Nintendo 3DS business future *spawn

No, there's also subsidized phones, like my not so budget iPhone 4 for $200.

I know full well that the real cost over time is more than that, but I couldn't care less: I want the thing anyway and, for AT&T, an unsubsidized unlimited data plan costs the same. So, for me, it's $200. Mentally much easier to pay than an up front payment of, say, $600.

I'm sure most people think about it the same way.

Obviously thats not a 200 euro smartphone as you still pay 600 euros for it over 2 years. You wanting it anyway and not having to pay it all at once doesn't change that, at the end of the day it will costs you 600 euros and for 600 euros you buy a 3DS and 10 games. Tell me what do you think will be the best choice for anybody interrested in gaming?
 
No, there's also subsidized phones, like my not so budget iPhone 4 for $200.

I know full well that the real cost over time is more than that, but I couldn't care less: I want the thing anyway and, for AT&T, an unsubsidized unlimited data plan costs the same. So, for me, it's $200. Mentally much easier to pay than an up front payment of, say, $600.

I'm sure most people think about it the same way.

But the "cheap phone with big plan" isn't how all countries carriers sell the phones
 
Sure. But how many of those people are willing to spend 40 euros on a game? because your not going to get a full FF, GT, Zelda or Dragon Quest for less than that. Thats the whole point of mobile gaming.

Big-budget console franchises are the whole point of mobile gaming? I remember a lot of opining over the years that PSP development costs were untenably high, and that the resulting console titles shoehorned into a handheld made for subpar experiences compared to the simpler DS library.

Sure, budget smartphones. In the major markets where handhelds are sold (us/jap/eu) a decent smartphone is much more expensive.

Every so often this board needs to be reminded of the existence of something:

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This is the iPod touch. It starts at $229.

DS has 114 games that sold over a million and a total 773million games sold. Suddenly multiple games that sold in high numbers doesnt really sound all that impresive.

The DS is the best-selling handheld in history. Very little sounds impressive next to that.
There are, however, more iOS devices out there than DSes. And extrapolating from October's data, there have been around 8 billion downloads from the App Store.
 
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Guess Nintendo using a tiny battery is finally starting to hurt them :/

That or smartphones have made 3 hours of gaming acceptable.
 
Guess Nintendo using a tiny battery is finally starting to hurt them :/

That or smartphones have made 3 hours of gaming acceptable.

Or you just don't know all the facts (see above)..

Also 3DS uses a 1300mAh battery, how is that tiny?
 
It's difficult for me to understand the 3DS translation by google, can someone break it down for me? The numbers seemed something like:

- 3 hours for 3DS games
- 5 hours for DS games
- 8 hours for DS games at low brightness

But this could be WAY off.

Yeah, DSi is 3-4 hours at highest brightness, but that's not awfully significant as that's far brighter than anyone really needs to play it at. I didn't see a clear delineation of LCD brightness vs battery life for 3DS, just one mention of increasing it by lowering it.. that could mean 8 hours at a brightness level equivalent to lowest on DSi, and possibly for DS games and not 3DS ones which is a big step backwards from DSi. But that's pessimistic.
 
Sure. But how many of those people are willing to spend 40 euros on a game? because your not going to get a full FF, GT, Zelda or Dragon Quest for less than that. Thats the whole point of mobile gaming. Sure some games sell alot for a couple of bucks but it seems very risky to build a full blown game that will rival 3ds/psp(2) games when the facts are games that sell the most are cheap games that do not rival handheld games in terms of content.

And those same games can run perfectly well on a smartphone.

Sure, budget smartphones. In the major markets where handhelds are sold (us/jap/eu) a decent smartphone is much more expensive.

iphones and androids starting at free ranging to 200 depending on how much build in memory you want. The reality is that cost wise, smart phones are as cheap if not cheaper than gaming handhelds in many markets.
 
Obviously thats not a 200 euro smartphone as you still pay 600 euros for it over 2 years. You wanting it anyway and not having to pay it all at once doesn't change that, at the end of the day it will costs you 600 euros and for 600 euros you buy a 3DS and 10 games. Tell me what do you think will be the best choice for anybody interrested in gaming?

no, it will cost him $200. His choice is $200 iphone 4 and service at X or just service at the same X.
 
There's only one battery life number mentioned for 3DS games at the moment which is 3-5 hours. There's no way of knowing what settings are being used for that number though. That's my point, as with DSi (which can get 7-8 hours on medium brightness with Wifi off and as low as 3-4 with full brightness and WiFi on) I'm sure the battery life will vary quite a lot based on the settings used.

The mention of 6-8 hours for DS games (with a 1300mAh battery) does suggest they're quoting numbers with high brightness, sound and Wifi on IMO (they're pushing streetpass so Wifi is a definite).
 
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Ignore it all you want but right now my dsi can be played for 10 hours without a recharge and because of that my phone only needs to be recharged when i go to bed. If i started playing games on my andriod and left my dsi at home then I'd have to charge my phone every 2 hours or so.

And the next gen handhelds will have trouble getting the same battery life as a smartphone. You are ignoring the fact that a DS is pretty archaic hardware. The 3DS is listed at LESS battery life than my current phone which I can play hours of demanding games on.

I can picture it now "Oh hey boss , I'm sorry i never responded yesterday but its because i played angry birds on my phone and the battery died and I couldn't charge it till i got home at night. But oh man angry birds was fun.... wait what I'm fired ? "

I was playing angry birds for hours last week at one point, sucked down ~20% of the battery to play for 3 hours.
 
Or he gets a different phone at $0 service at X and buys a 3DS :) Point is not everyone HAS to have an Iphone.

Pretty much everyone of my little sisters friends either has an iphone or android device at this point. It really is the market trend among the younger generation. You can pick up an android or iphone for ~$50-100 more than the most barebones phone.
 
I was playing angry birds for hours last week at one point, sucked down ~20% of the battery to play for 3 hours.

What phone have you got?, sounds like its got exceptional battery life, definitely nowhere near the norm.
 
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Pretty much everyone of my little sisters friends either has an iphone or android device at this point. It really is the market trend among the younger generation. You can pick up an android or iphone for ~$50-100 more than the most barebones phone.

That kind of misses my point. Which was that his only choice isn't between paying $200 and X for his service with an Iphone or X for his service and no phone, he could get a different phone for free with that X service, or even a different phone free with a cheaper service.

I have an Android phone. Its a great, absolutely love it. I actually first read about it here, fast, amazing 3.5" OLED screen, 512MB ram, looks quite classy, plays most of the latest games and was only £99 on pay as you go. A few months later and all my friends have suddenly bought one after using mine, its that good for the price :LOL: I like smartphones, I just don't see them as gaming devices, and I've tried loads of games on this. Angry Birds is nice for a while, but anything more complicated and the lack of buttons makes it thoroughly painful to play.
 
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Teasy said:
That kind of misses my point. Which was that his only choice isn't between paying $200 and X for his service with an Iphone or X for his service and no phone, he could get a different phone for free with that X service, or even a different phone free with a cheaper service.
What you're missing is that, up to ~$200, a lot of people don't really care about the difference between free and $200.

The monthly plan is relatively expensive, but I want it anyway. There's no point in paying for such plan but using a crap $0 phone with the bad experience of, e.g., the stuttered scrolling of Android. (Yes, all of them. My hands on with the first iteration Playbook showed that even RIM is able to do this better than Google.)

If a similar unlimited plan were available for, say, $30, with no strings attached, one could start considering alternatives (eg iPod Touch) but there's nothing like it.
 
What you're missing is that, up to ~$200, a lot of people don't really care about the difference between free and $200.

The monthly plan is relatively expensive, but I want it anyway.
Agreed for most people, but I think for a substantial part of the 3DS target market that's not true (children/teens/young adults) - they couldn't afford both the expensive plan and the phone so they're going to compromise (probably on both).

e.g., the stuttered scrolling of Android. (Yes, all of them. My hands on with the first iteration Playbook showed that even RIM is able to do this better than Google.)
Yeah, the iPhone still beats Android massively in that area. There are two issues here: first the way you handle I/O so it doesn't stall (this is a gradual process and is presumably improving with every new Android version) and more importantly Android's 2D library (Skia) does not yet have a sufficiently mature OpenGL ES path, so it's basically 100% done on the CPU. I expect there to be at least some amount of GPU acceleration (enough to make the issue completely gone on anything with a Cortex-A8 processor or better) within one year or less, but we'll see.

If a similar unlimited plan were available for, say, $30, with no strings attached, one could start considering alternatives (eg iPod Touch) but there's nothing like it.
In Belgium, we've got a virtual network operator (Mobile Vikings) with a very attractive offer: a prepaid plan (with fairly good calling rates) that gives you 2GB of free bandwidth and 1000 SMS for every 15 euro recharge (expiring after one month). The 3G coverage isn't very good (although acceptable outdoors in big cities) but it's so much cheaper and more flexible than the alternatives that it has become fairly popular.

If you combine that with a cheap Android phone, it's basically the cheapest way to have both a phone and a casual gaming platform. I can imagine parents being more willing to give that to their children than a new phone and a 3DS (even if the games weren't as good, they'll also be much cheaper, and there's the social networking element that teens will be very interested in). Of course, that depends on having that kind of plan, and most countries don't have anything like it (don't be jealous, the pricing for the high-end 3G plans at the larger operators are much more expensive than the worldwide average for what they are).
 
Infinity Blade and Epic Citadel look great with the AA on a 3GS. It also runs the per-pixel lighting missing in the iPad version.

My iPhone 4 gets over four hours of battery in Infinity Blade. I don't have to worry about a task manager, either: the phone loses around 2% while in standby overnight.

I've never even bothered running the phone in airplane mode or even turning the WiFi off to conserve battery.

Of course, apps can misbehave at times and run the device like crazy, especially on Android.

Carrying an extra battery/battery pack is still easier than carrying an extra device dedicated to gaming.
 
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