Count to a Million

[Ddude The Insane]

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Wall of teeeeeeeeeext

The one thing I picked up skimming that was "draw distance fog on N64." Need I remind you of Superman 64?

Also Pikmin 2 re-releasing on Wii June 10 as a Nintendo Select for 20 bucks.

-insert elated .gif here-

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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Ahh!! Don't remind me of that monstrosity. D= I'd be happy if I never heard of that game again. D= Does prove the point well, though... Also, sorry about the wall of text. =P

Oh, I didn't know it was a Nintendo Selects; sweet. =D

[Ddude The Insane]

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It's sorta of "so bad, it's good" case. Deep down I kinda wish they'd release it on Wii VC just so I could try it. xD I am such a horrible person...

Also! Elsewhere in the "About @#$!ing time" section of gaming news: Steam gift cards at Gamestop! YESSSSSSSSSS

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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No no no no no. NO NO NO NO NO. Get that thought out of your head. D= Trust me on this; from someone who's played that; you do not want to play that, as you'll destroy either your GC controller or your CCP in the process. D=

Oh good. I wonder if they're here too... *Likely answer is no*

[Flipz]

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.

63084

I can testify to this, the same thing happens to laptops.  I was once watching a movie on my laptop at about 30% battery power.  I accidentally hit the shortcut key that turned the wifi on, and in less than a minute the laptop shut off due to low power.   Though why Nintendo didn't use a smartphone-level battery for the 3DS is beyond me; they really didn't think that one through.  (In fact, Blade, I'd recommend doing some modifications to your 3DS to swap out the DSi battery with something from a modern smartphone--I imagine it would be fairly doable, and would dramatically increase the battery life. )

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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I don't really have a great need for a new battery; maybe if it only lasts an hour between charges eventually. I know there are better batteries out there; but...

As for the why; I'm not sure myself. How long can a typical Smartphone last, anyway?

[MsRowdyRedhead]

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Happy Monday!

[mtmerrick]

I don't really have a great need for a new battery; maybe if it only lasts an hour between charges eventually. I know there are better batteries out there; but...

As for the why; I'm not sure myself. How long can a typical Smartphone last, anyway?

a typical smartphone: dualcore 1.2ghz CPU, dual or quad core 1ghz GPU, 720p display, always-on cellular+4g+bluetooth+gps connections (yes, you use different radios to make calls&texts, 3g, and 4g) powered by a 1800MaH battery

8 hours of battery.

im not gonna say what the new phones coming out are, fairly irrelavant considering the release date of the 3DS (but seriously. GS3, wow.)

You need to compare that to stuff that's not a smartphone, seriously.

ARM chips are ARM chips, in a smartphone, or elsewhere. and as far as form factor, ect go, smartphones are the closest comparison.

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.

Its a Pica200 (pica is the brand, 200 is the model), a single core at 200mhZ. pitiful. yes, there was MUCH better available at the time - say one of the Mali mobile GPUs.

Also, consider that a huge drain is from the backlight.

if they had used an AMOLED screen that wouldn't have been an issue.

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 3ds has a 1300MaH battery. what the heck. my old smartphone had a 1500MaH battery and the battery was the size of a flattened AA battery. modern smartphones last 8 hours with the specs i listed above. specs that were avalible for not-very-expensive when the 3ds came out. that's WITH cellular, 4g, bluetooth and GPS always on. and considering the physical size of the 3ds, and how weirdly big the battery is (biggest 1300 MaH battery i've ever seen) they could have DEFINITELY put a bigger battery in.

They focused on making the second screen touch screen work. That ate in to R&D time and money.

you did not just say that.  

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.

200 MhZ singlecore GPU, with sub-320p screens = no focus on graphics at all.



i would like to point out the kyocera echo, with much better specs, dual screens, and the same 1300 MaH battery that lasts for 4 hours in dual screen mode (the 3ds is rated for 3-5 hours)

and the LG optimus 3d, with just under 7 hours battery life, and again, much better specs, including a 1500 Mah battery.



63087

I can testify to this, the same thing happens to laptops.  I was once watching a movie on my laptop at about 30% battery power.  I accidentally hit the shortcut key that turned the wifi on, and in less than a minute the laptop shut off due to low power.

30% = 1 minute? o_O
well, considering that windows laptops shut off at 5%, that's 25% in 1 minute, which means that you have a 4 minute battery with wifi on?? o_O
seriously, what teh eff?

i have an absolutely pitiful battery and i get 45 minutes for my laptop, with wifi on.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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... *Sighs*

1. Not that much better battery than a 3DS, though it might pull it off even better with the specs.

2. No; you compare it with other handheld consoles. Comparing smartphones and handhelds is like comparing PCs and home consoles, as I keep saying. The two are totally different and separate from each other.\

3. From what I've heard, there are still differences between Pica200s; otherwise we would've gotten a definitive read on the capabilities on the 3DS already, and people would stop bickering about how powerful it is on the 3DS boards elsewhere. And also from what I heard, this chip was custom made for the 3DS; and given that it's been described to be on par with a Wii with better shaders... Also, who makes the Mali?

4. I honestly don't know if that was possible at the time; at least for what they were going for, and the price point they were going for.(Something else that had slipped my mind. =/ The smartphones; they're what... 500 bucks outside a contract? People were up in arms at 250, and Nintendo recognized that and sold at a loss for the past year or so. Nintendo would have to have gone broke to sell the 3DS if it had smartphone-like capabilities. So that's a second reason that handhelds are 'outdated' compared to smartphones... They use older technology, because it's cheaper and more refined; allowing them to sell it at a cheap price, while still pulling a profit.) You also have to factor in the 3D screen; is glasses-free 3D possible on AMOLEDs?(And does it drain the battery quickly, like the OLED does for whites on the PSV?)

5. I'm not defending the battery choice. *Shrugs* Nyko's already proven the battery could be better, and this is using the DSi's already kinda bad battery. I'm simply stating that it is possible to get better than five hours out of the 3DS, and obviously it doesn't drain as quickly in sleep mode.

6. Tell me; how many prototypes would they have gone through to make the touch screen, and make it work for the DS itself? How much time would that have taken? Even if it's a year or two when that was going on(Say a year or two prior to it's release, since it'd be in the prototype stage); the GBA still had revisions being worked on at that point. And really, I doubt mobile technology was that advanced yet in 2005/2006. The only real reason the PSP got to the point it did, was because they didn't split between screens; and likely used some of the technology from the PS1, it's closest counterpart.(Since it's obviously not PS2-level graphics, but is better than the PS1; only slightly under the PS2's capabilities.) I might be wrong; it's a guess from someone who has not been involved in any hardware design things, I openly admit that I could be well off the mark here... But really; that was at a time where the Gamecube was a commercial failure, the Wii was being designed, the DS itself was being designed, and a GBA revision was unknowingly on it's way to dying badly. Coupled with the fact that initially Nintendo seemed hesitant about the DS itself.

7. Given that the PSP's screen only barely beats it, with the 3DS being able to run stuff it couldn't even hope to; I say you're wrong about that. You're once again basing stuff off a totally different market. Just because your smartphone can run Super Angry Birds IV HD Arcade Edition(Name interchangeable with Street Fighter just because that's a common joke. =P), it doesn't mean that everything can afford to have it. Smartphones are expensive pieces of equipment, even if people don't realize it at first. As I said earlier, it'd be about 500 dollars. Therefore, there's a price different of about 330 dollars.

The thing that I keep trying to say though: The game industry, and the phone industry, have one major difference: The phone industry constantly remakes their stuff, adding more features and such, and making use of every single piece of new technology there is available. Between this and the price issue I keep talking about this post, there's a reason that smartphones are able to be on the bleeding edge of technology. Handheld consoles; not so much. But honestly. To say that the 3DS or Vita aren't focusing on graphical power just because they don't run 1080p perfectly on both their screens with 8 hours of battery life and an equally impressive graphics card is just... Wrong. The 3DS is better than almost anything in the handheld console realm; the only thing better being the Vita. Could either have been better? Likely. But, given that they still manage to pull off extremely well looking games, does it really matter that they're not pulling 'true HD', or even HD at all? Especially if it plays well for an affordable price point?

Let me put another reason I keep bringing up the price issue out there: The PS3. It was kinda bleeding edge for it's time. Still didn't compare to the PCs, of course, but it was one of the greatest consoles spec wise, potentially second only to the Xbox 360. The problem was; it never sold. Why? BECAUSE IT COST 600 DOLLARS!! Who, in their right mind, would pay for a $600 console, when they had two WAY cheaper alternatives just waiting, along with the still-alive PS2. Did the XBox 360 and PS3 singlehandedly force the industry to change the way it thought about stuff like graphics? Yes, and perhaps not for the better with everyone demanding HD this, HD that... However; Sony learned a valuable lesson: Don't charge 600 bucks for something! Heck; they're having a hard enough time as it is trying to sell something that's effectively 300 dollars with everything that's needed. If they put in everything needed to make the Vita effectively a smartphone, they probably wouldn't have sold a single unit, since it's be back up in that 600 dollar price range again. If they tried that, Sony would have folded back in February, and I'm kinda glad they weren't silly enough to do that. I kinda like Sony. Microsoft... Let's put it this way, they're trying to fuse IE with one of their products again. =/

[Trijhak]

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Comparing smartphones and handhelds is like comparing PCs and home consoles, as I keep saying. The two are totally different and separate from each other.

No, not completely different. Just that a PC serves a far wider range of things than a console could ever hope to achieve. You could also effectively use a modern-day console in the place of a computer. They're not totally different and separate. They have a lot of similarities for a PC is pretty much superior in most cases.

And I'll leave before the PC elitist in me starts showing.

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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In a way; that's my point. They have similarities; and can handle certain different functions of each other; however, one is not a total replacement for the other.

Also, I like some PC gaming schemes; though some others don't work exactly right.

[mtmerrick]

I'm on my phone, so I'm not going to go point by point against the 3ds anymore, but is it really only $250? Because that's what I bought my Droid charge off contract for. I honestly thought it was more expensive.

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And a PC is better than a console in every way. The only thing it lacks is some proprietary games (eg, Zelda)

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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It's actually less expensive now; it's 170, sometimes selling for less in-store. That's what I meant by 'selling for a loss'. =P

And it's not totally perfect, since not all games feature built in controller support IIRC; but I would argue that that can be fixed, and that PCs are superior in some ways. And it's a system where '1080p' can actually make sense. =P

[mtmerrick]

And it's a system where '1080p' can actually make sense

What on earth do you mean by that? 1080p makes plenty of sense. p is the number of pixels tall screen in landscape mode shows. A 1080p screen is 1080 pixels tall, which is the standard for 'true hd'

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[MsRowdyRedhead]

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...

[Magical Girl Mimi]

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I should've phrased it better. xD I meant that with all the different resolutions a computer can handle, it fits in slightly better.

[mtmerrick]

I still don't get what you're trying to say.

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[Magical Girl Mimi]

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I'm not entirely certain myself. xD Sometimes I type first, and think later. Doesn't always work out well for me. =P

[mtmerrick]

  OK then.

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[Magical Girl Mimi]

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What I was trying to get at was that you have more control over the resolutions on a PC, I think. And that the actual numbers make a little more sense to explain to people unaware of what each number means, if only because they automatically attribute pixels to computers... And... Once again, I'm not entirely certain where I'm going with that. xD