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Nintendo at it again!

Where I find nothing is truly wrong about Nintendo's ways of things Im quite tired of the portable market. Every few months there is a new version to the same stupid device you already have, rendering yours obsolete then theres so many formats of the DS now its stupid and unneeded!!!! Nevermind the games are becomming more and more of a let down...
 
I just can't believe they are not including the second analog controller since there's an add-on for the original 3DS. Silly Nintendo.

Heather
 
Well they announced a huge loss recently with the lack of sales for the 3ds. I don't own one but I actually did find the little ds to be entertaining with the stylus it made crossword puzzles kinda cool. Just the price wasn't worth it. However from what I hear they're pretty easy to mod so obviously I would just be modding that to play NES games then it'd sit on the shelf afterwards.

There haven't been many successful business platform/gaming combinations. I thought Tiger's game.com was quite intriguing (I'm sure the intro price sucked though) but it was certainly a PDA type of system/organizer with game ability. Sony also sorta tried with their little phone that I never heard anything about and the N-gage which all the demos of the n-gage I ever saw in the store had out of memory errors.
 
Yeah, I think phones are an interesting competitor to portable computers.. it's just trying to get that "right size" which is problematic. Of course for me that also requires a physical keyboard.

One thing I never understood was why more vendors don't make their portable console (well optionally) THE controller for their main system. To me I would think it would boost sales on both systems and then it could have it's own games as well. I'd love to control my PS3 from my psp if it had all the buttons the game needs (it doesn't which is obviously the problem there) or use the new DS to control the Wii (I think this may be a prediction with the Wii-U, their new controller definitely looks power hungry but interactive).

Didn't the dreamcast controller have some sort of LCD screen and minigames on it too? I'm not sure who historically has done something like this.
 
I never found the LCD save game devices that interesting (other then being able to copy and move game saves easily to normal save game modules). The screen resolution is pretty small and they eat up coin batteries pretty fast.
 
Portable gaming has shifted to smart phones.
I still prefer the dedicated consoles because the controls are usually better and I don't have to worry about wearing down my phone battery. I still occasionally play games on my phone, but not nearly as much as I do on portable consoles.

Heather
 
Most people already have a cell phone, and if they can play games on it for free or for just a few dollars the casual gamer will do that instead of getting a dedicated system that requires decent money for each game.

Hard core gamers will always want the latest and greatest games and hardware (dedicated machines) but the market especially in these shitty times seems to be going to cheap games. If you think about it gamers jumped from the PC to consoles in the last 10+ years because of costs (software prices were about the same but hardware was cheaper for consoles). Consoles used to be about simple games (compared to the PC) but now they are about the same, which sucks because you have to memorize a million buttons and combinations to do things on todays consoles. People who just want to kill 20 minutes waiting on something probably want a simple game to kill time, this used to be filled by simple systems like a gameboy advanced and now a cell phone has the same capability (more actually in resolution and processing power).
 
I couldn't agree with you more. Cell phone games are taking over the casual game market. :) I'm not a hardcore gamer but I prefer the games that are made for dedicated systems more, especially since I like the controls better. I was also one of the PC gamers who switched to consoles because I couldn't justify spending the money necessary to keep the hardware up to date.

I just hope the cell phone game market makes dedicated system games come down in price due to competition. Wishful thinking, I know. :)

Heather
 
I've been sorta curious about the pricing of games. What kills me is the $60+ games that I can't at all justify. At least some folks have started venturing into the demo downloads again but that's like $60 just to see if you like a game which isn't feasible. There was a tech article recently also that mentioned how folks are much more satisfied than the market thought with simple little angry bird type games vs larger more in-depth games. It was sorta touting the app market as a popular choice because of price and simple little time wasting games. But price-wise with a console I'm not sure how much an NES, SNES, Atari, etc would be these days. I'm never jumping on the console bandwagon until it's been out for a few years and falls under $300 (ideally less than that). I would never have bought a new PS3 for ($800?..$600? whatever it was) and don't understand that market much other than yes you can rest that the games coming out will probably run ok since the hardware never gets upgraded. However just like today a lot of gamers notice substantial difference with the same 360 or PS3 game graphics vs the PC running it and the PC resolution and graphics from what I've heard almost look like a whole second version of the game.

There still hasn't quite been the conquest however into 3d gaming which would merge the technologies. There's that 3d video chip that came out and was put in a few PDAs to show off better graphics but I'm sure that kills the battery which in that case sorta reduces the usefulness of a phone or PDA (I have absolutely no interest in my phone dying every 2-3 hours or every 40 minutes like a gaming laptop). Then the Sony (Xperia) which I think is interesting and I do see a PSP phone hybrid being a marketable answer but I don't think it sold that well.

As for gamepads, I like the SNES style gamepad actually although I grew up with a computer and a two button joystick. Later I was able to scrounge up enough allowance money to buy an Atari 2600 and something like 10 games and a box of controllers for (I swear I think $2 at a garage sale lol). My friend had an Atari which I enjoyed Combat on and my other friend had the Nintendo which was honestly pretty sweet in comparison but cost so much back then it wasn't justifiable.
 
The best time to buy a console is when the old models are super cheap (just after the next model comes out), the programmers have used up all the horsepower the system has using hacks that take years to figure out, and the best games are for sale cheap as classics. I got my XBOX after x360 came out (traded a C64 for it actually) and purchased a ton of games on ebay in large lots (for a couple bucks a piece shipped) when the big sellers were dumping their inventory a few years back. The games I wanted that were not in the lot I snagged 1 at a time for a few dollars shipped, using IGN full detailed reviews and feedback from owners.

In the last few years I did pick up an old school Colecovision and a bunch of carts to play, still have my original Atari 2600 which I added a bunch of games to for next to nothing thanks to ebay. Also got a free Atari 5200 with games but that one needs fixed. New consoles are just too complex game wise for me to bother, I still spend most of my gaming time playing Age of Empires II online for free anyway (1999 era game).
 
Ah... I've got a Gamecube with Gameboy Player rigged to the bottom of it incase I wanna play GB/GB Color/ or GB Advanced games on my TV. I also have a Wii downstairs...

I sold my Xbox 360 and gaveaway my Xbox...

I have NES, SNES, Genesis, Sega CD, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Playstation, PS2, and PS3.

Portabiilty wise I have a Nintendo DS, Playstation Portable (PSP), and a Gameboy color. The original DS plays GBA games.

I bought the Sega CD new at Toys R Us years ago while PSone was still popular. The Sega Saturn came in the NetLink package with a modem and keyboard. The Sega Dreamcast I bought new when it first came out.
 
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