Message #312672

[Magical Girl Mimi]

63088

... *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 So that's a second reason that handhelds are 'outdated' compared to smartphones...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. =/