Of course being the smart guy that I am, I won handily with a Nintendo entry.

Thanks to Doug for being cool and business innovation 2005 for having a cool contest. Can’t wait to read the book. I reccomend you all buy it.

This means that on those long road trips you can get your Verizon EV-DO PCMCIA card, plug it into your laptop, create an ad-hoc wireless lan and get your DSes online for some worldwide Mario Kart action!

See how easy this was? These are the only tiny tidbits of information that people needed and Nintendo was not revealing. This is not even rumor, this is fact. I used the interface myself and took pictures of it. The only way this could possibly be untrue is if Nintendo spontaneously decides to heavily modify the software between now and release. But from what I played I doubt that will happen. These seemed like very finished games. I think the only thing that is keeping them off shelves is that they need to produce enough copies and packaging and distribute them.

So Mario Kart DS and the new Superstar Saga are sold. Animal Crossing will sell to a lot of people, but probably not me. The rest of the trade show was cool, but nothing really interesting except for the pepper pad.

The second thing is a note about the lack of DS games. You might notice that there isn’t a particular surplus of titles for the DS. However, this rarity in turn has somehow increased demand. I’m not sure if Nintendo did it on purpose or by accident, but it helps them a lot. Think of it like this. There are tons of GBA and PS2 games out there. Because of this gamers have to be very discriminating in which games they purchase rent and ignore. Only the best games get money. On the DS players are dying to be able to use the touch-pad, the microphone, and especially the wireless multiplayer. But if they had a large selection of games available they would likely only buy one or two of them. Nintendo is rationing the titles. Look at me, I’m seriously considering spending money on games like Polarium, Yoshi Touch+go and Puyo-Pop. Fucking Puyo-pop. These are games I would normally ignore on the GBA. But the wireless multiplayer elements of Polarium and Puyo add so much. Add the fact that there aren’t a lot of other games out there offering access to these features of my hardware, and you’ve got big sales of games that normally would get none. I’ve already bought Mario and Kirby, my roommate bought Mario and Bomberman. At least with the multiplayer games we only need to buy one copy between the two of us. Just don’t be surprised if you see above average sales for titles like Bomberman on the DS.

Lastly, I want to talk about the gimmickiness of the features of the DS. Before the DS came out many people had fears that the touch screen, microphone, two screens and wireless would be gimmicky. Anyone who remembers the infra-red port on the Gameboy Color knows what they were thinking. It turns out however, that each and every one of these features can be used for gimmick or not. And it all depends on each individual game whether or not the feature is gimmicked or not. Take Bomberman for example. Bomberman uses the two screens very well. It also uses the wireless for multiplayer flawlessly. However, it uses the microphone in a gimmicky way. Certain gameplay modes allow making loud noise into the microphone to trigger bomb explosions or shields. I played it, and while it might be fun once, after that it sucks. It just hurts, you have to be loud and it’s not worth it. Thankfully every microphone mode has a clone mode sans-microphone. So to all you DS developers out there. Don’t feel obligated to use every feature of the DS. Use only the ones you need when you need them in appropriate ways. If you aren’t making a touch screen game like Kirby, then don’t use the touch screen at all. Nobody wants to take the stylus in and out of its holster during play. And if you aren’t making a game where voice control or communication is necessary and polished, don’t use it at all. And if you don’t really need to put anything on the second screen, don’t. Just stick the HUD up/down there and be done with it. When you’ve got a hammer everything starts to look like nails. Don’t use something just because you’ve got it. Use the stuff appropriately and your games will be better.

First off, before we knew anything about the revolution I had some ideas about what I would like it to be and some predictions about what it actually would be. My idea was that it would be a wireless DS hub or a hub for the new GameBoy. My vision was that 16 people in one house with 16 DSes would be on a team playing a game against 16 other people in another house with 16 DSes. Or 4 houses with 4DSes each, you get the idea. That would be a revolution in gaming. Each player would have their own private screen with their personal gameplay, but the revolution hooked up to the television would provide information common to the entire team. Developers could concentrate more on the game itself and not on features like in game voice chat.

What I thought the revolution really would be was an Internet enabled game station with an incredibly new controller with all sorts of innovative interfaces. It is obvious if you go to any arcade that the big games all have special interfaces other than joystick and buttons. Games with racing wheels, dance pads and drum sets are the big money makers with all sorts of people other than gamers. Only super gamer freaks play Soul Caliber II in the arcade. Don’t get me wrong though, I love SC2. But Initial D version 3 and DDR are the most popular games in any arcade you go to. Besides air hockey, skee-ball and the crane game that is.

What Nintendo announced yesterday was something I have wanted for years. Whenever an emulation argument came up I would say “Those bastards, emulation should be OK because it’s abandonware. If they aren’t selling it anymore they shouldn’t be able to stop us from sharing it.” Nintendo responded recently by including all the old NES classics as bonuses in various games as well as on stand alone GBA cartridges. However, they were heinously overpriced and in some cases deficient. I wanted Nintendo to release every NES game ever for download at $1 or less each and release an official perfect emulator for all OSes. Now they have come through with something potentially better and potentially worse. The revolution will allow download of NES, SNES and N64 games into its 512MB of flash for perfect emulation. Presumably there will be a charge for this and some sort of DRM.

This will work, if Nintendo does the following. First, the game library has to be huge. If people can’t get all the big games by download it will fail. No FF6, forget it. If people can’t get rare games or forgotten hits it will fail. Real gamers still have their NESes or they have emulators. The only reason they will pay up is to get hard to find games. Nintendo also needs to provide some original content for download. We don’t just mean the shit that the XboX 360 is pushing either. MS thinks it is going to make money by selling unlockables in games. What used to be acquired simply by finding secrets or performing feats in a game will now be acquired by paying money. That will only fly with idiots. To make this work Nintendo can’t do that. They have to sell complete exclusive games over the Revolution download service. Example: They make a third quest to the original Legend of Zelda. I’ll buy that for a dollar, and so will many other people.

Next, Nintendo has to have the DRM not be stupid. Nobody likes DRM except DRM companies. If for any reason the DRM becomes a hindrance to gaming people will be pissed. The DRM, no matter what it is, will be broken in a matter of days anyway. The 512MB of flash, the USB ports and the SD card slot are going to be a hackers play land. this is good for Nintendo. Their systems were always a hackers nightmare with physical anti-piracy prevention like tiny GameCube discs and cartridges. Iwata spoke on how the revolution would be a revolution for developers. That it would be a system for people with big ideas not a big budget. If this holds true and just about anybody can develop for the revolution that will be huge. The blockbuster game companies like EA aren’t the ones who can take advantage of the possibilities of innovation that Nintendo is providing. Only by opening up to smaller more creative developers will we see software that takes full advantage of the hardware capabilities. This is why you don’t see a great quantity of DS software yet. The people with the resources to develop games don’t have the ideas and aren’t willing to take the risk. But the cost of entry for those who have ideas and risk is too high. If the price of entry is low there will be hordes of software. And if hackability is easy you will see articles on all the big blogs daily about the new cool thing that someone did with their revolution.

The last thing Nintendo has to do is fully maximize the potential of the wireless controller. The way I see it, wireless controllers means you can have as many players in one room as you have wireless channels. 16 is my prediction as that is how many DSes go at once and how many wavebirds go at once. But wireless also means you can have any kind of controller you want. I imagine a battle of the bands game including bongos microphones and more. If they release a wireless Duck Hunt zapper I will cry. They almost have to if they expect to sell that or Hogan’s Alley for download. And if they make a wireless power glove I’ll shit myself. It’s so bad. On the prototype revolution there are going to be GameCube controller ports and memory card slots. Whether those are only for cube compatibility or more remains to be seen. What would be extra awesome would be if the GameCube controller and wavebird were the standard revolution controllers. Maybe release a newly styled yet equivalent version for the revolution. Then have all kinds of revolutionary input devices for different games. It’s worked for DDR and Donkey Konga. Heck, entire industries pop up just to perfect a certain type of periopheral.

If Nintendo does all these things they will swim in money. But I don’t think this will be our reality. The reality I foresee is this. Nintendo will still be stingy with dev kits to protect IP, like the are now. Developing for revolution will be cheaper, but still not open to anyone and everyone so the number of games that take full advantage of the possibilities will be limited, like the DS. Lots of people will release games that are just normal video games with meager online support if any. Nobody will do anything cool like enabling online multiplayer support in the old school downloadable games or putting duck hunt high scores online. Somebody will release clones of the old NES, SNES and N64 controllers that are wireless and work with the revolution. It might even be Nintendo. The online library of games will not be as big as it could be, for licensing reasons. But it will contain all the Nintendo classics at the least. Most likely it will also have Namco, Midway and Atari games. All the things currently release as anthology discs will be available for download. I predict that the revolution will have a default wireless controller that has fancy features like a pressure sensitive grip, Wario ware twisted, microphone type interface. It might even have a touch screen in it. If it does, then unlike the Dreamcast VMU or the GBA->GCN connector every game will be forced to take advantage of that feature. And how they take advantage will determine which games are million sellers. As far as I’m concerned the only cube games to make reasonable use of the GBA were Pac-man vs. and 4 swords. FF:CC and Wind Waker just didn’t use it well enough.

I can see what is going through Nintendo’s minds right now. They see games like Katamari Damacy, DDR, Lumines, etc. They see cell phone games like Tetris going for $5. These games are cheap to make, yet sell as well as blockbuster titles that cost millions. That is where the huge profits lie. The revolution will be a platform where you can develop a game of any level and make it available to all the console owners. If you want to make a PS3 game it has to be a huge fancy graphics extravaganza. Theoretically if you get a big idea you can get a bunch of NES devs over and make a revolution game over the weekend. Not every revolution game will be another Katamari, but that’s what they’re shooting for. You can already see it happening with stuff like Nintendogs and Polarium on the DS. The question is whether there are enough creative minds to make enough content to get the ball rolling. All I can say is that if you are the type of person who prefers a Katamari to yet another Halo/Final Fantasy/GTA then Nintendo is the place to be.

Ever since the epic Game Boy vs. Game Gear war Nintendo has been the king of portable gaming. With Tetris, the Narsil of the handheld world, in hand there was just no stopping the Game Boy. To this day, mainly due to continued backwards compatibility, the Game Boy has remained the only handheld system to mean squat despite serious competition.

But now Nintendo is taking a risk. The Gamecube got a false reputation as a system for little kids and suffered for it, despite being extremely profitable for Nintendo. So Nintendo got creative. While the other companies are re-hashing the same played out games year after year, Nintendo looked at Konami’s phenomena of Bemani and started thinking. First they linked the GBA into the GCN for FF:CC. They made the e-reader. They made the wavebird. They made WarioWare. And now, they are making the DS. And after that the coup de grace, the revolution will be revealed. But these are untested waters. How will gamers respond to this? We’ll have to wait and see.

I’ve posted it in various places, but this is my prediction and the reasons for it. The DS will reign. Here is why. First off, think about this. In the absolute worst situation the DS will be the next Virtual Boy. At the absolute best everybody will buy one and there will be tons of great games. And the price is pretty much gauranteed to be less than $200. Because of this, the DS will be a good investment no matter what happens. And because its a good investment, people will buy it. The PSP on the other hand might be a bad investment. Its going to be expensive, very expensive. And there is no guarantee of it being awesome. If it fails then everyone who bought it will be sitting high and dry. The DS is guaranteed to have a Zelda game, worth the price alone. The PSP is guaranteed to have GTA and Gran Turismo. Now look back in time to when the Game Boy beat the Game Gear. The reason was not hardware, Nintendo admits it. The reason was that the games that were released for the Game Boy were portable games. The same way that PC games like Quake don’t do well on home systems is the same reason that console games don’t translate into succesful portable games. Nintendo has always made games like Advance Wars. Truly portable games that would not work well anywhere else. The PSP is going to attempt to directly translate PS2 games to a smaller screen with fewer buttons. That wont work as history has shown. The GBA is so good that people buy Game Boy Players. They want to play their portable games on their TVs. When the PSP can manage that it can beat the DS.

Now that we have established that the DS will be such a success we can talk about the killer app. While talking in the car yesterday me and my roommate came to an epiphany. The killer app of the DS was discovered. The pieces of the puzzle were as follows: wireless, two screens, stylus, and the need for only one cartridge for 16 people to play a multiplayer game. What do these pieces make when you put them together? I’ll tell you. Board games in the car. That’s right. Are you tired of losing pieces to all those magnetic board games? Did your travel version of Connect 4 fall under the seat? The DS is the ultimate solution. Imagine sitting in the library and having a pick up game of Monopoly or chess. Two screens, one shows your stuff, the other screen shows the game board. The stylus makes play casual and relaxed. If the DS connects to the internet you can use it to do real gambling. You can play a few hands of hold ‘em on the train ride into work for real money. You can’t tell me there’s no money in that. But for me and my friends the German Board games are the big ticket. We just love the purely strategic and tactical games involving lots of little wooden bits and pieces. With the DS we can finally play Puerto Rico or El Grande from the back of the van on the way to a geek convention. It’s geek heaven.

So while the DS will probably capture the hearts of current GBA lovers it will also be an instant sell to geeks everywhere. All the people who hang on social networks. People who play board games and strategy games. The PSP’s best hope is to get all the common folk who aren’t serious gamers. But the Playstation demographic just doesn’t play portable games. If they did, they would have bought GBAs. They can’t expect to steal market from Nintendo. The only hope is for the market to expand, and its not likely. Especially since the DS has the killer solution to all of life’s portable gaming problems. Time to go to bed. I’ll see you guys next year, in a cafe. We’ll have us a pick up game of Settlers.

Honestly, now that I have the game it’s not the greatest game in the world. My expectations were slightly higher than what I got. However, the game is not poop. If you’re like me and you really like robots you’ll like this game, especially if you liked games like virtual on and power stone.

The best part of this game is the multiplayer action. Surprisingly the 1 on 1 is better than any of the other modes. The 2 v 2 is also really fun. Don’t even bother playing the 3 player battle royale, there is no point. No matter what you pick as your robot you will lose if the other two players attack you simultaneously. The 4 way isn’t quite so bad, but its so insane that all advanced strategies and tactics break down. When you first open the box the multiplayer isn’t so fun, because you don’t have anything to customize your robos with. This leads us into the bad part of the game.

Most of the fun in this game lies in the fact that there are tons of different items with which to customize your robots. And its a blast to set up a flying robot with a dragon gun, bee pods and a wave bomb. But in order to get those things you have to play the story mode. The story mode sucks.

Well, the combat that occurs in story mode is alright. The problem is that the story is 100% linear. You don’t actually do anything except walk around and talk to people. You can go different places to make different things happen or search for items or anything. All you do is press A to talk to people and inspect things. The game always points you to where you need to go, and its the only place you can go to do anything. Sometimes the game just takes control and walks you there. They could have just put all the fights in a row, which they did in Arcade mode. But you can’t unlock arcade mode without beating story mode. The story itself is so poor, I’d rather go see a Pokemon movie. Seriously. And when the plot gets to its most serious points (which are still stupid) characters keep chiming in with annoying crap you don’t want to hear. At least in a Final Fantasy I get to look for treasure chests and have to figure out where to go.

So if you can deal with a terrible story mode and you unlock all the good stuff that the game rewards you with for beating it, the game gets awesome. Arcade mode, first person mode, tons of items and Grand Challenge mode. These things are fun and great.

So, this game out of the box is pretty lame. But if you can spend the time to beat story mode its worth it. But then you’ll only beat story mode if you really like robots and that sort of thing. The fun is in the customizing. This isn’t a must buy game, but nothing else is coming out soon.