BACK TO THE INDEX. IMO: DS Suggestions. -By Benjamin Rait- -Presented by DMG Ice.com- -May contain Opinion- -Presented September 14th, 2004- -Originally intended for July 08, 2004-

The pen that Nintendo gave out this year at E3, read: “The Future Of Handheld Gaming.” Now, I know that Nintendo had the first successful handheld system in the U.S. and that without Nintendo, we wouldn’t have had the evolution of handhelds that we have seen.  Sony is challenging Nintendo in the handheld arena now, it’s a whole new ball game. In this column I am going to look at what Nintendo has done with the DS, How it might work in day-to-day situations, and what they could do to improve it. When I heard about the new Game Boy, I thought was “Not again! I have spent too much money going from black and white, to color, to Advance.” Putting down another hundred dollars was not at the top of my to-do list. Then I heard about the dual screen. At first I really didn’t believe that they were going to try something like that. Well, I can easily say after playing with it, that two screens can work. The major question is to what extent. Everyone already knows that Nintendo will make use of the dual screens, but what about the third parties? I remember that there was a video interviewing the heads of many third party studios. They were talking about the DS and how cool it is and what might be possible. And I think it is great that they are thinking that way. The real question is whether they can deliver just more than shovelware. In the promotional video, the DS is shown in many different situations. It showed everyone in a family of four using the DS. While I found it interesting that Nintendo found a situation for each person in the family, some of them were far fetched. I think the one that seemed farthest from reality was when a father going to work used his DS to play a coworker; then the boss walks in and takes the DS, (so she can start playing it.) It seems like Nintendo is setting itself up for a fall if they think that families will communicate using the DS. I don’t think many mothers will use a DS to tell their kids to go to sleep, then message their husbands that they are going to have a “good” night. I think it would be more feasible for Nintendo to aim the DS towards the gamers. I think the way that Nintendo is going to get the DS into a gamer’s hands would be to make it essential. But they want to have the DS and GBA SP stay separate. So it is confusing. When Perrin Kaplan was interviewed at E3, her response was giving numbers about the sales of the GBA SP and previous incarnations. And the end result was the “the universe of portable players is going to expand.” Now it makes some sense, because Nintendo is going to try to support two portable gaming devices. It will just be interesting to see how long either system can hold and which one will reign supreme. The reason I say that, is that it doesn’t seem logical to try and support two handheld systems, and to add to that fact, is that the DS is backwards compatible.  It just seems there is going to be a change. It might be that people drop the SP and jump on the DS. Or people will stick with the SP and the DS will become another game.com. I just can’t wait to see how Nintendo handles the DS. -Editorial by Ben Rait- -Property of dmgice.com-