One in Five Japanese People Owns a DS

[MercenaryCanary]

8% of the south korean population owns Starcraft.

It has got to be more then that.

 

[MercenaryCanary]

That really is depressing.
Why would you spend over £100 on a DS? Cooking games, (non)brain-training, or more gimmicky stick play? Swine flu may actually be a blessing in disguise....

Sony fanboy?

Wrong. Swine flu fanboy.

 

[AceDiamond]

Mazty, I think you would be a real riot at PAX. I dare you to go and check it out this year. Of particular note to you will be the wireless lounge, where you will find lots of grandmothers playing Cooking Mama and 8 year olds playing Pokemon.

That sentence was a lie. It's actually populated by 16-30 year olds playing a variety of games, mostly for DS. Some PSPs can be found but they are outnumbered many times. People who love to play games who are also fun to be around disagree with you. Since we are talking about games, which are about having fun, that makes you wrong.

Shh, you're ruining his narrow-minded and ill-informed argument. xD

Anyway he does have one valid point, the PSP does do graphics a tad better than the DS. There's just one problem, the PSP's battery life sucks a big fat cocksicle when you're playing games and therefore graphics, as always, really aren't that important now are they.

Digressing for a moment, personally I'm still hung up on the amazing jingoism that's going on here. I never realized that a game made for the 360 means it was obviously made in America because by golly the 360 is an American system and we'd NEVER have the filthy Japanese touch it! Nevermind the fact that Capcom, Square-Enix, Bandai-Namco, Tecmo, and many other companies making games for the 360 are Japanese. By that token I guess UbiSoft, EA, Rockstar, and other western companies aren't making games for the Wii, PS3, PSP, or DS. You know, aside from the fact that they are.

I would think that of all places, that gamers would be the last place to find this level of abject point-missing stupidity. Of course I tend to forget that this is the Internet and the rules of logic and common sense tend to not apply.

 

[azadiscool]

With this article and the one with the woman linking games and acceptance of torture, it is starting to feel like The Escapist wants me to commit suicide.

 

[azadiscool]

Bah! The japanese are lame. They only make super mario and zelda games. As if we have not had enough of those already! The NES and the N64 rock though.

Madworld
Resident Evil
Dead Rising
No More Heroes

Just a couple of awesome recent japanese games.

Oh and who wouldn't want a DS? Best handheld ever!

From what I heard, all of those games either sucked in general or sucked compared to their PS3 and 360 counterparts.

House of the Dead: Overkill is going to be the only good Wii game for a long time. Better get used to it.

 

[shMerker]

The DS is a graphical powerhjouse next a Super Nintendo.

Does it have the capabilities of a PSP in that area? No. But if you want people to take anything you say seriously you could at least not tell lies.

You're also misunderstanding cause and effect. Developers and publishers can only get away with releasing cheap, badly made games when they are developing for the most popular platform. This is because they have a wider potential market. Currently the most popular game systems are the Wii and DS. A few years ago it was the GBA and the PS2. Before that the heaps of shovelware were found on the Playstation and the Game Boy Color. The NES also saw it's share of miserable crap. Do you see what all the systems I just mentioned have in common? They were all the most popular console of their class when they were available. This is not a coincidence. It is simple cause and effect.

 

[RomanLegacy]

Critics are usually a good way of analysing quality. I realise the age of the DS lowers it's game score and it suffers from shovel-ware. But looking at the games, there are very few that would appeal to avid gamers, but they have a much more casual aim. Is this bad? For the development of better games - yes. For Nintendo profits - nope. Are either important? Subjective, but I feel that this market strategy causes potential devs to make a bog-standard game for a quick $ instead of making a more pricey, quality game.
People don't buy quality most of the time. Look at the wii. Look at it's marketing campaign. It's still being sold with it's release title and the controllers are known to be naff. Imagine if the 360 was still being sold with Call of Duty 2...

We're drifting down a different road here, but I see your concern. You're worried that overall game quality will go completely to shit, because of the new casual gaming market? However, most of the big companies, the ones who we love for making good games, will continue to either milk their franchises, or keep making good games. They aren't going to throw money into a casual market, when they're already making money in the places they're good at. People with a pasion for gaming are those who make the good games, and these people aren't going to be satisified making silly casual games: they're going to keep working on making their "babies."

The yahtzee comment was an example of how you can't use the numpad and stick at the same time, making the touch screen akward if not always used, showing bad design - think the N64 pads.

Ok, but that still doesn't make it bad design. It becomes awkward not because of bad design on the develoupers part, but rather because of the lack of a third arm. The touch screen doesn't have to be used all the time in order not to be a pointless, as you originaly said: it just needs to have more utility than tapping through a load screen.

No, I was expecting something better than a camera that looks like it fell out of a mobile phone 5 years ago. It literally is just there to dick around with low-res photos. You really think that's quality for £150?

If the DSi was defined by the ability to dick around with photos, then no, I wouldn't think it was quality. But the main purpose of the DSi is to expeirement into handheld internet distribution, and to play around with making a system that's more than just a gaming console, similar to what the PSP can do.

If you really think that giving little Jimmy a DS is better than giivng him a book, I seriously hope those ideas on parenting change. It's just a modern way for oblivious parents of getting kids to keep quiet and occupied between school, homework, and bedtime. And BHS (Bored housewife syndrome).

No, I don't think that giving little jimmy a DS is better than giving him a book, but its no different than giving little jimmy any video game. There are not 100 million little jimmies and bored houswives out there, buying up all the DS's. You've stated what you think the DS's core audience is, and then tried to use that percieved audience to say that portable gaming is unecessary, because you don't think these two stereotypes need handhelds. Its not an argument, its an assumption, and that was my point.

It was something to do with the unit balance and something just down right retarded that showed it up to be a bad game. Unfortunately I can't recall what it was, but it was someting like flak being weak against bombers...Go figure.

Advance wars is one of the few strategy games on any system where all the units remain useful throughout the entire game. It is very well balanced. If you attack anti-aircraft with a bomber first, it will do about 70% damage, because the bomber hits first, and the flimsy little vehicles get destroyed by the BOMBS. If an AA hits first, it hits most of the bombers out of the sky, with little damage to itself, because they killed the bombers before they can bomb. Just because you don't think it's balanced doesn't mean it is. It is fine for you to dislike the game, but don't call it "Bad game design lolz so the DS is full of crap"

Obviously not all will suck. Well they may but it'd be a vast generalisation which are usually retarded. The majority I have seen/played have all been awful, or simply aimed at little kids/casual gamers. Again, I then bring you back to the 'casual gamers destroying real gaming' view on it all. Unfortunately, with the money now being apparently in casual gaming, game quality is slipping in comparison to the last generation, which is why I am bitter about casual games doing so well, when hardcore games are generally much better (storyline, graphics, gameplay).

Once again, casual gaming is not destroying the hardcore market. The hardcore market is having trouble because its harder for a person or team to design games. It costs more money up front than it did five years ago: the graphics have to be better, the sound better, the coding longer and more complicated...Frankly, publishers are just as greedy as they've always been, it's the fact that games cost more to make that is leading to stagnation in the hardcore market. Of course, this is speculation, much the same as your statement.
It still isn't a good reason to say that the DS isn't a quality product.

 

[Nostalgia]

It's a shame these "hardcore" types don't know how immature they look. I don't think I have ever been in a Nintendo thread without it being raided by unnecessary comments thrown in from these pros.
No need to bother arguing on deaf ears. Don't need my inbox filled with such filth either.

 

[Magnumopai]

this is hardly suprising, the nintendo DS is such a casual little gaming device it falls second to the cell-phone.

they pretty much have ds software for "normal" people and software for "gamers"(in japan atleast)

it's about demographic

 

[scotth266]

...
......
.........
WHAT IS WITH THIS THREAD!?!?!

Ok, let's sum this thread up real quickly shall we: a bunch of people purchased DS's over in Japan. Some people think that the DS is a bad game system, and feel inclined to mock it.

1) Not the proper thread to complain about the DS. If you want to, the REVIEW section accepts reviews of consoles.
2) You are instigating. Quit it. The Escapist needs no more wars.

To be on-topic: I already knew this: my teacher mentioned it to me. This is the reason that the DSi came out: Nintendo wanted to sell more product, but they'd already achieved nearly 100% market penetration. Therefore, they made a new product to sell. Clever Japanese

 

[mongolloid]

Dead Rising is not a japanese game, it was made for the xbox 360 and then ported to the wii, and as far as i know the Wii port was just a dumbed down shit version of the 360 game. Resident evil is mostly a Playstation franchise and not a Nitendo one (yes i know that sony is a japanese company but they focus more on the western market) and as far as i know the other games you mentioned were all made by western developers. I can't think of a single good game for the Wii that was made by the Japanese besides the Resident Evil games because 90% of high profile japanese made Wii games are just re-makes or shitty sequels to there milked to death franchises like Super mario and zelda. They day Nitendo will make a great Japanese made Wii game is they day my ass will grow me wings and fly me to the moon.[/quote]

Hint, Capcom's a japanese company.

Resident Evil and Dead Rising are both made by Capcom.[/quote]

didnt capcom just publish?

that doesnt mean they made them
well at least dead rising

 

[mongolloid]

The yahtzee comment was an example of how you can't use the numpad and stick at the same time, making the touch screen akward if not always used, showing bad design - think the N64 pads.

Ok, but that still doesn't make it bad design. It becomes awkward not because of bad design on the develoupers part, but rather because of the lack of a third arm. The touch screen doesn't have to be used all the time in order not to be a pointless, as you originaly said: it just needs to have more utility than tapping through a load screen.[/quote]

so basically what you are saying here is that Nintendo is designing systems for people with 3 hands?

really? that makes plenty of sense

 

[Pendragon9]

I guess this means one in every ten people own a PSP there.

 

[quack35]

I'm not surprised. The DS kicks ass.