The Wiikend is here

[Nate the Great]

Yeah, but DSs don't play original or Color Gameboy games. Don't worry, I'm not going to go into my full Gameboy DS rant here, you can search for it if you want, I just wanted to point out the bug huge gaping maw of a flaw the thing has one more time.

[ijdgaf]

And don't worry. This will be the last time I point out that 47.27 million people worldwide don't care about that all that much.

So somebody who's not a "serious gamer" probably wouldn't care much either?

(damnit, why can't I get embedded links to work on this site anymore? The link is here: http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/200...25e.pdf#page=8 -- or here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintend...elease_Q2_2007 if Wikipedia will suffice).

[Nate the Great]

All I'm seeing is columns of numbers. I don't suppose anyone could translate the accountingbabble for me?

Yeah, but how much bigger would that figure be with a Gameboy DS? Millions of people trading in their older Gameboys and buying a new one?

[ijdgaf]

God, why do I take the bait? I've personally never seen any statistics for people sitting at home with old systems reluctant to buy new ones based on limited backward compatability. I can't imagine it's a very large number. It hasn't really stopped the 360 or the DS this generation, nor did it stiffle Super Nintendo sales. The 360 is tromping the PS3 in HD console sales, the DS is outselling the PSP 2 to 1, and the Super Nintendo maintained a similar lead against the formidable Sega Genesis. Most consumers don't really care too much about that sort of thing, if I may generalize. Certainly not the casual crowd.

And hey, some of us are enjoying Phantom Hourglass while keeping a perfectly capable GBA in the closet for that retro fix. Hooray!

Here's a link to an article about the DS passing the 50 million sold mark: http://www.tech.co.uk/home-entertain...leid=346391286

[NAHTMMM]

Originally Posted by ijdgaf

I've personally never seen any statistics for people sitting at home with old systems reluctant to buy new ones based on limited backward compatability.

I shall never forgive Microsoft for dropping MS-DOS! NEVER! :madder: :wowi'mmad: :etc:

[Nate the Great]

Oh, the DOS issue is dear to my heart. I still have many DOS games that are near to unplayable because XP can't pretend to be DOS for the sake of the game. Is it really that hard to program? Setting up a program (an official program, not DOSBox or the like) to make a partition that operates on the same clockspeed, emulation for the appropriate audio and video drivers, etc. to make the program THINK that it's on a twenty-year-old DOS computer?

[ijdgaf]

Actually, that pisses me off too. I've owned the original Warcraft for years and not been able to find a computer dumb enough to play it. And my current computer won't play Warcraft II. I think someday when I have some spare change I'll try to track down an old, slowass computer to get my old PC gaming fix. And with Vista's lack of BC as well, I'm thinking I might have to hold onto this machine as well upon the next upgrade.

[AKAArzosah]

Originally Posted by Nate the Great

Yeah, but DSs don't play original or Color Gameboy games.

Don't worry Nate, I have a Colour Gameboy already. Just wish I could get Pokemon Yellow for a decent price (yes I'm lame).

[Nate the Great]

Well, what's decent? I paid ten bucks for mine. Somehow it semicrashed, which meant that the game wouldn't boot, but Pokemon Stadium could still get Pokemon out of it. Weird part is, R/B/Y seems solid-state, but G/S/C has that atrocious button battery that dies out after seven years.

[ijdgaf]

I doubt that. I've replaced the batteries in several original game boy cartidges. The game I've had the longest though (Link's Awakening) hasn't died yet. It's sorta variable. But Nintendo didn't start using solid state in those until the DS, I think. Maybe the GBA, but I doubt it.

[Nate the Great]

You have? Wow. I've read the online instructions for that, and it still seems a bit complicated and risky.

I still wonder why they couldn't remake GB and GBC games for Virtual Console and you could sent it to a blank "Virtual Console" DS card that's designed for them. Since the DS doesn't have a Z80 chip (see my Gameboy DS rants on other threads for the significance of this) you'd have to emulate all of the games, but it must be doable. If the price in Wii Points is proportional to the age and sophistication, it'd probably end up something like original GB games for 300 Wii Points, GBC for 500, right? Plus dozens of games could fit on a card, no doubt.

[ijdgaf]

Putting old Gameboy games on VC is totally doable. They recently added support on there for Neo Geo games, which weren't available at launch. So adding another system should be easy peasy as well.

Blank DS cartridges though? Not gonna happen. Nintendo consistantly goes out of there way to make their games on media that only they have access to. They don't want people to rip their stuff, or put out non-Nintendo approved software, etc. It's why the N64 didn't use CD-ROMs, why the GameCube and Wii use a proprietary optical disc, and why the DS uses nonstandard flash cards.

[Nate the Great]

Well, not "blank" exactly. It'd have a sort of framing program for the Gameboy Virtual Console games. No doubt it'd have some form of security lockout in place to prevent anything except the Revolution that you specifically link to it (i.e. only Revolution number XXXX can communicate with DS number YYYY). I only say that it has to be a card because I don't think that a DS has any onboard memory, does it? Then again, what if the Gameboy games were stored on the Revolution and you could remote access it with the DS if you're in range? Those old games are so small that you probably could remotely play it in real time. It'd be only a step above the e-Reader, wouldn't it?

"easy peasy?"

Rewriting the VC to accept and transmit games from a new system is the least of our problems. It's getting it to the DS safely that's the problem.