Get out your flamethrowers. Matt targets the DS.Voor al die zeikerds die IGN toch al niets vonden, en het niet meer bezoeken, hieronder de brief en het antwoord..
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Revolution and DS
Hi Matt,
Great job with the site and the recent letter from the editor. I hate to be a fly in your, er, ointment, but here goes...
I have to ask: Are you at all terrified of what this so-called revolution is going to be? The handheld revolution Nintendo unleashed is a gimmicky two-screen device with (as of this month) no games I'm interested in playing. (Best launch title: Mario64 now updated with unrefined controls! Brilliant!)
If the DS is the model for what's going to be happening with the console, I worry about the future of Nintendo. The biggest revolution Nintendo could make would be if they'd stop bucking every single popular trend in videogaming that has worked for the PS2 and the Xbox.
Instead we're getting The Revolution, and what's the big buzz so far? Apparently the Revolution doesn't have to be televised - hook it up to a computer monitor or a TV. (Who cares). Abandon the "complicated" controller. (that a 6-year-old can figure out how to use). And just what nobody asked for, connectivity with the DS (cuz that wasn't at all gimmicky and lame with the Cube/GBA).
I'm all for innovation and creating an exciting new paradigm, but given Nintendo's recent history, I'm just not confident they're capable of producing a revolution that the masses are going to want to be a part of.
Even if you can't discuss it right now, I'm really hoping you know something that the rest of us don't know, something that gives you confidence that Nintendo has some freakin' clue about what they're unleashing in 2006.
Matt responds: Not a lot to say at this point. There is definitely stuff happening. I've talked to some studios and I get the impression that early technical specs are finally being made available, but as far as I know nobody outside of Nintendo understands what the machine is all about. Nor does anybody possess any real development hardware.
To answer your question, I'm excited and simultaneously freaked out by the idea of Revolution. Same as everyone else, I imagine. I can't help but draw parallels to Nintendo's recently released handheld, especially since NCL president Satoru Iwata has hinted that it may offer a hint of what Revolution is meant to be. And frankly, that's where I find myself becoming the skeptic. The DS is a unique handheld, but I'm not yet convinced that it's an example of evolution, or even of grand innovation. I like Feel the Magic. It's a fun game. I like Band Brothers. Also pretty fun. However, both are also fairly shallow. And Mario 64 DS without an analog stick feels like a step backward; so far controlling games with the touch screen for me is not so much an innovation as it is an alternative. To be sure, sometimes touch-screen manipulation is comparatively clumsier than using a plain old D-pad.
This is bound to piss off some of the DS hardcore, but I'm not going to lie: I've been messing around with the PSP for a few weeks now and so far I'm inclined to believe that the handheld is superior to Nintendo's in just about every way where design and technology are concerned. The quality of the screen is leaps and bounds above the two that DS features. The visual and audio abilities of the handheld are far greater. And surprisingly, it's a lot more comfortable to both hold and to use. Meanwhile, as interesting as the gameplay mechanics are in titles like Feel the Magic, I have up to this point enjoyed the formulaic Ridge Racers more than any DS offering.
Nintendo seems to be under the impression that games as they exist today are broken. It wants to reinvent the way people play these games. But so far as I can tell, the DS hasn't fixed anything. Rather, I'd say it's potentially worsened the gameplay experience. I think Metroid Prime Hunters is perhaps the purest example of how this has happened, at least in my estimate. I can't play the game for more than 15 minutes before my hands start to hurt. How is that an improvement for portable gaming?
To be fair, the DS has sold incredibly well for Nintendo and there may yet be a large and growing audience for the handheld. Also, some of the future releases, including Wario Ware Touched!, Yoshi's Touch & Go, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles and Castlevania look to be a lot of fun and may better spotlight the unique attributes of the system.
Still, if Revolution brings similarly untested new control mechanics to the market and asks users to fall in love with them simply because they are different, Nintendo might have an epic uphill battle on its hands. However, I'm hoping that Revolution will be more than that. I'm hoping that Nintendo is not overselling the console when it calls it revolutionary. And unless Nintendo has discovered how to harness magic in order to create realistic videogame environments, I'm desperately hoping that it hasn't abandoned technology as an integral ingredient for Revolution. Really, despite my concerns, and some previous letdowns by the company, I still have faith that it's going to deliver this time around.
I'll be learning more about the nature of the console in the next couple of months. So if I'm in a cheery mood and promising that E3 will be fine and dandy, you can probably guess that anything I've discovered is good news. If, on the other hand, I'm a real bastard and you notice that I'm writing more and more Xbox-related articles, you can assume that Revolution is, in fact, a physical board game with a microphone attached.
En zeg eens eerlijk, dat is best wel waar. DS is prima, maar soms nog wat gimmicky. En Nintendo moet maar oppassen dat ze niet te ver gaan met de Revolution. Erg mooi hoor, maar als Nintendo als enige games ervoor maakt dan daalt hij toch wat in waarde.
En de PSP is natuurlijk ook gewoon cool.