Since starting Infendo, we’ve paid a lot of attention to the GameCube, Revolution speculation, and a little GBA love. What about the DS though? Having played the thing, I must say it is pretty cool. That said, I’m a little unsure what to think of it. I have a good friend that has been a Nintendophile his whole life, and bought one the day it came out. Sadly to say, he has recently sold his DS on ebay due to a lack of software titles.
Do you think Nintendo missed the boat with DS? If so, why? I’m still perplexed about the whole DS thing though cause apparently it’s selling like hotcakes, or should I say, fish and chips over in Europe (fastest selling gaming system of all time there!). It even seems to be out selling PSP in most areas.
That leads me to ask: what do portable gamers really want? I know the reason I love the GBA SP is that it fits my lifestyle. I rarely have time to sit through an entire game and to be quite honest, most of them aren’t worth sitting though without getting bored. With the GBA, I fire it up, play for a few minutes, and then be done with it. Maybe it’s just me, but i think Nintendo is trying to address what a lot of gamers feel with their whole Revolution strategy. Not all, but a good portion. I’ve even heard that Nintendo refrains from releasing blockbuster titles during the summer to keep kids active. If that’s true, that’s something pretty class and cool for a company of their size to be concerned with.
Nicholas Roussos
Here’s my take on the DS. I think it gets a lot of flack because it’s not what gamers want. It never was that geared toward them. It’s geared toward people. Take my dad for example. I got him a GBA when it first came out. He loved it, but EVERY game gave him fits. He could not get the knack of pushing buttons and using a control pad was pretty sophisticated for him.
enter the DS. I haven’t gotten one for him yet. I don’t even have one, but I could see where it would be so much more fun for him or my mother or my young neice or anyone who hasn’t grown up on video games.
There’s the catch. Most video games take for granted that you have played a lot of video games before this one. And motst games. So, the things they ask you to do are relatively simple, but if you’ve never played a video game beore, something like a FPS can become the most frustrating experience on the face of the earth.
Let’s face it. There are WAY more people who aren’t hardcore gamers than who are. That doesn’t mean Nintendo’s strategy is to ignore gamers. I think they are trying to eliminate the learning curve. Games for everyone.
Blake
Nicholas,
Great explanation and take on the DS. A buddy just told me today that Nintendo is about to announce the new gameboy (for gamers). I don’t know what to think though cause it seems they just keep going back and forth.
Anonymous
My problem with the DS is only the lack of games. Nintendo has so many great games that it could port to the DS (Paper Mario, anyone?) but has not. More games, please.