One of the few disappointments of Japan was the fact that the Nintendo DS lite was so hard to find. Nearly all the electronics shops had sold out and those that had stock were selling at the full rrp of 16,800yen (£80). I've heard that this console is the fastest selling of all time. In addition to this the games were £20 and we'd need stepdown convertors (Japan runs at 100V and some devices are so sensitive that even the US standard of 110V would damage them so the UK's 240V was a big no-no). Although I returned emptyhanded I had seen a good deal from Australia. From £100 including shipping we could get the DS lite and a copy of the new Mario game a month before they were available in the UK (and £25 cheaper). As an extra bonus, Australia also runs at 240V so we just needed an adaptor plug. The systems turned up a mere 5 days after ordering (and no import tax) so Blondie and I have been in gaming nirvana ever since. He's picked up Tiger Woods 2005 and Bomberman and I've aquired Mario Kart. The nice thing about DS games is that you don't each need a copy of the game to play multiplayer. In addition, Nintendo has negotiated loads of free wifi hotspots across the country where you can play people across the world for free. To my surprise there are loads in Durham including the New Inn, 24 North Bailey and even Chad's JCR. Nintendo have also dropped region protection, so games from anywhere in the world will work in all DS'.
After being out of gaming for the best part of 10 years since the SNES it feels weird going back in (Gamecube, DS lite and next up: the Wii). Still this time around I'm far more frugal so I should be able to get the games a lot cheaper. Initially I doubted how good the DS was. I mean, a dual screen handheld with a touch screen? But there are some really innovative games out such as Pheonix Wright (a Japanaese lawyer simulator where you do things like shout objection into the built in microphone) and Trauma Centre (where you perform operations on the touch screen) and the newly released Brain-Training that has got most of Japan hooked. Nintendo proclaim they're trying to appeal to the non-gamer and with the demographics of those playing Brain Training in Japan, they may be onto a winner...
Have a look at the E3 promos for the Wii here and here. I think the reason I lost interest in gaming was it was becoming so bland. Now the xBox360 is just a jumped up PC and the PS3 is going to cost nearly £500 (for a games console!!!) where as Nintendo are doing something different (and cheap - 25,000yen/$250 max). The video speaks for itself.
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2 comments:
Hey,
It's a cute lil thing. My brother wants to get a psp - they look really cool! Whaddya think?
I'll back up my arguement with a story. The sad fact is that nowadays, industries like this go around in circles where the leader becomes arrogant and think it knows best. It happened to Nintendo about 10 years ago. The SNES was on top and Sega were struggling after the dual flop of the MegaCD and the 32X. They demanded a large fee from people who wanted to release games on their systems, sued anyone who tried to get around their region protection and refused to release games like Mario RPG outside Japan. They even dropped Sony halfway into their plan to create a CD add-on for the SNES. This proved to be major thing they did wrong as Sony devloped this prototype into the Playstation. Now it seems to be Sony who are being arrogant. The problem with the PSP is that it's overpriced and has a lot of "issues". It's got a 333MHz cpu, but Sony have locked it to 222MHz to avoid the battery dying after about an hour. It uses really expensive Sony Memory sticks and the whole UMD video thing is pointless as they cost just as much as DVDs and you can only watch them on a PSP - in fact 3 studios have withdrawn support. Finally (and possibly the most important) the games are simply nothing special - merely cut down versions of PS2 games. Sony are being very lazy and relying on the coolness of the Playstation brand to sell the console without innovating at all. To continue the story, Sony are slowly forcing updates that prevent people from "tinkering" with the PSP and have region locked some games. By contrast, Nintendo - once the evil empire of gaming - seem happy to let people tinker with the DS and have left console and games unlocked (hence the Australian DS Lites we now own). There are adaptors to let you play mp3/mpeg4s from cheap SD cards and most importantly: the games are novel and are pretty much DS exclusive. The sheer number of Japanese-style games that are making it over to the West (Pheonix Wright, Brain Training etc) is staggering. In short then, the PSP is all about image where as I'm sure the DS isn't particularly cool, but it definately delivers. And is that doesn't persuade anyone - the DS has Mario Kart which is currently consuming my life. We need to get Sam over for some 3 player action before he leaves.
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