I thought this would be fun. The iDevice is growing so rapidly in great games that i feel that its really standing toe-to-to with nintendo's handheld powerhouse, the DS. //////HARDWARE////// PRICE - DS wins POWER - iDevice wins a much more capable processor if devs want to use it. GRAPHICS - iDevice wins hands down CONTROLS - Tie Depends on game: (although I know many would say the DS wins) - idevice wins for - puzzle games, racing games, fps games (arguably), TBS games - DS wins for - action games, platformers, rpg's, BATTERY - DS wins PORTABILITY - iDevice wins phone - hello //////SOFTWARE////// PRICE - iDevice wins FORMAT - iDevice wins digital download, huge hardware storage space. EXCLUSIVE GAMES - DS wins hands down. Hard to compete with mario & zelda, and all those great Atlus RPG's ONLINE GAME EXPERIENCE - iDevice wins hands down CASUAL GAMES - iDevice wins Tons of them, great price, creative content and always with you. PUZZLE GAMES - iDevice wins Tons of them, great price, creative content and always with you. RPG, SRPG GAMES - DS wins hands down, better, deeper rpg collection. But with the amount of cool stuff coming out. It may only be a matter of time before this changes. TURN BASE STRATEGY GAMES - DS wins (barely) idevice - wesnoth (better than any ds tbs imo), and many other 'pretty good' tbs games. DS - hard to beat advance wars. REAL TIME STRATEGY GAMES - iDevice wins DS really doesnt have any good RTS games. iDevice has several 'pretty good' ones. FIRST PERSON SHOOTER GAMES - iDevice wins DS FPS games suck. bad controls and graphics. SOCIAL GAMING - iDevice wins the online thing just works well on the idevice RACING GAMES - iDevice wins arguably the best handheld racing experience is on the iDevice ACTION ADVENTURE GAMES - DS wins buttons and physical controls make all the difference here ////////////////////////// iDevice = 12 points DS = 6 points Interesting way to look at it. I'd love to see others thoughts.
Ha! So true. That 1 point I gave to the DS regarding RPG's holds a lot of weight for me. I love RPG's and the DS is the best RPG platform since the SNES or PS2. I really want that to swing in the iDevices direction some day.
Hopefully Chaos ring will help to start a trend. Though I doubt the idevice will ever be able to beat mario, zelda, pokemon, advance wars, fire emblem.....etc. There are a lot of great franchises on the ds that are unbeatable in my opinion.
RPGs are the only reason I picked up a DS in the first place. It's also the only reason I still use my PSP (Grandia anyone?).
Honestly though. I think the iDevice is overall a huge winner over the DS. More competition from the other smartphones coming out will only make the games better. I think that within 2 years the DS will Be KO'd. Smartphones will take over the handheld gaming market, with Apple as the lead. Another Mario or Zelda game simply wont be enough to stop this.
Actually, since the GBA. I once had a guy at EB Games ask me, "Why do so many people buy role playing games on the GameBoy?" to which I answered, "Because since the graphics are limited and/or simpler to implement, the developers can focus on story and gameplay..."
Wow, you surely don't stop with your jokes. Another Mario or Zelda... good thing those aren't the only games Nintendo produces. Nintendogs - 24 million units sold New Super Mario Bros - 21 million Brain Training - 19 million Mario Kart DS - 18 million Pokemon Diamond / Pearl - 18 million Brain Training 2 - 14 million Animal Crossing - 11 million Super Mario 64 DS - 8 million Pokémon Platinum Version - 6 million Mario Party DS - 6 million The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass - 4 million+ Pokémon Heart Gold / Soul Silver - 4 million (just Japan sales) Flash Focus (eye / reflex training) - 3 million+ English Training - 3 million+ Yoshi's Island DS - 3 million+ Clubhouse Games - 3 million Personal Trainer: Cooking - 3 million Friend Collection (like The Sims) - 3 million (just Japan sales) Need I go on? Nintendo has over 45 million sellers on the DS, that is just Nintendo produced games. With third-parties it is 63 million sellers, making 108 million sellers in total. Nintendo is one of the few companies within this industry that has the 'games for everybody' formula down to a perfect art. So to say they will simply be KO'd, no less in two years time is perhaps one of the most foolish statements made regarding this industry. Which takes some doing considering the amount of clueless analysts so-called predicting in the videogames industry. I'd like to see Apple or other manufacturers pull the above off, and at full price... but before doing that incredibly unlikely act they would first have to dominate the Japanese market in order to have any pull over JPN devs. Good luck there. It is truly amazing how people underestimate Nintendo to such an extent.
There are many games (but def not all) that I'd rather play with touch controls than buttons and a D pad. All you're stats are really impressive, but there's a lot of App Store game stats that could be thrown out as well. It's gotta be a shocker to Nintendo that the iphone has so quickly become a serious contender in the handheld market. I really do think that if nintendo doesnt do something truly innovative with the DS2, then they will be in trouble. Tech is moving way too fast, and Nintendo has never been one to be the biggest innovator in that category. You may think I'm joking, but seriously - Dedicated handheld gaming devices will quickly become an obsolete peice of hardware. Of course if Nintendo came out with a piece of hardware that could actually compete with the iphone - they'd win me over in a second. But that's unlikely
Except that's just it, only you are saying it is a serious contender. As for stats of the App store, it doesn't compare to Nintendos. A few rare games might have hit 3 million, but at a prices such as 0.99 (compared to 21 million for NSMB at $34.99). The future of the industry and the majority of devs need a hell of a lot more than 0.99 even if they sell 3 million units. Also your underestimation of dedicated hardware is also amsuing. If it was so obsolete the DS would not be at 130 million units sold and still going strong. Indeed, it is still selling 1.5 million units a month worldwide and is set to become the greatest selling videogames system when it's done (on another note, despite your so called serious contender last year was the DS systems best year yet in hardware sales despite being five years old). There are just as many people that see worth in dedicated systems as there are people who see worth in convergence hardware. The reality of the matter is far different than your perception of it.
I have both, and can safely say I love them equally. They're two different styles, however - DS games are generally much more substantial and "full", if you will, whereas the the iPhone is good for quick gaming sessions and the like. That's not to say that there aren't substantial iPhone games (case in point: Chinatown Wars) or that there aren't pick-up-and-play DS games, however.
Personally, I've pretty much put my DS to rest since I got my iPod. I only play a few games on there now, like Mario & Luigi, Resident Evil, the Call of Duty games (even though the iDevice has the full version of Nazi Zombies), and Phoenix Wright, but once the iDevice gets Phoenix Wright, I think that it will almost completely shift to the iDevice.
I'm glad you're so amused - I'm not a professional, just saying that I think the iDevice wins on multiple levels, and alot of other people do as well. And I do think the future of handheld gaming will go to the smartphone arena. With or without Nintendo.
I agree but at the same time I DON'T.... Remember bro, Nintendo started their electronic games business back in 1975.... AppStore: 2006.... Nintendo is a Japanese enterprise started in 1889 (yes, google it), while Apple was established in 1976 in USA, japan has a bigger gamer market than USA. I think that could explain the big difference in game sales.... But w/e that's NOT the point of the thread, we are talking about processor, graphics, controls, etc.... In that hand, Apple's iDevices wins
Looks like someone didn't have a childhood It's all apples and oranges. Both devices work in their given market, but can't necessarily compete with each others. It's a phone vs. a dedicated gaming console. They each have their pros and cons, but do what they were intended to do. There's definitely room for both.
Considering we're comparing devices released more than two years apart (over three years if we're taking it from when the App Store was launched), I would say the DS is fairing incredibly well We're also comparing two purposes. The DS is gaming platform, which has slowly had other functionality added to it. The iDevice is a media/communications platform, which has slowly evolved into a gaming platform. It's no mystery to anyone that the iDevice has been a game changer, changing everything from how much we pay for games to how we receive and experience them. So essentially, we're comparing two devices from different generations. Sure the DSi introduced the DSi Shop but it lacks the same scope as the App Store, and was added as a result of the App Store's success. We wouldn't try to compare the PSP to the GBA. The same rule applies here. Mostly the fact that DS 2 is likely to be announced fairly soon kinda obsoletes this whole debate.
