Nintendo DS - how come it's so great?

Two great screens! Two lovely Advance Wars ladies!

No touchscreen jokes or you get banned.

what are the launch titles for the DS? I mean I’m going to get one at launch, I’m just curious.

According to Gamefront it’ll be 8-10 games.

Super Mario 64 DS (Nintendo), The Urbz: Sims in the City (EA), Madden NFL (EA), Spider-Man 2 (Activision), Ping Pals (THQ), Feel the Magic: XY/XX (Sega).

At around the same time or shortly after launch:

Tiger Woods PGA Tour Golf (EA), Madden NFL 2005 (EA), Need For Speed Underground (EA), GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (EA), Puyo Pop Fever (Sega)

Cool. Some good sounding stuff.

I like it. Reminds me of my old Nintendo Game & Watch Donkey Kong which opened out to two screens. I still have it here somewhere.

Very nice …

I think I am going to buy one. 8)

Accord to Eurogamer, via Shacknews, it’s only 4 games:

EuroGamer is reporting tonight that a senior US source within Nintendo has confirmed to them that the Nintendo DS will launch this November with only four titles. “There’s going to be the four launch titles in Seattle, and Metroid isn’t one of them,” the insider commented. The titles are not known, but Nintendo UK did respond by saying, “American and Japanese software is being announced this week and that information will be made available tomorrow.” We know right now that Feel the Magic: XY/XX and Spider-man 2 are launch titles. With boxart now circulating for Super Mario 64 DS, that could be the third. The fourth is the mystery…

According to Gamespot, via Nintendo, it’s 8-10 titles in the US and 12 in Japan. Retail price is $30 per game.

It will be interesting to see how devs take advantage of the stylus and touch screen. It will definitely open up new gameplay possibilities.

My favourite trick is still the thing where you blow into the mic. Now there are two games that do it, Wario Ware and that crazy Sega stalker sim. If this is an example of what people can come up with, I think insane, patched-together novelty input devices should be mandatory for next generation consoles. I want to see a heat-sensitive pottery donkey controller packed with every PS3.

Hooo damn! A DS version of Advance Wars? If I wasn’t already going to buy one, that’d seal the deal!

Funny how the map readout doesn’t seem to correspond at all to what is being viewed in the 3D scene.

Where?

The only unknowns are the Sega game (is that “Kimi no tame nara Shineru”? I see nothing on Gamespot about anything titled “Feel the Magic: XY/XX” but the implied subject matter of the english title syncs with the aforementioned games), Ping Pals (again, no info), and… ermm… well, that’s it.

Super Mario 64 would be decent, Spider-Man 2 is okay, Puyo Pop is traditional, and the rest are crappy EA games? That’s not exactly thrilling for the “new potential” of the DS in my opinion.

http://www.ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=17769&page=1&pp=50

Don’t stop til you get to the end and you’ll find the games that you seek.

Where?

The only unknowns are the Sega game (is that “Kimi no tame nara Shineru”? I see nothing on Gamespot about anything titled “Feel the Magic: XY/XX” but the implied subject matter of the english title syncs with the aforementioned games), Ping Pals (again, no info), and… ermm… well, that’s it.

Super Mario 64 would be decent, Spider-Man 2 is okay, Puyo Pop is traditional, and the rest are crappy EA games? That’s not exactly thrilling for the “new potential” of the DS in my opinion.[/quote]
Bomberman, Advance Wars, Mario Kart, Viewtiful Joe, new Pokemon game, new Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, Final Fantasy 3 remake
From Gameindustry.biz

I think he meant the US launch titles, which aren’t that interesting except for maybe a couple. Lots of good stuff before the end of the year, though, and the Japanese launch looks a lot better.

Well, not only US launch titles, but also new games, not as in “This is the sequel to the bestselling title from last year.” or “This is like the gamecube/PS2/XBox title, but look here, there’s a map in the other screen.” but rather “This is like Final Fantasy type RPGs, except the combat is pseudo-realtime and to have your characters attack you must draw out the path of their weapons/runes for their magic spells.”

The whole draw to the DS is supposed to be the two screen + touch support. If I’m going to be turned on enough by the potential new game paradigms to buy the system, they really need to demonstrate the ways in which those new paradigms affect my game. Maybe you have to draw out your backswing stroke in the Tiger Woods game. If so, hurrah, and I haven’t done my research. But I doubt it. And I can’t see any way that, say, The Urbz really cares one way or the other about anything unique that the DS would have to offer.

Oh, then you just haven’t done any research or read any previews or anything. Give me $5 and I’ll cut and paste you some articles if you like.

Once again, my faith in Nintendo is vindicated.

Let’s see, I went back to gamespot, and saw that Madden will have one overview screen, one that seems to be more like normal. Point: DS

The Urbz will have “more of teh bonii”. No point. (I don’t consider new minigames that use the DS feature to be significant gameplay changes, sorry.)

I went to the Nintendo site and the obvious links led nowhere useful.

Gamespy doesn’t seem to even have a DS information section linked to up top. (To be fair, it’s linked on the side, but then it just drills down to a GBA section.)

What sources of info am I missing? If I can’t find the info at the big sites, exactly how good is the advertising here?

EA’s site has a section for PSP games, but nothing for DS games. What information am I supposed to take away from that?

It just feels “wrong”. The operation game, the stalker game, all that stuff looks really cool. But how come I can’t find any local pointers to this type stuff? Where’s the hype of EA talking about how the different input methods really open up the DS games to new ways to interact? What’s the average, only marginally interested consumer supposed to think?

(Other than combing through forums, is there a good centralized location with actual info about this system? Or is it really aimed at an enthusiast level primarily, hence having to dig for the info?)