Ipod MINI, Nintendo DS

I should have just replied to your post before you posted it. N-gage, neo geo, etc, aren't viable choices here. What I was saying is that the Gameboy/PS2 analogy doesn't work at all. N-gage, neogeopocketcolor, etc are in no way comparable to Xbox/GameCube. Lots of people don't care for the PS2 and go with other systems. You don't see people who are big n-gagers who shun the Gameboy. Gameboy was dominant because it was the only real choice, as I said above. The DS is selling very well, but PSP is right there with it. The PSP won't be another gamegear, virtual boy, etc. It's a strong new addition to the handheld market.
 
Well, this whole debate is moot, because the best handheld ever is the Dreamcast VMU. ;)

Seriously, ngage???? SIDETALKING! it was a failure as a game machine and as a phone. you gotta be kidding.
 
Ok, I see what you mean now. Sorry, I guess a better analogy would be that gameboys are the Microsoft OSes of the handheld world. Apple(PSP) is catching up strong, but people still know and stick with Microsoft, because it runs what they want, in the case of the Gameboy, good games. And Ngage and Neogeo would be like Linux. Still used, but, not by many.
 
As far as MP3 players go, I don't leave the house anymore without my Archos Jukebox Recorder. I know, it's out of production now, but it has the best feature list I've seen for portable players.

Just some:
20 GB harddisk, replacable with any 2,5" disk
Standard rechargeable AAA batteries
USB 2.0 data transfer
Digital in/out; Line in
Recorder function (from any source, converts to mp3)
Works as portable harddisk
Very good OS,
gets even better with an independently developed OS called Rockbox.
Very good bookmark function (I use it mainly for audiobooks)
Very good playlist functions
Speaking menus (great when you're in the car)
Some games come with the OS's
Ability to read txt-files on screen
Very durable
Great fanbase, almost anything that can go wrong with it is documented, repair manuals etc. are available.

Only drawback: It's a bit on the heavy side. About as big as a pack of cigarettes, and weighs in at ca. 350g.

If you want to take a look: http://www.hitsession.com/hardware/archos.html
 
Jesus said:
Ok, I see what you mean now. Sorry, I guess a better analogy would be that gameboys are the Microsoft OSes of the handheld world. Apple(PSP) is catching up strong, but people still know and stick with Microsoft, because it runs what they want, in the case of the Gameboy, good games. And Ngage and Neogeo would be like Linux. Still used, but, not by many.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's a little more like it. Analogies at all aren't necessary really though, because it's not a clean simple situation. Apple has been competing in desktop computers for 20 years, not six months, and they don't constitute a third of the new systems being sold, like the PSP does.
 
I'm sorry, I don't care what anyone says but loading times on a portable are just WRONG. I still wouldn't mind a PSP, but as a movie player and am curious how many owners felt the same way.
 
The DS still runs on cartridges, no loading time, but you have to expect the PSP to have a loading time. Considering that it basically runs off a cd, why wouldn't there be a load time?

Buying the PSP solely as a movie player is a waste of money too, considering you need to buy another 100 dollar memory stick to fit movies on.
 
I don't know, the PSP load times are more comparable with those of the PS2 than say the shorter times of the Gamecube. But you're right, which is why I don't believe CDs to be an appropriate choice for portables.
 
I always heard good things about archos stuff. I'll take a look, but you know, i have to buy something that is still being sold... :)

Concerning the PSP... ok, imagine lucas just released Ep.3 on DVD and UMD. Which version I'm going to buy, the one I can watch on my big tv with a plethora of sound channells on DTS, or on a tiny (albeit pretty) screen and small headphones? You know, buying all movies twice isn't gonna work for most people...

Sony has this fetish for proprietary media formats that fail miserably. Ok, so Betacam SP and MDs are common in a pro environment, but they just don't exist in a consummer reality. I'm surprised they used dvds on the PS2... Now they pushing for the UMD, the Blu-ray and the MSproduo. From what I've heard, the HD-DVD is better, and there are plenty of flash memory formats... the UMD is even more restrict. well, i have no idea where this is going to end. Oh, they also love to forbid people from opening their machines and making them better (or at least different), which is also kind of stupid, but whatever.

erm, anywya, back on topic... i'm going to look around for any archos stuff. Thanks

EDIT: Ok, so now I'm even more undecided than before. There is the Muvo 1gb, the Muvo 5gb, the ipod mini and the archos xS200. blimey.
 
Pedro said:
I'm sorry, I don't care what anyone says but loading times on a portable are just WRONG.
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I've never really noticed the load times, and it varies depending on the game. It's good trade off. For a tiny bit of load times at the beginning of a game, you have the ability for plenty of high res textures, audio and video in your games. Imagine trying to make Wing Commander 3 with the hard drive/space limitations of pre-CD computer gaming. Man, I waited 10+ minutes for some of the missions to load, but the progress was worth it. And we're not even talking 10 seconds for the PSP. I love Prophecy Advance, but a UMD version with even better graphics and full video would be incredible. Sure, if 2 gig flash cards were as cheap to make as UMDs, that'd be an even better option, but I'm not holding my breath.

Edfilho said:
Concerning the PSP... ok, imagine lucas just released Ep.3 on DVD and UMD. Which version I'm going to buy, the one I can watch on my big tv with a plethora of sound channells on DTS, or on a tiny (albeit pretty) screen and small headphones? You know, buying all movies twice isn't gonna work for most people...Sony has this fetish for proprietary media formats that fail miserably.
Click to expand...

UMD stuff is doing better than I expected. A couple of the UMD movies they released sold 100,000 copies in their first month in the US.
 
Yes but I'm not really looking for a portable version of WC3 :)
Although... I'll have access to PS2 development kits next year and I've heard theres not a great difference between those and PSP kits, if all goes well perhaps I could do exactly that project for the final semester of my MSc. Not something I'd personally buy but it'd be fun to make :) Although I was more keen to make use of our ugly brown gamecube dev kits... what was my point again?
 
So, what exactly could you port to the gamecube? I would be willing to pay for Wing Commander on my cube. PCs have good games, but I can't stand how often my new XP bombs on me with it's horrid graphics card, and I already have a perfect working cube...
 
Actually my ideas for gamecube titles wouldn't be ports of WC titles. Additonally you need to use the special dev kits, I could never burn cds and start distributing them. The GDs have never been copied. TBH I'm bouncing round 101 ideas atm. My FYP was a terrain system which used WCIV as a case study, but it got so altered from my original ambition by lecturers take on the idea that its not even classifiable as a game. I'm just trying to think of something I'd have fun with.
WC suggestions always welcome, this holiday I plan to make a FPS with Daleks so as to get to know Direct3D.
 
Heh, might as well make it a WC FPS against the Kilrathi...I could certainly help modeling so that you could work on the FPS. I need modeling practice anyways. Only thing is, I'm not familiar with what the Kilrathi actually look like, so, I'd need images. But, you say you could put whatever you made on the cube? That's pretty freakin awesome in my opinion, especially since you could then put THAT onto the Rev and play it later. In other words, it wouldn't die with the console change like almost everything else did last gen.
 
Um, which Kilrathi appearance? Just about every WC product has a different take on them. :)
 
Kilrathi would require a decent animation system and more complex AI. The daleks only have 4 sections with any motion, give them an awareness of the walls (or cheat and put a virtual track in) and then tell them to follow the player shouting exterminate and firing :)
I'd take a WC suggestion for my project next year but I've never done Direct3D before, just OpenGL, so I want to keep the task simple.
 
Erm, well, so, any other recommendations on the players?

BTW, GameCube discs are just small dvd-roms, I have seen quite a few bootleg copies.
 
I recommended the GBA SP at first but I wasn't aware of how many games are soon to be released for the DS until Chris pointed them out. I guess Nintendo is ramping up the DS game production so the DS would be a good buy at this point, go for it. ;) About MP3 players I really don't know much about that market so I can't give any advice.
 
Edfilho said:
BTW, GameCube discs are just small dvd-roms, I have seen quite a few bootleg copies.
Click to expand...

GameCube discs are the most proprietary of the lot this round. They're not just the half size DVDs like XBox games are normal sized DVDs. They're actually written from the outside in and other things to prevent piracy. Where the PS2 and XBox took just months to crack, it took people almost four years before they could figure out how to make the Cube read burned mini-DVDs. And it requires modification and addition to the system.
 
ChrisReid said:
GameCube discs are the most proprietary of the lot this round. They're not just the half size DVDs like XBox games are normal sized DVDs. They're actually written from the outside in and other things to prevent piracy. Where the PS2 and XBox took just months to crack, it took people almost four years before they could figure out how to make the Cube read burned mini-DVDs. And it requires modification and addition to the system.
Click to expand...

Oh, sure, you are right. They are the weirdest ones indeed. But they're not unbreakable... and considering how they are just meant to play games, then it is not such a big problem (as it could be with UMDs and solid state cards and stuff).
 
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