Count to a Million

[mtmerrick]

Well the screens and screen resolution on it still aren't very good, and I've heard that the previous incarnations of the DS are pretty lackluster in terms of specs, so I'm sure you can understand why I assumed that

And yes, I say the screens aren't very good. I've tried the 3ds out, and as compared to the android devices I use and love, the colors are undersaturated, the resolution is sub-par, the 3d looks like its underwater, and the actual size of the screens is super small.

Go try out an Evo 3D, a One X, or a galaxy nexus, and you'll start laughing at your 3ds too

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[MsRowdyRedhead]

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Happy Sunday!!

[Ddude The Insane]

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They needed to keep the resolution low enough to be backwards-compatible with the DS family.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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Well the screens and screen resolution on it still aren't very good, and I've heard that the previous incarnations of the DS are pretty lackluster in terms of specs, so I'm sure you can understand why I assumed that

The DS wasn't that bad, considering the technology, and the fact that it was running two screens at once. The only problem was that the PSP was designed with technology that was rather advanced; although, you can tell that the DS was on-par with at least some of the PSP games by it's later years. I've only seen a video of one such game, but it is rather good looking.

And the resolution isn't that bad, would it be good to have better? Sure; but something has to give; you either sacrifice the battery life(Would you rather a screen that can render 1024 x 768 with 12 minutes of battery life; or 400 x 260 with an effective display of 800 x 260 with 3-5 hours battery life? Consider that the Vita has the exact same battery life, with it only having to render one larger screen.), the resolution, or one of the screens... And honestly, I'd give up the resolution faster than the touch screen, especially after playing KI:U. =/

And yes, I say the screens aren't very good. I've tried the 3ds out, and as compared to the android devices I use and love, the colors are undersaturated, the resolution is sub-par, the 3d looks like its underwater, and the actual size of the screens is super small.

Could the colours be better? Sure. Is the size of the screen kinda small? Sure; you can tell it better with the DS games in native mode compared to the original models. But; again; something has to give. Your phones use one screen, or even one large screen with one that's effectively simply an advanced trackpad. Ultimately, it's a case of 'drastically different audiences'; as half the power is required by the phones, for the sophisticated features it pulls off; they're more like mini-computers than anything else. It's not really fair to compare something built strictly for gaming, to something initially intended for being a multi-media phone, where you can multitask a call with music or so, with it being built more like a computer in recent years.

Could it use higher specs? Sure; no-one would complain. However, you have to consider that to power that thing, you have to either have a battery that sticks out the back of the handheld console(Emphasis will be explained shortly), and causing it to just look awkward... Or... You have to just generally make the entire console bigger; causing it to not fit in your pocket, which apparently some people dislike happening, judging by how the controller-like Circle Pad Pro is disliked for it's size.

It's a big game of something's gotta give; do you want to sacrifice size? Do you want to sacrifice battery life, and have it die the moment it's unplugged from the wall? Do you want it to sacrifice it's namesake like half the naysayers of the 3DS?(Aka, remove the 3D, which is one of it's big selling points over the Vita, which is still not doing well at all.) It's not a phone, and that's the thing that's basically causing it's lack in power. It does things differently, and unlike the phone industry, which releases a HUGE revision each year, handhelds are built to last. I never thought about this connection before; but it's like the console and PC connection. On one hand, you have PCs, which get rapidly upgraded every year, sometimes every 6 months or less(Sometimes taking even less time to release a new revision than one of Capcom's fighting games, which is a feat). On the other hand, you have consoles; released every 4 to 6 years, but making massive jumps from time to time, either in graphics, or just under-the-hood things, or even controls. Even between consoles themselves, that difference is great, which is noticeable this gen, because of the Wii's focus on motion controls, and the PS360 going 'oh, hey, why don't we go THIS LARGE A POWER GAP! BWAHAHAHA WE'LL BE UNSTOPPAB- ... Wait; what!? How is that 'baby console' outselling US!?!?!?'... The only problem with the graphics stuff, is that there's only so far you can go, and eventually the only thing that can be upgraded, is different shaders, and other things that are done with every revision.

To get to my point here; just as handhelds are counterparts to the consoles, phones could now be called, interestingly enough, a counterpart to PCs in that same way. With Apple's mass rush to never fail to get at least one new iPhone model out the door each year, to every other company trying to one-up each other with new models each other month, the phone industry has been a forced-progression realm, with each year needing to have new systems, otherwise everything will be outdated. However, in the gaming industry, no-one's insane enough to even think of doing that. You might call out Nintendo, or Sony, since they do release revisions, however... They only release them every two years or so, and they're simply to address complaints that have been brought up before(Like the bad backlight for the original DS being updated to have multiple, and brighter, lighting options, or internalizing a Camera in the DSi, or making the screens HUGE in the DSiXL.); whereas they still keep the MAJOR revisions for every 6-8 years, allowing huge jumps like the 3DS and PSVita.

Go try out an Evo 3D, a One X, or a galaxy nexus, and you'll start laughing at your 3ds too

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In retrospect, those entire last two paragraphs should've been in response to this, but oh well. =P Basically, comparing an iPhone or Android phone to a 3DS or Vita is like comparing a 2000-something resolution(I forget the correct resolution for that, apologies) 8gig RAM 4 Terra Hard Drive to a PS360 or the Wii U; it might sound plausible in the initial mulling over of the thought; but it's absurd when you actually stop to consider different factors.

Though, one thing I have to question is how both Sony and Nintendo managed to get such fail batteries, when cell phones can last longer with better screens. 0_o That's going off my limited knowledge of smart phones, though, so they might have just as fail batteries for their capabilities. xD

[mtmerrick]

Well before I make a counterargument, what exactly ARE the internal specs of the 3ds?

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[The Truth]

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Clearly not enough to play TotA without lag.

Honestly, though...all I can say is, the 3DS is infinitely more powerful than my "smart" phone.

[mtmerrick]

But as compared to a snapdragon s4? Or tegra3?

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[The Truth]

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No clue.

On an unrelated note: I would pay all my money for a device that displays whatever I'm imagining on the screen. Perfect for someone like me with no artistic talent whatsoever.

[mtmerrick]

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Oh, agreed so much.

[The Truth]

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It should be possible to make.

[mtmerrick]

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Probably. In theory.

EDIT:

Ok, so the 3ds has a dualcore arm11 chip running at 268mhz, a singlecore pica200 GPU, and 128mb  of ram. The top screen is 800x240 3d, which creates a 400x240 image, and the bottom screen is 320x240.

Regardless of performance, those specs are abyssmal

[Canama]

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Okay, Blade, this is coming from a Nintendo fanboy:

Specways, everything before the N64 after the Gamecube was terrible compared to its same-generation competitors. Every Nintendo portable was too. (Except MAYBE the GBA? I can't think of any other portables in its generation that it competed with.)

They suck. End of story. This is non-negotiable.

They have done some cool things, though. The DS had an interesting gimmick that was used pretty well, say what you will about wagglefest shovelware but the Wii remote could be put to some ingenious uses (especially with MotionPlus), glasses-free 3D is really cool (hurts my eyes, sadly, but I was still impressed), and I'm interested to see how the Wii U will turn out.

In other news, gonna build a gaming PC. Don't get me wrong, I love me some MacBook Pro and I'm not gonna be casting the thing out, but for PC gaming it still hasn't had all the power I need. Dual booting is frustrating, the computer is aging, my HD is too small to allocate it between two OSes and still have enough space for everything, and also Win XP 32-bit sucks (but I could upgrade that without a new computer ). Choosing parts is hard!

-Canama

[The Truth]

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I love the 3DS. I love my Wii.
And I will be one of the first to say that my shoe probably has a better processor and GPU than them.
(Imagine the Wii with a GTX 690 or something. *faints*)

[MsRowdyRedhead]

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Hope everyone remembered Mother's Day.....

[mtmerrick]

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And, with those incredibly underpowered specs, its only able of 5 hours of battery life? Seriously?


@msrr - yes we did.

[Canama]

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I get more than 5 hours out of mine.

-Canama

[The Truth]

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The Power Pak +  addon gives me about 12 hours. Maybe more.

[MsRowdyRedhead]

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I had a great mother's day.. thanks for asking =P

[The Truth]

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I spent most of today shopping with my parents...We're going to my cousin's wedding soon, so we all needed dress clothes.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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Clearly not enough to play TotA without lag.

Honestly, though...all I can say is, the 3DS is infinitely more powerful than my "smart" phone.

Let's put it this way; half that lag was apparently present on the original PS2 version, so... =P

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Probably. In theory.

EDIT:

Ok, so the 3ds has a dualcore arm11 chip running at 268mhz, a singlecore pica200 GPU, and 128mb  of ram. The top screen is 800x240 3d, which creates a 400x240 image, and the bottom screen is 320x240.

Regardless of performance, those specs are abyssmal

You need to compare that to stuff that's not a smartphone, seriously. -_-' (Did you tl;dr my last post? 0_o) Sure, the Vita might be more powerful, but think; probably half the RAM in the 3DS is going to the second screen, maybe less, I don't know the usage, obviously. The GPU might be able to be better; however: We still don't know the exact chip. Last I checked, the Pica was a series of chips, ranging from different types, with this one being a lot more recent. And given the different games recently that have been taking advantage of it's capabilities in early development games... I'm certain there's more than has been shown, by far.

Also, consider that a huge drain is from the backlight. You can get more than five hours, if you disable the always-on Wifi, the 3D, the backlight, and keep the sound off; I haven't tried it though. The biggest problem, is one I keep forgetting to bring up: They ported the DSi battery to this. Why they did that, I have no clue, but that might be another problem. However, when you consider that the Vita has the same problem, with one less screen...

But again; the smartphone industry can have all these amazing updates and upgrades and specs; they have to constantly refine the process, and update specs so that things are constantly evolving, due to models being released every year. Consoles get released on a longer scale; forcing the developers to spend more time with technology that may or may not be outdated, before slowly adjusting to the times to try and get better... However; due to the fast obsoletion of Smartphones; it's obvious that most of them will quickly outperform consoles; because they're updated every year.

The problem, however, is that you do not want Smartphones to replace gaming. PCs, I'd be indifferent to. But smartphones... Touchscreen only gaming leads to complaints; I think the first two Touchscreen controlled Zelda adventures is enough to show that.(I personally liked Phantom Hourglass. Others? Not so much.) And say what you will, but the large amount of non-gamers don't want random buttons on their phones, they just want to use it for it's intended purpose, along with email, music, and other such stuff; with the occasional casual game like Angry Birds(Which you might finally get to stop asking me to play, since my sister has a Playbook, and said game. Whether or not I'll like it, is an obviously different question. =P). They don't need buttons to play a game like Zelda or Tales of the Abyss; because they don't play those anyway. The Vita, I think, was trying to merge the two groups; what with it having Skype and 3G plans and such... However, it's selling like the PS3 did when it was first released... That is, not well at all. Whether that's because of it's lack of games, or it's obscene price(When you factor in the fact that you need a proprietary memory card to even run any of the games, overlooking the fact that it uses a game card like the DS games.)... It's not doing good. This is coming from someone who things the idea is interesting, and is willing to give it a shot; but only if it was cheap, yet still working. I have two of Sony's last four consoles, ranging from Handheld to Home console(Spoiler alert, it's the PS1 and PS2); and was able to test the PSP for about a week or so, beating Maverick Hunter X in the process(=D One of the only games that actually made me want a PSP, and still does. =P). I'm by no means totally against them. However, I don't know if they're making all the right decisions these days, the Vita being one of those decisions. Don't know where I'm going with this, though, so I'll leave it at that. >>'

63071

Okay, Blade, this is coming from a Nintendo fanboy:

Specways, everything before the N64 after the Gamecube was terrible compared to its same-generation competitors. Every Nintendo portable was too. (Except MAYBE the GBA? I can't think of any other portables in its generation that it competed with.)

They suck. End of story. This is non-negotiable.

They have done some cool things, though. The DS had an interesting gimmick that was used pretty well, say what you will about wagglefest shovelware but the Wii remote could be put to some ingenious uses (especially with MotionPlus), glasses-free 3D is really cool (hurts my eyes, sadly, but I was still impressed), and I'm interested to see how the Wii U will turn out.

-Canama

Coming from a Nintendo fan, you'd realize it's only the Gamecube that's really been ahead of the crowd, spec-wise. =P The N64, while a massive jump and competing heavily with the PS1, had it's own spec advantages and disadvantages. Multi-plat games in those days show that well; as though the N64 had the advantage of little to no loading times(Hmm... Reminds me of a certain handheld the last generation. =P), it suffered in the fact that it didn't have quite as good draw distance or so, and required a little more fog for some games.(Case in point: Megaman Legends. It had loading times a lot, and such, but it made up for it in graphical and sound enhancements. The port to the N64, Megaman 64, improved the loading times, but had subtle, yet noticeable in comparison, graphic and sound reductions.)

Basically; Nintendo consoles have never really wanted to be graphic powerhouses; they focus on the games; what makes them fun. I honestly believe the power of the Gamecube was a fluke; which is half why the Wii wasn't as distinctly powerful as the N64 to Gamecube transition. The second is because they took a new approach to focusing on games and what makes them fun, by trying to make it so that you're involved in the game more; and they, IMO, massively succeeded in that. Many will disagree; but honestly. One step closer to virtual reality, and only a handful of people are cheering? What's wrong with you guys? =P </jk>

I'm not trying to defend they suck, honestly. I recognize that the consoles are underpowered compared to their competitors; I'm simply trying to show why they're like that. Let's go over it:

DS: They focused on making the second screen touch screen work. That ate in to R&D time and money. While they still managed to make the amazing jump to N64 quality games, they were absolutely crushed by the PSP in the specs category... Yet, they still won over the PSP, due to having a wide range of games that everyone wanted, while the PSP admittedly was more of the niche corner, that was filled with whatever RPGs the DS didn't get, remakes remakes and more remakes, and other games that don't fit into those two categories. I want a PSP, I won't deny that; simply because there are awesome games I had to pass over because I have a DS(And now 3DS)

Wii: They spent time defining and refining the motion controls for this generation. This took years; I'll repeat that, years. I don't know if anyone else was following the news, but the 'Nintendo Revolution' was announced in, what, 2004? It's controller, and the fact that it was motion-controlled, was never shown until 2005, early 2006. I'd even say it had been in development since maybe 2003, if only because it takes a long time to perfect these things. My point here is that because of all that, and the still alive Gamecube, that likely ate into a lot of their R&D time and money; especially with the DS in development at the same time. In a lot of cases, it's the exact same situation as it is now; except with slight differences. At the time of it's creation, the Gamecube was in dead last. Why, I have no clue, but it's been theorized that it was the whole 'purple lunchbox' design. I don't care myself, but I honestly have no clue what they were thinking with the design, though the controller was perfect. =D Basically; because they had spent so much time developing the focus on motion controls, they barely had time to focus on graphical upgrades... And I don't think anyone expected the massive graphics leap that the PS360 pulled off. Maybe slightly better graphics, but the PS2 graphics weren't bad at all themselves, with it having the worst specs. Then somehow they manage to go and crank the graphics up to 11, and make both their console and the XBox staples of graphical design? 0_o

To sum that part up, they put more emphasis into gameplay than graphics.

3DS: I honestly have no clue what happened. They obviously liked the clamshell design of the DS line, and wanted to stick with the DS much like they did the Game Boy for so many years. Therefore, they totally overhauled everything, adding a Slide Pad like was requested for the original DS, upgrading the graphics heavily, and focusing on adding both the gyroscope and the 3D, which obviously took power. Everything was looking fine, what with awesome looking games, and such. Then came the PSVita. This happened after the very rough launch, where the games were released later than expected, including the system selling Ocarina of Time, which wasn't even out yet! How the heck they managed to stuff so much into that handheld, I have no clue still. However, they managed it, and even rectified the obvious design flaw from both the PSP and 3DS... The second slide pad. Obviously Nintendo slapped themselves on the face once they realized what they forgot, and I even am one who defends that issue typically. =P Hence, the Circle Pad Pro. Anyway; the only other problem here, is the advent of the computer-in-your-hand Smartphones, who have the ability to show computer-resolution images, on a handheld device. Which brings us into this discussion. But the main point here, is that they did manage to put a focus on graphics for this, and even added in an optional features to make others feel impressed. The problem was that they got one-upped by both Sony and the growing disinterest in gaming handhelds due to 'smartphones'.  They tried; they really did. However, there's only so much you can do with something that small, powering two, effectively three screens at once, without increasing the size, and forcing complaints like with the Circle Pad Pro add-on's size.

This part isn't really directed to anyone, It's just the better place. =P

63074

And, with those incredibly underpowered specs, its only able of 5 hours of battery life? Seriously?

Let's put it this way; you've got two screens. All running on max brightness. One accepting inputs because it's a touch screen. One allowing 3D, having two layers to it to pull that off, effectively powering two screens in one(If you look closely, ignoring the double images it's sure to give, you can note that; it's part of the reason it suddenly gets brighter when you turn 3D on.). You also have wi-fi on all the time, looking for connections even when there's no-one around. And usually you have the volume up to play. And it's running off the DSi battery, which wasn't really anything to write home about in the first place.

Is it really that hard to believe that it wouldn't have much of a good battery life, even if it's 'underpowered'? And again, the Vita does even worse still, since it doesn't have the excuse of having two screens or 3D to back it up. =P

Also, the best way to explain it, is to tell someone to leave their DS/DS Lite on, with Wi-fi activated, all the time they're playing. Best place would be to test is on Animal Crossing, since that's achievable. You're going to have it die, quickly. Especially if it's on the Lite, with the improved screen brightness. No-one considers how much the Wi-Fi eats at your battery; but I know it for a fact: There's a reason I consistently plug in my DS to charge if I go to play a game over Wi-Fi on that. The Wi-Fi drains the battery quicker than anything.