Nintendo Dual Screen. Deel 4.

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Dual Screens: Two LCD screens offer one of the most groundbreaking game-play advances ever developed: experiencing a game from two perspectives at once. Imagine the possibilities. In a racing game, drivers might see their own vehicle's perspective on one screen and an overall track view on the other. In a role-playing game, the action could take place on the first screen while the second provides a reference for a player's tools inventory. Game play also could use both screens at once, offering a giant boss for heroes to defeat. In the future, games could be created allowing users to play games on one screen while text messaging other DS users on the other. Each 3-inch screen can reproduce a true 3-D view and is backlit to assure comfortable play in any lighting condition.

Touch Screen: The lower screen will offer something never before provided by any game device: PDA-like touch capabilities. Players no longer have to rely on just buttons to move characters or shift perspectives. They can navigate menus or access inventory items simply by touching the screen with stylus or fingertip. A software-based keyboard might even allow the screen to be used as an input center for games and messaging. The possibilities are limited only by developers' imaginations. The screen will have a tougher film cover for durability, and will come with a stylus.

Microphone: An available microphone port means that in the future, players might need only to tell their games what to do. DS software could identify everything from voice commands to hand-clapping. Players might be able to move their characters simply by telling them which way to go. The voice capabilities also could allow gamers to chat with one another over the Internet while playing.

Wireless: DS users will be able to connect with a local wireless network of up to 16 players. Nintendo's guaranteed range is 30 feet, but will extend far beyond that depending on circumstances. It assures high response rates required for real time game play, and will make use of both IEEE 802.11 and Nintendo's proprietary communication protocol, which provides low battery consumption. Players will be able to chat and play games without any connecting cords, completely untethered. The DS technology also provides for a wireless LAN connection, which could allow a theoretically infinite number of players to connect at a hot spot and compete at a central game hub on the Internet, even if they're thousands of miles apart.

Wireless Game Sharing: If software developers desire, multiple players can compete in wireless games, even if only one person has a game card inserted. Players could also test-play games for themselves as long as they stayed connected.

3-D: With the newly developed graphics engine, DS can reproduce impressive 3-D renderings that can surpass images displayed on the Nintendo® 64. Games will run at 60 frames per second, and allow details like fog effects and cel shading.

Sound: The 16-channel sound allows for greatly expanded use of voices and music, and a richer, more immersive game experience. A plug for headphones transmits stereo sound.

Battery & Power Management: The battery is rechargeable and the unit features a low-energy-consumption design. The DS also has Power Management functions of Sleep mode and Standby mode. In Sleep mode, players can stop and resume game play whenever they like. If the user receives a message from a friend or user nearby, DS activates itself from Standby mode.

Processing: The unit will run on two processors, one ARM9 one ARM7.

New Media: For its compact cards, the unit uses newly developed semiconductor memory, which allows for lower cost, shorter manufacturing time and memory capacity of more than one gigabit of information.

Dual Slots: Nintendo DS makes a vast library of Game Boy® Advance games readily available. Developers could find ways to make new connections between GBA games and DS games. The GBA port could be used for new hardware, enormously expanding the functional expandability of the DS.

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A Developer's View on DS
I always say the best way to see everything at E3 is staying home, reading articles and watching videos on the net. So while I was busy writing pages for the Dutch 'Official PlayStation Magazine' — yeah I do that too — a Nintendo Watch informant who's not attending the show sent me his opinion on the Dual-Screen handheld. This 'Dr. Suna' is actually a portable games developer himself, too busy with some interesting projects to fly over to LA but apparently not too busy to write in.

"At their E3 press conference yesterday Nintendo showed the Nintendo DS for the first time. Dual Screen? Developer System? Whatever you call it, all has been revealed and everyone has an opinion about it, myself included.

"Looking at the press conference via the webcast I noticed Nintendo seems truly excited about the device and has convinced a fair amount of developers and publishers as well. This actually surprised me, as with the DS I get the same feeling I got when 'connectivity' was all Nintendo talked about. And we all know how that turned out. Maybe I'm wrong this time, maybe I'm not.

"Don't get me wrong, I actually love the ideas behind the machine. The touch-screen for example has got me really excited — I lost lots of valuable sleep last night thinking of all the possibilities. Even though this type of interface has been around for ages on PDAs it has never been used for a pure bred gaming machine. A good analogy is EyeToy. Webcams have been around for over a decade but it took a bright mind at SCEE's Team London to turn it into the most accessible videogame experience yet. Expect good things from the touch-screen interface.

"The wireless capabilities are great as well. While the obvious star is the Wi-Fi compatibility, I think one little sentence from the speech Reggie gave during the press conference points to a very important factor in the success of the unit in Japan: "DS will even connect for you, springing to life from sleep mode once you're in range of someone else." Who remembers the Lovegety from the late nineties? I think we're going to see a lot of similar applications for DS.

"As for the two screens, I basically see it as a necessity to prevent you from obscuring the playing area while using the touch-screen — I don't think there is a real need for having two screens at all. I also think that this will be one of the problems Nintendo will be facing when courting developers and publishers. I imagine they'll require developers to use the two screens, while a lot of developers will just want to make a port of or sequel to an existing game. This will result in half-assed attempts like a lot of the connectivity features on GameCube, and possibly in developers flocking to the PSP.

"Another problem for Nintendo could be the 3D performance of the DS. Based off of the movies released on the internet so far I'd say that the 3D performance is comparable to that of the original PlayStation. While I think Nintendo, referring to the successor of the GameCube, is right in stating that people are not interested in just graphical enhancements, I also think it's completely different in the handheld market. There the 3D revolution has not happened yet, and the DS will be compared to the PSP because of that. Maybe they should have put the money for the second screen in a dedicated 3D processor instead.

"Ultimately I don't expect the DS to be around as long as the Game Boy has. I give it a couple of years, producing at least ten must-have titles and ending up as the Dreamcast of the portables — a misunderstood machine loved by hardcore game players and ignored by the mass market consumer."