First, a prediction. This generation of hand-held consoles will be the last.¹

How can the multi-year spans between console releases compare to the yearly improvements of devices like the iPhone and iPad? Apple claims that the iPad 2 is 9x more powerful than it’s predecessor. In benchmark testing Anandtech confirms - yeah pretty much.

While it’s early in the life of both the iPhone and iPad, it’s hard to imagine that future incarnations would not continue this increase in graphical prowess.²

Year after year the iOS devices continue to improve while companies like Sony and Nintendo are in a cycle of releasing a device and then supporting it for a few years. The DS was released in 2004 and just this month is being replaced by its successor, the 3DS. The PSP has also been around a while with an original release in 2005. Its successor, the Next Generation Portable or NGP, is planned for a late 2011 release.³

According to this article from Business Insider the iPad 2 is “equal to NGP in terms of raw graphical horsepower”. Wait, that can’t be right. Sony’s much heralded next-generation portable that won’t be released until November is only equal to a device that is in consumer’s hands right now?

I’m not trying to over-emphasize graphics, there are many other factors when it comes to an enjoyable gaming experience. You can ding the iPad for lack of physical controls or the DS for not having many mature games. While smart intelligent readers such as yourself realize this, there are tons of consoles bought due to graphical fidelity over gameplay or library selection.

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The genesis of this post came to me while laying in bed this evening. I was playing Real Racing 2 on my iPhone 3GS and was struck by a few things. 1) How well this game looked on a 2-year-old phone. 2) How smoothly it ran – no stuttering and load times were all but nonexistent. 3) How well the controls worked on a device without buttons.⁴

Next to me were a Nintendo DS and a Sony PSP, both loaded with a few top-notch games. Yet, here I was playing a racing game on my cell phone – a game that was about $25 cheaper than similar titles on its console brethren.

So the iPad 2 is as fast as the NGP, which won’t ship for another 9 months and the old cycle of developing a console and waiting a few years to improve is dead. Or dying. Develop, a website about game development noted that next-gen handheld console budgets have tripled. How much are the games going to cost? $50!?

I’ve been able to play the same games over the last 4 generations of iOS devices with out a hitch. In some cases the games are even improved on newer hardware. Meanwhile DS games are fuzzy on the new 3DS and all of my UMD games for the PSP will have to be re-purchased when the NGP is released. :-/

From one perspective, not only are the graphics a huge win, but also the financial and vitality aspects of this new breed of gaming devices.

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¹This is a bit toungue-in-cheek. I loathe predictions of the end of something. As though all previous incarnations will cease to exist in a puff of smoke.
²There was a marked increase between the 3G and 3GS in terms of horsepower waaay back in 08. Not to mention the setup up to the retina display of the iPhone 4.
³Maybe this is why Sony is not only releasing a successor to the PSP, but also the Ericsson Xperia Playstation branded smart phone. They’re no dummies and are hedging their bets that the concept of a game-only device is not the future.
⁴Maybe I suck at racing games in general, but I was surprised to find myself actually winning races this go round! Also, no controller to blame when you drive off the track do to your ineptitude.

Photo by sneeu – Licensed under Creative Commons

A few years back I upgraded to my Nintendo DS Lite and sold my silver Gameboy Advance SP. I wanted to keep my SP and it was a great piece of hardware, but alas I had to figure out a way to cover some of the cost of the new DS. Off to eBay it went and I kept all 50 of my old Advance games. (I was able to justify keeping them due to the DSes’ backwards compatibility – even if I never played them that much.)

Recently I found my old Gameboy Color (Check out that radical Kiwi color!) and started playing the new DS Pokemon games with my 7-year-old niece. By finding my old Color I could play that generation of games natively on the original(ish) hardware. I noticed that I could not do this for my Gameboy Advance titles. This got me thinking about my SP and how it was such a great little handheld.*

Jackie and I did some searching on craigslist and eBay and found a SP for cheap. Since then, I’ve been looking through all my old games and showing them to my daughter. I came across a copy of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance and noticed my old save game stated that over sixty-five hours where logged.

Wow! I don’t remember playing that much of this one game, but this had me thinking. Imagine if I added up all the saved play-time from each of the 50 games. What would I end up with?

This:

That’s right, I’ve clocked in over 318 hours into my Gameboy Advance. Other interesting stats:

• I only completed 17 games out of 50.
• A substantial majority of my games don’t track the time played – 28 to be exact.
• Looking at the year of release – 2002 is the most popular.
• Role-Playing games make up the majority of the games that do track time.

I can’t believe I soaked so much time into this generation of handheld games. To make it even more mind-blowing here’s a few additional things to remember. This was just my handheld console. I also had my PS2 and Gamecube during this time as well. Additionally a large percentage of my GBA games don’t have time tracking. Big games like Zelda and the Mario titles don’t show you how long you’ve played. Imagine if I were to add those in. Lastly, this doesn’t track all the times I’ve saved before a challenging part of the game then died!

So in closing I’d have to say this is a great example of how this was such a great generation of games and I encourage you all to dust off those old consoles and give em’ another spin.

*And a great generation of games. Both Metroid titles, the 3 Castlevanias, Golden Sun Megaman Zero, I could go on.

I’ve got this great idea. Or so I thought.

A game, where everything is truly interactive. You can pick up anything, move anything with enough force. Now, a game with such open endedness will have a huge problem. How will the player know how to forward the game?

Just imaging that you awoke one day in the very room you sit in now, but you have no memory of where you’re at. you’d start to look around for clues, but where would you start?

That’s where actor controlled NPC’s (non-playable characters) come into play. These actors would be hired by the game company to ‘posess’ NPC’s to help move the story along. Each time would be different, each reacting to your actions/responses to thier input. Since they are hired by the company, they have a vested interest in seeing the continuity of the story progress.

(I’ve had this in my draft folder for far too long. Post or get off the pot – as they say.)

Photo by B Tal – Licensed under Creative Commons

Full-Size download

You can even playback any online games and record clips to share with your buddies on Xbox Live. Bluring the line of the internet experience on the Xbox is the ability to capture full resolution screenshots of any game you’ve played. They are available to view on your profile page on Bungie.net. I’m really impressed with intergration and the number of items being tracked by Halo 3 while your playing the game. That has to add some decent overhead which is amazing as Halo 3 is on of the nicest looking games on the 360.

By the way, it’s not a single “Red Ring of Death” error. The three red LEDs signify many different possible failures (hardware, firmware, and software). If you hold down the binding button on the console and press the eject button four times, you can read out a more specific (undocumented) diagnostic error code.

Never would have known that if I didn’t have the intertubes.

So we did.

I picked up Gears of War, Nintey Nine Nights, Kameno and Crackdown. Anyone up for a friendly game?

Oh, and today for lunch I had a fish sandwhich from Humphrey’s. Does anyone care? No. But it was darn good!

That said, I now realize that there is a level of convience in pre orders. You set down a few bucks, and the game store will call you the day before they get it in. You then come in, pay the remainder (if any) and walk out with your game. No guessing when they’ll have it in!

FunEBstopLand (Ebgames, FuncoLand, and Gamestop are now owned by the same parent company) has a pretty lenient pre-ordering system. You have to put down a minimum of $5 toward the game. And if you change your mind you can just apply that $5 toward any other purchase.

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I didn’t pre order Daxter because I thought it would be a hard title to find. The whole reason I pre-ordered Daxter was a demo disk. I’m now on this crazy hunt to find all the demo UMD’s that have been made. So far there’s only a handful, but I think it would be neat to keep collecting them.

Some developers are releasing demo UMD’s for their new PSP games. Which I think is a great idea. Let the users taste the game before they slap down $40 to $50 for a game.

In Japan, Sony has set up Playstation Spots. These are kiosks you can bring your PSP to and wirelessly download demos. The demo’s only last until you turn off the PSP, but it’s a great way to get people in the stores, and trying the new games. I would totally spend waaaaayyyy too much time at FunEBstopLand if we had these in the US.

*I’ve played the demo and I must say. OMFG! This truly is a console caliber game on a handheld. Georgous and fun. I can’t wait until the full version is released.

UPDATE: The release date has been pushed UP! Daxter is coming out Tuesday! Woot!

The biggest difference from the original to this rendition is the fact that it’s all 3d. There’s no pixels, just polygons in a 2.5d style. I love the updated look, it really adds depth (no pun intended) to the game. But, it’s weird not having pixels to judge where you are. The polygons seem to make thing just a tad more difficult to get around and judge distances. This, in general, makes the game just a tad bit more difficult to get use to. I am enjoying the widescreen presentation and remixed audio. Very Nice. I recommend it if you’re looking for a solid platformer for your PSP. Be warned, there is one caveat, it requires Firmware vers 2.5