E3 2010: Nintendo

[The Coop]

True, no one's forcing you to buy them. But this generation's theme is, "Hey, let's put out an updated version of our system every nine to twelve months!" The PS3, the 360, the DS... it's reaching rather ridiculous levels.

The old saying used to be "it's obsolete as soon as you open the box" when talking about computers. It was a joke about how quickly the PC hardware gets updated and/or moves forward (and still does). Now consoles and hand helds are just about caught up with that, thanks to revision after revision. You almost don't want to buy something until its market is nearly dead, just so you know there won't be a newer and better version waiting just around the corner.

[jmr]

Anyone who buys a launch release of a new Nintendo handheld isn't paying attention to history. We all know a new and better redesign of the 3DS is waiting on the horizon. Hold on to your money, and get that one instead.

Hmm... just playing devil's advocate here:

• When they designed the GBA-SP, they replaced the headphone jack with a proprietary connector...
  
• My launch model GBA is still kicking (and believe me, it's seen it's fair share of drops), where my brother's GBASP gave up the ghost years ago.
  
• I've seen multiple DS lites with cracked hinges and broken trigger buttons. If the original DS suffered from similar flaws, they certainly weren't as widespread.
  

Just saying that all of Nintendo's handheld revisions over the years haven't always been perfect. And seriously, what are the odds that the revised 3DS would be worth the extra ~2 years wait?

[ocre]

I actually have a tendency to love the 2nd iteration of their handhelds.

- GBA SP <3

- DS Lite <3

[zircon]

True, no one's forcing you to buy them. But this generation's theme is, "Hey, let's put out an updated version of our system every nine to twelve months!" The PS3, the 360, the DS... it's reaching rather ridiculous levels.

The old saying used to be "it's obsolete as soon as you open the box" when talking about computers. It was a joke about how quickly the PC hardware gets updated and/or moves forward (and still does). Now consoles and hand helds are just about caught up with that, thanks to revision after revision. You almost don't want to buy something until its market is nearly dead, just so you know there won't be a newer and better version waiting just around the corner.

The BIG difference though is that computers get obsolete due to faster processors, better RAM, new operating systems, etc. The new console and handheld hardware upgrades and redesigns have been largely cosmetic or adding some very basic additional functionality. You're still able to play all your games just as well, and it's not like there were different games for newer PSPs than older ones. It's all minor stuff. The only system I can think of that really had a MAJOR change was GBA -> GBASP. You absolutely *needed* that backlight.

[Toadofsky]

I'll admit, I probably would wait for the 3DS, especially since I'd like to see a new 2D Mario for it. But a new star fox warrants it for me. Especially if it's the better aspects of Star Fox.

Nintendo really exceeded my low expectations (I try to be realistic with this stuff)

[Sir_Snooze]

newsflash: something being done before doesn't mean that it is automatically bad; sometimes things can be good enough to warrant sequels that aren't complete overhauls

I'm getting kind of sick of all these half-cynic idiots talking about 'Nintendo rehash' while they get all giddy about Gears of fucking War 3 or another god damn Halo or one of the infinite rip-offs of Halo floating around

and don't even get me fucking started on god damn fucking Call of Duty

I want this as a poster or something. Like the Incantation from Dune:

"It is by will alone I set this purchase in motion/

It is by the love of games that the vids acquire playtime/

The playtime becomes fond memories/

The memories demands another, greater yet title/

It is by will alone I set this purchase in motion"

But, yeah - the FPS genre is saturated with 'Generic Space Marine 12 - Gun that Shoots Lightning Pigeons in Gunmetal Grey Environment' (tentative title). Nintendo's franchises have made huge strides; whether it's Galaxy or Epic Yarn, the differences are night and day.

Put Halo 1 and Reach together, and then put Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy 2 together, and then tell me which is samey. Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2, and then Kirby's Adventure-Kirby's Epic Yarn. It becomes plain who's doing the rehashing.

[The Coop]

The BIG difference though is that computers get obsolete due to faster processors, better RAM, new operating systems, etc. The new console and handheld hardware upgrades and redesigns have been largely cosmetic or adding some very basic additional functionality. You're still able to play all your games just as well, and it's not like there were different games for newer PSPs than older ones. It's all minor stuff. The only system I can think of that really had a MAJOR change was GBA -> GBASP. You absolutely *needed* that backlight.

That may have been the biggest change, but I wouldn't down play the rest of the changes. Some were to make them lighter or have longer battery life, some improved the screens or the chips inside for (hopefully) better reliability, some dropped notable features or boosted others... it's at times come off as a haphazard march of not really knowing just what to add or do. And it's still a kick in the shins when you buy a system, and six months later there's a new version with more features, improvements and so forth.

Sure, you can still play all (or at least most of) the games for that system, but you still feel a little on the "SHIT! I knew I should have waited!"-side.

[The Damned]

Wow. I just watched a hands-on video with the 3DS, and it's one glossy fucker. It was brand new and it looked like someone smeared grease over it.

Shiny may look pretty, but it's a nightmare when it comes to fingerprints. That's why my DS Lite has a full-body protective layer around it. It's still shiny, but it doesn't get all smudgy from use.

Also, why the hell is the inside glossed? That's a horrible idea. "Hey, you know that surface you're going to be touching all the time, the one with two screen? Yeah, glossy as polished plastic cover in gloss. Thought you might like that!"

They need to make a matte surface again, like they did with the DSi and XL.

[Overflow]

The designs aren't final, but I second the removal of the glossy interior. It's bad enough when light reflects off the screen into your eyes (and reflections would kind of ruin the 3D effect, wouldn't they?), but having the ENTIRE top half be essentially a mirror just waiting to blind or when the driver turns a corner is not a very good idea.

[zircon]

That may have been the biggest change, but I wouldn't down play the rest of the changes. Some were to make them lighter or have longer battery life, some improved the screens or the chips inside for (hopefully) better reliability, some dropped notable features or boosted others... it's at times come off as a haphazard march of not really knowing just what to add or do. And it's still a kick in the shins when you buy a system, and six months later there's a new version with more features, improvements and so forth.

Sure, you can still play all (or at least most of) the games for that system, but you still feel a little on the "SHIT! I knew I should have waited!"-side.

DS -> DS Lite was purely a size thing. Cosmetic.

DS Lite -> DSi added what, a camera? Again, not a big deal.

DSi -> DSXL, size again, cosmetic.

New iterations of the PS3 are simply smaller. Only the first run of PS3s had backwards compatibility. Yeah, that was a pretty big loss, but generally speaking, not a big deal.

None of the 360 iterations are particularly amazing. Just differences in HD size and maybe RROD reliability. Minor stuff.

The upgraded PSPs have been cosmetic, except for the PSP Go, but even that was more of a form factor change than anything else (and emphasis on downloadable games over physical media.)

None of these hardware upgrades are at all big deals and nobody should feel at all bad or cheated because an upgrade was released. Just look at the list above. Overall it's really minor stuff. The most important thing (and again, what separates these devices from PCs) is that even if you have a 1st run DS, PSP, PS3 or 360, you can play every game in the respective libraries, including ones being released today. The same CANNOT be said of a PC purchased 5 years ago. You can't compare the two like that. I have a DS Lite and a 2nd gen PSP and I don't feel cheated at all at the new iterations, nor do I feel like I should have waited.

The only thing that gets me are the price drops. For example, paying full price for a game only for Amazon to sell it at a discount 3 weeks later.

[Remix Challenge]

Well, I tend to be pretty coherent, but...

Not tonight! I am speechless with wonder! This year is looking to be impossibly exciting! Skyward Sword looks exactly as I hoped they would make their next Zelda game look! I love the merged styles! Once the motion control is not so laggy it'll be amazing!

Gentlemanly Red Raptor!

[The Damned]

Yeah, after watching all the press conferences and reading up on everything so far, I have the feeling that this next year is basically the industry spoiling the hell out of us. Seriously, this is perhaps the best year in a long time. We're getting tons of games not just from everyone, but specifically Nintendo, who is notorious for not pushing lots of games. And to top it off, we're seeing lots of titles that people have been asking for for a long time.

Then we get new portable hardware, final versions of new systems (I don't know if Move and Kinetic count as "accessories" anymore), and lots of third party support all around.

Yes, I believe this will be a good year for everyone... except our bank accounts.

[ambinate]

Put Halo 1 and Reach together, and then put Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Galaxy 2 together, and then tell me which is samey. Call of Duty - Modern Warfare 2, and then Kirby's Adventure-Kirby's Epic Yarn. It becomes plain who's doing the rehashing.

i'm not going to argue that bungie or infinity ward have innovated more than nintendo with their sequels, but i will say that you make your argument look slightly ridiculous when your comparisons involve games that were released over 20 years apart and in different visual dimensions.

i dont even think "visual dimensions" is a real term, that's how silly this is

[Overflow]

Y'know, I the whole rehashing thing has to be defined a little more. For example: People say Mario Galaxy 2 is just "more of the same". That's true, but in this case, the first Galaxy had nautical tons of different gameplay styles and environments, so "more of the same" is actually "even more variety".

Shooters, on the other hand, usually follow the same trend of gameplay styles and environments as the shooter before them, so "more of the same" is just that. The Zelda games are guilty of this, but each one had defining elements, although only a few of them (like the 3-day system or the sailing) were enough to set them apart.

Please note I never said "more of the same" is a bad thing (sometimes, it's great!). I just think a lot of people throw "rehash" out there without fully considering what they're saying.

[Rambo]

DS -> DS Lite was purely a size thing. Cosmetic.

DS Lite -> DSi added what, a camera? Again, not a big deal.

DSi -> DSXL, size again, cosmetic.

afaik...

DS -> DS Lite provided intermediate backlight settings and ~50% longer battery life.

DS Lite -> DSi adopted dlc (including trial versions of games), however lacks a GBA slot?

Not sure of either of those. But that's what I thought.

[BlackPanther]

DS -> DS Lite was purely a size thing. Cosmetic.

DS Lite -> DSi added what, a camera? Again, not a big deal.

DSi -> DSXL, size again, cosmetic.

New iterations of the PS3 are simply smaller. Only the first run of PS3s had backwards compatibility. Yeah, that was a pretty big loss, but generally speaking, not a big deal.

None of the 360 iterations are particularly amazing. Just differences in HD size and maybe RROD reliability. Minor stuff.

The upgraded PSPs have been cosmetic, except for the PSP Go, but even that was more of a form factor change than anything else (and emphasis on downloadable games over physical media.)

None of these hardware upgrades are at all big deals and nobody should feel at all bad or cheated because an upgrade was released. Just look at the list above. Overall it's really minor stuff. The most important thing (and again, what separates these devices from PCs) is that even if you have a 1st run DS, PSP, PS3 or 360, you can play every game in the respective libraries, including ones being released today. The same CANNOT be said of a PC purchased 5 years ago. You can't compare the two like that. I have a DS Lite and a 2nd gen PSP and I don't feel cheated at all at the new iterations, nor do I feel like I should have waited.

The only thing that gets me are the price drops. For example, paying full price for a game only for Amazon to sell it at a discount 3 weeks later.

Even so. Some people may feel like it's not a big deal but I'm the type of person who wants what they paid for. Sure they just added a camera to the dsi (I'm sure there were more changes than that)but it's still worth as much as you paid for with the outdated version. It's like a kick in the balls I feel I don't want to shell out more money for that when they shoulda put it on the ds in the first place.

[The Coop]

DS -> DS Lite was purely a size thing. Cosmetic.

DS Lite -> DSi added what, a camera? Again, not a big deal.

DSi -> DSXL, size again, cosmetic.

DSi dropped GBA compatibility (bad Nintendo! BAD!) and added a slightly bigger set of screens, while DSi XL added even bigger screens (and longer battery life over DSi). DSi also added a faster CPU and more RAM, two digital cameras, voice recording... all sorts of nifty little things.

If someone had just bought a DS Lite four months earlier, I'd understand their being tweaked. Sure, the DS Lite wasn't an enormous jump over DS (though it had some advantages beyond cosmetic), but DSi moved things forward a good bit. DSi XL looks to be the best of the bunch (nice big-ish screens), but who knows if there's one more yet to come.

There's a nice little comparison on Wikipedia if you want to check it out.

New iterations of the PS3 are simply smaller. Only the first run of PS3s had backwards compatibility. Yeah, that was a pretty big loss, but generally speaking, not a big deal.

Not to me or you, but I know a good number of people were pretty upset when it got dropped (usually because they sold or packed away their PS2). I remember people trying like hell to find those 60GB PS3s so they could have the compatibility.

None of the 360 iterations are particularly amazing. Just differences in HD size and maybe RROD reliability. Minor stuff.

Wouldn't call that bolded part minor

What's sad is that it didn't do all that much after all the hype about how much better the Jasper chip was.

The upgraded PSPs have been cosmetic, except for the PSP Go, but even that was more of a form factor change than anything else (and emphasis on downloadable games over physical media.)

I don't know. Dropping the UMD format altogether was a pretty big step. Makes me wonder why they kept "PSP" in the title of the thing given it can't play the original PSP UMDs anymore. That's like calling the DSi the GBA-DS or something.

The most important thing (and again, what separates these devices from PCs) is that even if you have a 1st run DS, PSP, PS3 or 360, you can play every game in the respective libraries, including ones being released today. The same CANNOT be said of a PC purchased 5 years ago. You can't compare the two like that.

Oh I wasn't trying to compare the compatibility aspect of PCs and handhelds, just the constant updating trait. 3 GBAs, 4 PSPs, 4 DSs, 9 (technically speaking) variants of the PS3 and 360... really? Was all that needed?

I have a DS Lite and a 2nd gen PSP and I don't feel cheated at all at the new iterations, nor do I feel like I should have waited.

I mean no offense, but that's you. Other people see those updates differently. WiFi, bigger screens, longer battery life... those are big selling points for some. I know I'd like a 4.2" screen over a 3" one, or a camera to play around with (I still don't have a digital camera... stop laughing).

Keep in mind, I'm not bashing you or anything, so don't take all this in that way. Those aren't big deals to you, and to be honest, a lot of it's not a big deal to me. WiFi, longer battery life... not big sellers IMHO (my systems stay home). But bigger screens, bigger hard drives, more light settings, more reliable hardware... those are important to me, which is why I do my best to wait.

I guess we don't see eye to eye on some of the things with this.

The only thing that gets me are the price drops. For example, paying full price for a game only for Amazon to sell it at a discount 3 weeks later.

That kind of thing irks me to no end. I've gotten things off of Steam, Amazon, Gamestop and them, only to see it discounted a week or two later (Torchlight went on sale not even TWO DAYS after I bought it... that hurt).

[eternal Zero]

Guys. The 3DS is a completely new system. It's not a little upgrade like the DS-Lite -> DSi -> XL (DS->DS Lite actually had a better battery and more settings for backlight like Rambo mentioned).

It's going to be able to output graphics at almost GCN levels. Did you see the new Kid Icarus game? Also the 3D aspect is completely non-gimmick from reports from the show floor and can be adjusted freely. This isn't one of those things where you'll be able to play new 3DS games on your regular DS. This GBC -> GBA again.

[BlackPanther]

Is the 3ds backwards compatable with DS games? If so I'm glad I waited to purchase a handheld from Nintendo lol.

[eternal Zero]

It's speculation at this point IIRC. They are probably going to be using higher capacity cards than regular DS games but in the end it should still be a SD slot? It's quite possible.

Edit:

And barring the unfortunate interference to the Zelda demo (which on the show floor apparently is as good as they say) I thought they were super prepared for their press conference. In my opinion, for anyone old enough to have any kind of nostalgia (and even to those completely new cause hell those were a LOT of reveals) this was the best conference by far. No time wasted on breathing simulators or talking like a commercial. Also no Cammy!

[Benjamin Briggs]

anyone ever get the feeling nintendo is always holding back

I do

[Bleck]

'but if I buy one now, a better one might come out later'

you know this would probably be an important issue if it didn't apply to LITERALLY EVERY SINGLE PRODUCT YOU HAVE EVER OR WILL EVER PURCHASE IN THE ENTIRETY OF YOUR LIFETIME

[Darklink42]

I'll update more when I've actually watched the rest of the presentation, but so far I've seen the videos for the first five games (Zelda, Mario Sports, Wii Party, Just Dance, and Golden Sun.)

Here's my thoughts:

New Zelda: I'm sort of on the fence. I love Zelda, always have. But I have to admit that I was slightly disappointed by Twilight Princess. So I'm worried that Skyward Sword is going to be more of the same. Then again, it looks good, there's now jumping, and some cool new dynamics on old weapons. I also hope that they were really just having technical difficulties, because if the game handles like that when I eventually get it, I'm going to be personally pissed at Miyamoto.

Mario Sports: I actually thought this looked cool, given that I don't care for most Mario Sports game. It'd be nice to have more than one game in a pack, which gives me incentive to actually purchase it so I won't get bored with just one.

Wii Party: Wow, that "family" looked really unenthusiastic. And is it just me, or does Reggie-Mii look creepy?

Just Dance: Meh, don't really care one way or the other.

GOLDEN SUN! Looks good, sounds good, I can't wait for this one.

[The Mutericator]

DSi dropped GBA compatibility (bad Nintendo! BAD!)

Not this again... get over it, Coop. The GBA's dead. It's like you're complaining about the Wii not having N64 compatibility, cripes. Just hold onto your old DS and stop bitching about it.

[Dunther]

It's like you're complaining about the Wii not having N64 compatibility

It has in some way, Virtual Console is a great thing. They should do this for GB/GBC/GBA games on the 3DS...