Dcubed

Choosing to eschew buttons controls in favour of going fully touch only was a very daring move (and one that the developers really struggled with), but it was a move that really turned out to be a big success and enabled a very different form of gameplay over its predecessor (and of course its Wii sequel). This is a game that just simply feels good to play. Every single note and interaction has been fine tuned to perfection (and speaking as someone who perfected every song in the game, not once did I ever feel that a mistake I made was the fault of the controls). It's wacky, insanely creative and utterly bonkers to play. I love it! All 3 games in the series are masterpieces that should be played by everyone, but the DS game in particular is perhaps the most unique and interesting of them all, thanks to the touch controls that literally add a whole new dimension of nuance to the gameplay Yeah it does feel a bit empty in comparison to the US box... There. Much more lively

Project H.A.M.M.E.R reborn? Whatever it is, it sounds super cheesy and corny (like something you'd see out of Disaster DOC or EDF). Count me in!

Because almost all non 2D games on Vita are not making use of it. A game that runs at the Vita's native resolution is a rarity, not the norm. 720p on a 4/4.5 odd inch screen is an extravagance that is entirely unnecessary and would actually end up damaging the overall image quality of their future handheld games, while also significantly raising the cost of the hardware. 854x480 is the right compromise for Nintendo to make. It's more than good enough at around a 4-4.5 inch size (giving it around the same DPI as the Vita's screen), offering a perfect balance between screen DPI clarity and rendering load and it also just so happens to be the perfect scaling resolution for all Virtual Console releases (there's a good reason why Nintendo picked that specific resolution for the Wii U Gamepad and it wasn't because it was cheap ) Nintendo aren't going to choose hardware components because they want to score cheap marketing bulletpoints; they're going to choose the hardware that offers the best overall gaming experience and worry about marketing afterwards.

Most Vita games (including all of the PS2 ports; yes even FF10 on Vita) don't actually run at the console's native resolution - instead they upscale from a lower resolution to fit the resolution of the display. Soul Sacrifice and FF10 Vita actually both only render at 720 x 408 for instance, which funnily enough is lower than SD (and not that far ahead of the 3DS really, when you account for the fact that 3DS has to render 800x240 - 400x240 x2 for each eye). These games are completely wasting the high quality screen that has been offered to them; that's my point. Why bother having a high resolution screen if the hardware powering it isn't powerful enough to run the games at the resolution of the display (making games look blurry and pixilated) anyway? It's pointless!

The CPU is weaker, but the GPU is better than what's in the Wii. It's more powerful in some ways and weaker in others but is generally in the same power bracket.

The 3DS is already Wii levels of power though... And we know that the next handheld is gonna be using the Wii U's hardware architecture, so it'll probably end up being around the same performance as the Wii U, just running in 854 x 480 instead of HD (having an S3D screen might hold it back from quite hitting that same mark though...) I reckon it'll end up using the same CPU as the Wii U (maybe clocked slightly lower at around 1ghz instead of 1.3, but with the same number of cores), but the GPU won't have quite the same grunt (which it wouldn't need if it was only running at the Gamepad's 854 x 480 resolution).

If you're implying that it's gonna happen this year, then you're dead wrong (3DS still has many years of life left in it - you're probably looking at a 2016-2017 timeframe for its successor) but E3 will likely remain as the venue of choice for grand hardware unvels (though actual announcements of upcoming hardware will still continue to happen several months beforehand, as per usual).

Well then it calls into question what kind of device their next handheld will be first and foremost. Is it a game console with media functionality or is it an iPod/iPhone competitor that just so happens to play games as a secondary function? I know this may come across as insane, but I get the feeling that Nintendo are looking to make the 3DS successor a game playing device first and foremost That means that their hardware decisions will be focused around making the best portable gaming experience possible before any other considerations are made (not to mention that you wouldn't be able to really see the difference at that screen size anyway - hell the majority of content watched on mobile screens are low quality SD videos anyway ) If you're expecting Nintendo to come out with a phone that directly competes against the iPhone and other smartphones on its own turf, I reckon you'll be disappointed... (not to mention that it would be suicide to do so anyway)

Performance is a good enough reason to eschew the kinds of ludicrous resolutions that you see in high end mobiles. These devices aren't even powerful enough to run the kinds of 3D games you'd expect from a handheld device anyway - so they end up having to drop the rendering resolution - making the high res screen a complete waste (see Vita for the same problem with almost every 3D game released on it) I'd be more than happy with a 4 odd inch top screen running at 854 x 480 (assuming a similar form factor as the DS/3DS - and even that resolution feels like overkill for the size IMO) - the same resolution as the Wii U Gamepad in a smaller size - so better DPI. That would also be perfect for VC games as every single pre Wii U game would scale up to that resolution perfectly which, given that it would be using the same architecture as Wii U (and assuming that the specs are good enough), would also leave the handheld perfectly equipped to run the entire Wii U VC library from day 1

I don't know people are so steadfastly confident that Nintendo are going to merge their handhelds and consoles when Iwata has repeatedly stated that they don't intend to do this... They're looking to adapt the Wii U's hardware architecture into the next console and handheld respectively and have them both run on the same kind of hardware (with appropriately differing specs - just like iPhone and iPad), but that doesn't mean that they will be combined into one machine, or that they'll play the same games... (in fact, the specs will probably vary quite a bit between the two - despite being binary compatible with each other)

No idea about glare but it would be a nice way of keeping the dual screen design, while also allowing for a nice big vertical display (plus I would be able to nickname it the "BendyS" - which is such a stupid name that Nintendo would simply have to go with it; and I would love them forever for doing so :p ) Everything on phones and tablets uses large touch targets and simple touch gestures. You could never play something like Trauma Centre, Kirby Power Paintbrush, Zelda Phantom Hourglass/Spirit Tracks or Meteos without hugely dumbing down the experience... Capacitive screens aren't even really expensive at all (in fact I wouldn't be surprised if high quality Resistive screens like what the Wii U Gamepad uses are actually more expensive, given that Capacitive screens have become commodity tech). It's not a matter of one form of tech being "better" than the other, but rather that they offer different advantages (Capacitive = multi touch, while Resistive = better accuracy and cheaper styli) And of course it's also a matter of what advantage is more important to the device in question. Does a Nintendo handheld really need multitouch when you already have a full complement of buttons; has there ever been a DS/3DS/Wii U game that would've really have benefitted from multitouch? (The only one I can think of is Taiko Drum Master on DS/3DS and that was cleverly designed around by making the middle of the virtual drum, which is "touched" when both sides of the drum are touched at the same time, act as the touch target for when you're supposed to hit both drums at the same time - likewise, Pokemon B&W's Feeling Check also used the same trick ). Or is that extra accuracy that makes stuff like Trauma Centre and Art Academy Sketchpad possible more important?

I wonder if Nintendo have considered a single bendable OLED screen, in place of having two separate screens with their next handheld? (Now here's an example where a bendable screen would actually be useful and not just for show!)

I hope they do end up allowing you to create actual MPEG 4 videos from replays and then let you upload them. Would be a terrible missed opportunity to have replay sharing being limited to just the game only...

Yeah, I pretty much agree with everything you said @Grazza I do feel the need to add that I do appreciate how ambitious the original GBC game was though. It's a lot more expansive and adventurous than its DSi sequel, with a bigger overworld, bigger dungeons, more interesting minigames and side quests and more intricate puzzles. I do hope that Pirate's Curse brings some of that back. But yeah, I think it deserves to be remembered as a flawed but fun classic. It does have some very significant and unforgivable problems (most notably the ridiculously small field of view that results in countless leaps of faith and deaths - with levels that clearly weren't properly designed around it - and the numerous silly typos and lack of clues that result in tons of Guide Dammit! moments; especially towards the end of the game, that last dungeon was total BS to find!), but ultimately it's a fun ride that's well worth experiencing. The sequel did indeed fix pretty much all of my issues with the original GBC game in retrospect. I just hope that Pirate's Curse now takes that and builds more on top of that great foundation that Risky's Revenge built!

Yup, all because Nintendo couldn't patch their games to work on a different set of servers (though if it came to that back then, they probably would've bought them out to keep all the games running). That decision to not have an underlying OS running while playing games really bit them in the arse last gen (it also made it more or less impossible to stop the onslaught of piracy that plagued those systems as well...) Thankfully that's not a problem for 3DS and Wii U games, since all of their online stuff is abstracted by the OS and games can be patched as necessary. Just gotta hope that Nintendo replace the WFC code with a Nintendo Network stack when it comes to the VC releases...

Must be a release date announcement then surely? Can't think of anything else that would warrant a Smash specific Direct... Which leads me to think that it's coming out much sooner than I had expected (I was thinking November 2014 on Wii U and Feb-April 2015 on 3DS, in order to help the Wii U get the game quicker). They wouldn't be announcing a release date that was ludicrously far off in a Smash specific direct, so that leads me to think June-July on Wii U; but that just seems unfeasable...

Possibly, but then again Nintendo do usually have a few video options when it comes to their handheld games (GB Player had quite a few video options, while the GB VC games on 3DS have both screen emulation and resolution options) so maybe they would've had something, if not smoothing... That and having it available on the Gamepad screen from within the game also allows people to share screenshots of the original manual on Miiverse (if it was only accessible via the electronic manual from the home screen, you wouldn't be able to take screenshots). I get the feeling that adding the original manual was a suggestion from M2 too

Yeah I saw that. Very surprising that Nintendo didn't do the emulation entirely in house like they usually do with their own consoles (M2 did the Mega Drive, Master System, SEGA Arcade game, Neogeo and MSX emulation on the Wii VC, but Nintendo handled the NES, SNES and N64 themselves - with the latter being done by NST) Wonder why... Lack of resources?

Are Nintendo planning on spoiling everything about this game before it gets released? Not liking this recent trend of theirs... Not gonna watch the trailer, so that I at least have SOME surprises outside of Mario Kart TV to look forward to...

It doesn't mean anything sadly. The games showed the logo even when run on a normal GBA, it's nothing special. BTW: The entire month's worth of GBA games are actually already on the eShop right now (you can access their game pages if you search for them ) you just can't actually download them until their respective release dates. So frustrating, knowing that they're all there but are being arbitrarily held back... (Yeah yeah I know that this is normal and that this happens every time Nintendo give out early copies to the press and that it happens with every game - DKCTF and SM3DW got put up on the eShop around a month before launch for instance - but it's still frustrating...)

I just had a thought... I wonder if Mario & Luigi SS supports rumble on the VC version? With the original game, if you played it on a Gameboy Player, the game would support rumble through the Gamecube controller. I wonder if they kept that feature intact... BTW: That ability to have the manual on the Gamepad while the game is still running on the TV is really cool! It's like having the real physical manual in front of you while you play I wish they'd offer the same thing with the original printed players guides for these games too. That would be really REALLY cool!

I don't think we're getting it sadly Though I do reckon that they'll probably do a similar offer some months down the line, with this Japanese offer being used as a test of sorts...

Add another Namco GBA game to the pile Namco Museum

Hope we get the Ball and Chain (with actual physics that make the ball flop around as you jump while holding it). That would be killer!

Bigger teams are not inherently a good thing. It results in the destruction of a developer's culture, leading to a loss of focus and a loss in quality; look at just about every single large scale 3rd Japanese developer this generation for proof - hell @Cube's comment about Next Level's non-Nintendo games being poor in quality was actually a result of this kind of uncontrolled expansion - from an interview with Next Level Games' co founder Jason Carr... Part of the reason why Nintendo's games are so good are because they haven't rapidly expanded the size of their development teams (instead the increased manpower requirements have been dealt with through art outsourcing and collaborative development). Throwing more bodies at a project is not the easy solution that many people seem to believe it is...