If you’re looking to see what the next greatest DS hand-held will look like, plan to wait until Nintendo starts to see declining sales trends for their current DS hardware. Sensible from Nintendo’s standpoint, but a major bummer for those hand-held gamers who want to see something new and cool out of the Nintendo camp.
While the DS sells great, many of us tech fans would love to see what a new generation of DS would look like. Perhaps something closer to the iPod touch in screen size and touch-abilities with real WiFi capabilities connecting to the Internet? Wouldn’t it be neat if they added GPS location and tilt abilities much akin to the iPhone or iPod Touch?
Personally, I envision a system where you are in total control of your character from leaning, to sliding, to moving your fingers around the screen and communicating over the Internet sharing high scores, drop-in drop-out multiplayer titles with complete voice communications.
Alas, Nintendo tends to gimp most of their hardware from hot innovation such as Internet communication, much like the Wii. While Nintendo has the next-generation capabilities now for Internet communication they’ve constantly opted to have a more useless version of connectivity to “protect the consumer.”
We need a DS store, much like the Xbox Live Marketplace for downloading DS casual games, considering DS game size is much smaller than a PC, PS3 or Xbox 360 title. We need a smaller form factor mimicking the iPod in thickness and durability with a larger screen or unfolding dual screen to double the size of an iPod style play area.
Hardware innovation seems to be more acceptable to Sony and their PSP product while Nintendo always opts for something more simple. Unfortunately, the PSP cannot compete against the DS which will leave them in the lead with very little desire to re-up their hardware with new capabilities and sexy new designs.
Oddly enough, the DS is the perfect device for the mass market which means they’re not going to be forced to innovate beyond its current capabilities for now. Apparently people don’t desire huge leaps in technology, screen size and speed, or we’d would probably see a decline or dis-interest in the DS hardware, thus forcing Nintendo to re-innovate and evolve.
The day will come, but probably not for a long time.
I enjoyed watching the press conferences this year. I’ve been waiting to see Mirror’s Edge and Assassins Creed, but also took an interest in a few titles I didn’t know anything about. I absolutely loves that it was less talking and more videos.
I mainly play The Sims series, so what I took away from E3 was the information released about The Sims 4.
I was glad to hear that there is an autosave feature since my Sims 3 game has crashed so many times and I’ve ended up losing hours of gaming. I also enjoyed seeing the new feature: The Gallery (Similair to The Sims 3 exchange) and hearing that it would be in-game.
I am glad to hear that the lots our sims visit will actually be full with people. I am excited to see what the emotions system is going to be like. The world looks great and I am just really excited about the Sims 4. I am counting down until September 2.