Stuaz wrote:

I heard you can get internet on the DS how???

Internet access for multi play is coming soon, Nintendo just announced it. I think you would be able to chat too.

GadgetGirl wrote:

am yet to check out Ping Pals but Feel the Magic is both weird and good

GadgetGirl, what do you mean by “weird and good”?

PS: I noticed a striking similarity between your avatar and the below pic. Any relation?

trophyofgrace wrote:

What haven’t they ported the Ocarina of Time to?

AFAIK it’s never been on anything but N64, unless you just mean Zelda in general.

trophyofgrace wrote:

Well, the game-makers will port them (like the Urbz) to get more money.

That’s for sure! With the current dearth of DS games people will buy anything. :rolleyes:

I hope N ports Ocarina of Time to the DS; I’d buy it again.

reidme wrote:

It’s easy to port GBA games, just plug ‘em in! The DS has enough power to port N64 games (like Mario 64).

Well, the game-makers will port them (like the Urbz) to get more money.

trophyofgrace wrote:

I think many DS games will be simply ports of the GBA until programmers get to know it better.

It’s easy to port GBA games, just plug ‘em in! The DS has enough power to port N64 games (like Mario 64).

GadgetGirl wrote:

I love pictochat and since we have two DS in our house this can keep us entertained on its own for hours.

That’s a problem for me: someone to link up with! In my area the DS is in short supply, so finding someone else to play with is a rare event. The store where the system was reserved called up on the first day they shipped, and said if it was not picked up that night they would sell it.

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-11721-1340-4-6-x

=====================================
Q: How long does the PSP’s battery last?

A: The short answer is that it depends on what you’re doing. The longer answer is that Sony has stated that the battery should last around six hours. With simpler-looking games, like Lumines or Mahjong Fight Club, that definitely seems to be the case. But with more graphically intensive games, like Ridge Racers, the battery doesn’t last quite as long. Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life. The system has an auto-sleep function that stops the wireless drain, but that switch is there for a reason. Turn it off when you’re not using it.

Video and audio will likely drain the battery differently, depending on where the content is coming from. It’s less power-intensive to read from the memory stick slot than the universal media disc drive, though without any audio discs and only one demo video disc full of short games and movie trailers available now, it’s difficult to actually put a number on this. Considering that the screen will black out if left unattended, it seems reasonable that you should get a good amount of battery power out of the system when listening to audio.
=====================================

90 minutes to three hours with a graphically intensive game? And the power usage gets WORSE when you’re using the wireless….

I hope Sony sells extended battery packs, or makes it REAL easy to switch battery packs out – as it is, anyone who sells a ‘plug-in battery pack’ for this thing’s going to make a killing; it sounds like you NEED one to play a PSP. God help you if you’re playing an RPG or a puzzle game that needs you to play for hours.

And I’ve been averaging 6-7 hours with my DS games.

CDs and DVDs are, as noted, a lot cheaper to produce. But they also require more supporting hardware than a cart does – as the cart is flash RAM and ROM, it plugs straight into the system and requires little extra equipment, thus allowing cart-based systems to load more quickly (they’re part of the memory bus at this point) and to take less power (only what’s needed to read and write to RAM/flash RAM). DVDs, CDs, and the UMD, on the other hand, require buffer memory for the drive proper to allow stuff being read off it to be transferred into system memory without having to constantly spin the drive, a laser, motors to spin the disc, some sort of stabilization system if it’s portable (lest your player take 5 minutes to load anything if you’re on a bus or walking along), among other things. All that takes power, though with more RAM you can spin the drive less… but that RAM is going to be expensive, depending on how much you need and how much data you have to store to keep the drive from eating up all your power.

And yes, the DS is not a Game Boy – but it’s replaced my GBA in many applications, because I can play GBA games on a better screen. However, the GBA cartridge slot is referred to in the DS literature as an expansion port… which is promising, especially if they ever allow this thing full Internet access with a headset.

TungstenT2 wrote:

I own a GBA, but haven’t bought a new game or gameboy in years. I don’t understand why GBA games are as expensive as console games, when they are typically much shorter, and in general require less programming and artwork.

I believe a lot of it has to do with the cost of Cartridges and memory chips, which simply cost a lot more than the CDs/DVDs used in current console generations. If you remember the N64 era, carts used to cost an astronomical amount–I remember paying 70-80 dollars for some games.

———-
Also, I’d like to repeat what Haesslich said: The DS is NOT a Game Boy. It is not supposed to be a replacement for the Game Boy line up. Its a whole new system; a “third pillar.” I think the N included the GBA slot for two reasons: entice users that clamour for backward compatbility, and (more importantly) for future expansion. There have been reports of users of the DS who use flashcarts have seen messages like “rumble expansion detected” and other similar messages that hint at future expansion possiblities.

It’s just like the PS2 hype when it first started. I expect eBay’ll be loaded with $2500 PSP’s in a month or so.

“Sony to ship true MP3 HDD music player next month
By Tony Smith
Published Tuesday 30th November 2004 13:56 GMT

[I]Sony will ship a third model in its hard drive-based Network Walkman series on 10 December, finally bringing native MP3 support to the music player family.

The NW-HD3 …. MP3 support that really sets the new model aside. The previous versions forced users to convert MP3 files over to 48Kbps ATRAC 3 Plus files as they were copied across to the player. A new version of Sony’s SonicStage jukebox software, 2.3, will now allows MP3s to be copied directly to the player without conversion. The NW-HD3 provides native MP3 playback, but it also wraps the files a OpenMG DRM layer to prevent them from being copied back to another PC, Sony said.[/I]”

You know, if they keep that in the PSP as well, as I suspect they may… well, that’ll get the people excited about the multimedia functionality of it upset. I recall them pushing that as the BIG difference with the PSP – the multimedia capabilities, on TOP of the fact it can play games. You can watch movies, listen to MP3′s (ergo the remote), and so on.

I own a GBA, but haven’t bought a new game or gameboy in years. I don’t understand why GBA games are as expensive as console games, when they are typically much shorter, and in general require less programming and artwork.

The only game for GBA I’ve actually kept is WarioWare.

You know, if the PSP or DS had some “classic” games built it, I would probably buy it. Wouldn’t it be cool if you could powerup an empty Nintendo DS, and find the original Mario Bros, Legend of Zelda, and Metroid in ROM?

I think it will all come down to which system has the first “must-have” game.