More Nintendo Love…
Tuesday, December 18th, 2007I was going to do a podcast about my recent infatuation with the Nintendo DS Lite, and I might still, but in my current fit of love for the little (in my case) white machine, there are things I want to say that I just can’t find the time for to record. As an aside, if you know my podcasting style, you know it will never sound as good in an mp3 as it looks on paper (or screen in this case).
So why is it that Nintendo manages to sell more units of the DS then the Play Station Portable, Play Station III and XBox 360 combined? The Nintendo DS has something that the other three machines do not. It is NOT a hardcore-gamers’-machine-of-choice. If you want cool graphics, fast game play, have a device that also plays DVD’s (or ‘whatever-color-ray, as the case may be), awesome sound, and all that other good stuff you need for a frag-fest… well the DS is going to leave you out in the cold.
Not that the DS has lousy graphics, just not as good as the PSP. It’s not that the DS has crappy sound, just not as good as well… Again, the PSP. However, it is smaller and it appeals to an audience that is far larger then the hardcore game boys (yes, pun intended). The biggest reason for its appeal to that larger audience is the user interface. Let’s face it, there are far more people that are not very skilled at pushing insane combinations of buttons and triggers while using a thumb-stick and a directional pad all at the same time as there are that would.
When I told a friend what was so cool about the DS, he said: Please don’t say it’s the pen! Well guess what? It is. The DS allows me (and all these other poor people that are being misunderstood by the frag-frenzied game-manufacturers) to play games that I would otherwise never play on a computer, let alone on a portable.
But hey, I can sit in the waiting room of the car dealer and play crosswords! Why is that so cool? After all I can sit in that same waiting room with a newspaper. The touch screen and the handwriting recognition make it BETTER than the real thing. I don’t just have today’s puzzle, I have about a thousand. I can write on the screen, and when I make a mistake… Tap tap and it’s gone! Try that with the NY Times and your sharpie.
I have shown the crosswords game to several unlikely-to-ever-buy-a-handheld-game-device puzzle afficionados, and they all PROMPTLY went out and bought a DS and the NY Times Crosswords game. I have to admit that at first I thought that was more than a little nuts. I mean, why buy a 120 dollar machine and a 30 dollar game just to do crosswords? But the fact is, that YES, the experience is so much better, and to get over a 1000 crosswords you would have to buy the newspaper every day for several years. Let’s not forget that on Sundays that periodical costs something like five bucks! OUCH!
But it’s not just crosswords. The user interface of the DS allows gameplay that is impossible on other machines. Take BrainAge, for instance. If it weren’t for the stylus and touch screen, that game would not be possible. In one of the BrainAge 2 challenges, the player is asked to quickly write a series of symbols that correspond to a number. The number is shown and it’s the players’ task to find the correct symbol on the list and write it on the touch screen. Maybe it could be done on a PC, although your hands would be flying all over the keyboard, but it cannot be done on any other console or handheld device.It’s keeping your hand in place and quickly writing on the screen (and the handwriting recognition is phenomenal) that makes it work.
Tetris DS contains a variation on the classic Tetris, that is simply impossible to play if it weren’t for the touch screen. None of these are typical “gamer games”. But that is the beauty of it. Nintendo managed to build a gaming device that appeals to non-gamers. And let’s face it, there are far more of them then there are of us. So the high sales figures, without much press coverage, should really come as no surprise.
I’ve never been a big fan of browsing the web on any kind of portable, or rather pocketable device. If it doesn’t contain a full-size keyboard, it’s just a hassle. And no, blackberries do not have a full size keyboard. whoever came up with the idea that something is full-size just because it’s qwerty should be in jail. I am not alone in this. Basically anyone that ever had to type out a long URL on a cell phone (even worse when not a qwerty lay-out) will have to agree. Then there is the screen size. The web was made for big screens, or at least bigger then those of cell phones!
All that changed when I got the Nintendo DS Browser, which is simply –like the Wii browser, a repackaged version of Opera. While each of the the Dual Screens (DS) is smaller than the iPhone, the fact that there are two them. makes this browser a blast to work with. I can pick between an on-screen keyboard or handwriting to enter text (which all happens in the bottom screen). I can select “overview” mode which allows me to have the entire web page in the bottom screen while the top screen shows me a zoomed version, or I can select to have the entire web page in 2 screens in “SSR” mode which is good for the mobile versions of twitter, gmail, jaiku, and ebuddy (a web enabled IM app).
The DS is not just a gaming machine. Depending on how you look at it, it’s a PDA that plays cool games or a game console that can also be used like a PDA. Step into any McDonalds nation wide and enjoy free wifi access. Matter of fact, whenever the hot-spot is provided by WayPort, the Nintendo DS gives free internet access. Good to know when I am running out of “juice” on my cell-phone data-plan. Again, something I’d really rather not use to access the internet.
But wait, there is more! The DS allows me to play guitar, rather realistically due to its touch screen and stylus. People ported Linux to the DS, others use it to make VoIP phone calls. Notepads, drawing tools, MP3 Players and personal organizers are all available for the DS, that can be had with little or no hassle (read modifications). Another friend mentioned the “one laptop per child” initiative. I honestly think they should have been looking at the NDS. Here is a device that retails for 120 dollars. A far cry from the expensive laptops that are a nuisance to lug around. The NDS is small, cheap and versatile. It does practically anything (if not everything) an expensive laptop can do. What is not to love? Next time you see me at McDonalds, playing with my Nintendo, I’m most likely not playing Tetris, or Zelda. More likely, I am writing a Tweet while updating a database server clear across town, simultaneously being in a VoIP call with my business partner, getting ketchup on my good shirt. Nintendo… Phew, it’s hard work!
