media playback. I buy gaming systems so I can play games on them, not so I can watch movies.
I’ve got a Gameboy Color sitting on a shelf somewhere and a stack of old PS1 games in the cabinet, but my money is on Nintendo whuppin’ Sony’s ass all over the landscape here. Say what you want about their games being overly cutesy or whatever, but they know portable gaming like nobody’s business.
I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, the DS is available NOW (well, mostly) and it has Nintendo’s years of experience behind it as well as backwards compatibility with a ton of games. On the other, the geek inside of me wants the PSP for its raw power (essentially a PS2 in handheld form). Sony also tends to have more games that I’m interested in than Nintendo does as well. It’ll be tough to decide. I was going to buy the DS a while back before I saw that the PSP was being priced so competitively. Back when the PSP was supposed to be upwards of $300-400, I thought it was a no-brainer and the DS would definitely continue Nintendo’s monopoly on handhelds. But now, with the PSP most likely going to be under $180… it’s tough.
The DS has the cool two screen feature, but I’ve only seen it for the Metroid Demo they have at all the stores and I wasn’t too impressed. It was handy in some cases, but when I was using my thumb to fire, my hands, which I had always thought of as graceful instruments of precision, suddenly became obscuring hands of doom for poor Samus.
I do wish I had connections in Japan though. Have you seen how much the PSP is going for on eBay? Well over double the cost.
I’ve already got a DS - and I bought one for my daughter as well - and it rocks.
I’m looking forward to some of the innovations I think will be possible with this little handheld gaming machine. With built-in 802.11 capability, it would be possible to come up with a pretty cool little browser/email proggie for use in free wireless zones. And if Nintendo ever introduces an organizer/PDA, I’ll dump my Handspring Visor in a heartbeat.
The Metroid demo isn’t the best example of what the dual screen is good for - especially if you’ve only played it attached to the kiosk’s theft mount, audiobottle. Holding the game in your hands, free of encumberances, it’s easier to use. But the touchscreen is especially fine in other games, like the minigame (or “arcade”) section of Super Mario 64 DS. Fun and intuitive.
Yet another vote for the DS. The PSP, while also an impressive system, offers nothing more that you couldn’t play at home. The DS, however, offers gameplay mechanics that simply can’t be done on any other system, that alone was reason enough for me to purchase it.
Don’t get me wrong, the PSP is also a very cool system. Big ass screen, nice graphics and multimedia functions. However, the games are all things we’ve seen before, and I never was a huge fan of most PS2 titles.
Just to clarify, the PSP has wireless as well. What I’d really like to see, but what will never happen, is game that could be played by both systems so that you could have a ridiculously huge network all across the world, all connected wirelessly through the handhelds. Of course, I’d also like the system I end up buying to make me omelettes in the morning and come with an eager-to-please-supermodel included.
The dual screens thing is pretty neat though. How has it been used in games so far? It seems like the most common use is going to be for a constant status screen. But that’s really not that innovative - given a bigger screen like the PSPs, you could just split it in half.
The second screen, thus far, has severed a couple of purposes. In both Metroid and Mario, it displays a map, but it also doubles as an analog control device. If it were just one screen, your hand would obscure the main gameplay screen, which wouldn’t be good.
Some of the mini-games in Mario use the two screens to display one large playing field, which works quite well. I can’t wait to see how future games use the two screen mechanic.
Interesting note, while the PSP does have a bigger, single screen, the DS has more screen real estate to work with, between the two screens.
For the games that use them as one continuous screen, does the break between them bother you at all? Also, do you use the stylus at all in games, and how do you not lose it?
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Not at all. In fact, it’s quite clever how they’ve executed it. The space between the two screens in accounted for in game as well. For instance, in one of the mini-games, you shoot a shell from the lower screen to the upper one. However, as it leaves the bottom screen, it will actually travel the distance between the two screens before it appears on the top one, if that makes sense. It’s quite seamless.
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All 36 of the mini-games in Mario use the stylus. However, in the main adventure mode, you can use either the D-pad or the touchscreen to control mario. Wherever you press on the touch screen, a virtual joystick will appear. You can then move your stylus or thumb (with the included thumb strap) around the joystick to move Mario in an analog type fashion. Then the demo for Metroid Prime: Hunters puts the stylus to fantastic use. You rub the stylus over the touch screen to look around just like you would with a mouse. So you can turn as fast or as slow as you want, while aiming with precision.
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The DS has a holding area for the Stylus on the back of the unit. However, even if you were to lose it anyway, there’s a spare in the box.
I’m getting both! (Best part of working in games is that I can rationalize this kind of thing to myself.) I’m hoping to get the DS as a gift, and I’ll buy the PSP myself because it’s a lot more expensive.
If I just had to choose one, I’d get the PSP. It just looks cool, for starters. When I use the GBA, I have to adopt kind of a “yeah, I’m a graying man who’s playing with a Gameboy. There’s nothing wrong with that!” attitude. With the PSP, I’d be showing it off and shit.
And every demo I’ve seen makes it look as if they’ve actually managed to get the PS2’s capability into a handheld unit, which is mighty impressive. I do wish there were a “must-have” game announced yet (nothing I’ve heard of so far is something that I’m all excited about), but then again, the PS2 didn’t have a must-have title at launch either, IMO.
Still doesn’t 
I’m getting the DS. Why?
Because history has shown that Nintendo can trump rival handhelds through a proven, practical product with a large library of games.
Take the original Game Boy. Dot Matrix screen, only 4 scales of gray. Tinny sound coming out of an itty bitty speaker. Now, Game Boy wasn’t the only handheld on the block- there was Sega’s Game Gear (and later, the Nomad), Atari Lynx, plus NEC made some handheld as well. All of them had something over the Game Boy- they all had color, for starters, and most if not all of them had a backlit screen. The NEC handheld and Nomad could play games from their bigger console brothers. It and the Game Gear had a TV tuner adapter long, long ago as well. So why don’t you see those? They may have been technologically superior, but they sure as hell weren’t practical. They were either too big for a handheld (Lynx was the size of a VCR tape and felt like it weighed ten pounds) or short battery life (Game Gear) or cost (The NEC handheld cost something like $300, much more than most consoles of the day).
In this case, I believe history will repeat itself. I have a Gameboy Advance SP, and I really like its level of functionality. I look forward to having my very own DS soon 
The only thing I wish the DS could do is play multiplayer GBA games. But unfortunately the wireless link is not compatible with ‘link cable’ type games 
(hopefully there will be an aftermarket adapter or something). I do know that a lot of older GBA games are getting ‘DS-ed’ so you can play multiplayer games…you just have to buy the same game again (clever, Nintendo! :mad: )
I’m getting the DS. Why?
Because history has shown that Nintendo can trump rival handhelds through a proven, practical product with a large library of games.
Take the original Game Boy. Dot Matrix screen, only 4 scales of gray. Tinny sound coming out of an itty bitty speaker. Now, Game Boy wasn’t the only handheld on the block- there was Sega’s Game Gear (and later, the Nomad), Atari Lynx, plus NEC made some handheld as well. All of them had something over the Game Boy- they all had color, for starters, and most if not all of them had a backlit screen. The NEC handheld and Nomad could play games from their bigger console brothers. It and the Game Gear had a TV tuner adapter long, long ago as well. So why don’t you see those? They may have been technologically superior, but they sure as hell weren’t practical. They were either too big for a handheld (Lynx was the size of a VCR tape and felt like it weighed ten pounds) or short battery life (Game Gear) or cost (The NEC handheld cost something like $300, much more than most consoles of the day).
In this case, I believe history will repeat itself. I have a Gameboy Advance SP, and I really like its level of functionality. I look forward to having my very own DS soon
The only thing I wish the DS could do is play multiplayer GBA games. But unfortunately the wireless link is not compatible with ‘link cable’ type games (hopefully there will be an aftermarket adapter or something). I do know that a lot of older GBA games are getting ‘DS-ed’ so you can play multiplayer games…you just have to buy the same game again (clever, Nintendo! :mad: )
One post for each DS screen, eh?
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To be fair, the Atari Lynx was pretty far ahead of its time – hardware graphics scaling, four-channel stereo sound, eight-player networking. It was almost on par with the then-home-console leader Super Nintendo, and it took Nintendo over a decade before the the Gameboy could match the Lynx technology-wise. In the hands of a company with more competent leadership, the Lynx could have given Nintendo a serious run for the money.
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Yeah, it was called the Game Gear. While not as powerful, it was the same basic idea, and it was handled by a then compentent company, yet it failed.
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I was flying between the US and Japan once in first class (one of the few times I had the pleasure) and the two guys who invented the Lynx were sitting next to me. They had booked three seats, one each plus one seat for their newest gaming machine the successor to Lynx… Geez. They were acting like assholes too, not that it matters. But one wonders, whatever happened to that successor, anyone know?
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