Why Do Console Makers Strip Obvious Features?

[migo]

When the GameBoy Color was released it's fairly obvious, NES games are in colour and use 2 buttons and a D-Pad, that's fine. With the GBA it was supposed to play SNES games, and even got some SNES ports, but why did they leave the X and Y buttons off? It strikes me as obvious that you'd want that to play SNES games properly on the go. Apparently it wasn't as obvious to Nintendo.

PSP it's the same deal, one analog stick instead of 2, and no L2 or R2 either (admittedly that might have been hard to pull off, but its absence is still notable).

The GP32 is even odd with that - in competing with the GBA it could have really sweetened the deal by having 4 face buttons, but that took until the GP2X to come out.

Is there some sort of engineering constraint that was making the extra buttons and analog stick unworkable or are Sony, Nintendo and GamePark just a little bit dense?

 

[fuji99]

Added cost of those features versus desired price point of the console.

 

[second exodous]

I wonder the same things some times, like the Nintendo SP not coming with a head phone jack. The cost of things like two more buttons or a phone jack can't be that high, I have no idea why they do things like that.

With the buttons maybe it is to deter emulation, if the GBA/SP only had two buttons then it would be difficult to emulate SNES on it? two more buttons just can't add that much to the cost of a handheld, but I don't know, I could be wrong.

 

[Jourdy288]

Console makers strip obvious features so that they can come out with a slim model four years later :lol:

 

[migo]

I wonder the same things some times, like the Nintendo SP not coming with a head phone jack. The cost of things like two more buttons or a phone jack can't be that high, I have no idea why they do things like that.

With the buttons maybe it is to deter emulation, if the GBA/SP only had two buttons then it would be difficult to emulate SNES on it? two more buttons just can't add that much to the cost of a handheld, but I don't know, I could be wrong.

That's certainly plausible, but then what about the GP32 - it was pretty much made for emulation.

 

[OrR]

Nope, it wasn't. The plan at the beginning was to actually establish a competitor to the GBA, with it's own library of games. Obviously, that didn't work out too well but that only became clear long after the design was finalized and put out into the market. The GP2X is probably the first handheld actually designed with emulation in mind (other than those 32 games in one thingies).

 

[x68000]

Every handheld system should have 6 action buttons, a la Sega Nomad. Better still, a handheld should be designed around a Japanese Sega Saturn Pad

@OrR, I'm sure the GP2X wasn't created with emulation in mind. IIRC, It was Craig who persuaded them to market emulation as one of it's core features.

 

[Exophase]

This coming from the guy who thinks iPhone is the best gaming handheld out? Seriously?

 

[migo]

This coming from the guy who thinks iPhone is the best gaming handheld out? Seriously?

If you're referring to me, Apple didn't design it to be a game system, they stumbled upon it accidentally and ran with it, so it completely doesn't count with regards to this thread.

That said:

It's got a massive library of games, a good chunk of which are ultra cheap or free, all of them download to the device so there's no extra bulk. It straight up wins over a DS or PSP in that department unless you're going to go the R4/Pandora Battery route and start pirating - and even there jailbreaking is easier. They've got portability down solid. The types of games you'll be playing on the go need to be pick up and play, and also be easy to put away. All the mini games are perfect for when you're standing in a lineup or are waiting for the bus and just need to do something for a couple minutes, or even 30 seconds. The PSP doesn't have anything viable there, and the DS is rather sparse too. It also actually handles dual analog shooters, and has a number of them on there, meaning it's capable of entire categories of games no other handheld out there is (the Pandora doesn't count, it's not yet at a production level where anyone who wants one can go and buy it). It's also getting a measure of 3rd party software support that none of the other consoles are getting.

You can look at features, but as the GameBoy showed, it smoked the competitors out there that had better features thanks to a great software library. The iPod touch has that, and has the most important parts of a handheld system (decent battery life, portability, short pick up and play games) covered. The PSP has worse battery life, the DS slightly better.

 

[Nova]

Yeah you can't deny that the iPhone is a gaming machine now. It's got some pretty serious developers behind it.

 

[x68000]

Despite it having some serious devs on board, the best apps are the simple ones which are more homebrew in style. Doodle jump, flight control.

I hate those on screen dpads they use.

@migo, I get two hours battery life max If I play games on my 3DS, which makes it far worse than any handheld.

EDIT: 3GS NOT 3DS!

 

[Nova]

Despite it having some serious devs on board, the best apps are the simple ones which are more homebrew in style. Doodle jump, flight control.

I hate those on screen dpads they use.

@migo, I get two hours battery life max If I play games on my 3DS, which makes it far worse than any handheld.

I'd like to know where you got your 3DS from so soon.


EDIT: By the way, I know what you mean, but I'm afraid you might have a guff battery. I spent 4 hours on the train the other day playing MGS4 on my 3GS and by the end of the journey, I still had over 50% battery.

 

[Exophase]

If you're referring to me, Apple didn't design it to be a game system, they stumbled upon it accidentally and ran with it, so it completely doesn't count with regards to this thread.

Okay, so long as you that is how you feel. I'm not saying it doesn't have a lot of games, that are easy to get. Of course, the actual quality of the games is a subjective factor, but I'm just talking about the design of the system and how conducive it is to gaming (and I don't share your love for the touch screen for.. pretty much any traditional gaming applications, including analog input). You say the types of games played on a handheld "need" to be pickup and play, but that's just your preference and applicable to your situations.

I'm having a really hard time finding actual battery life ratings for iPod Touch Third Gen. Just a lot of "6 hours video playback" - that's great, but it says nothing about how it performs when the CPU and 3D are being more taxed. I can't even find the battery capacity - hide everything Apple doesn't want to say, but I imagine it's a bit lower than what's in PSP.

 

[migo]

Err, MGS4 for on iOS.... I assume MGS doesn't stand for Metal Gear Solid?

@Exophase - I don't like it much for traditional games either - Sonic and Giana Sisters kinda suck. I think it's better for fighters than a D-Pad, since a D-Pad isn't that good anyway (I prefer playing Tekken 3 on ePSXe with a keyboard than on my PS2 with a DualShock), and really the only thing that's good is an Arcade Stick, so I'm looking at getting a NGPC as that's about as close to an arcade stick as you're getting on a handheld. SFIV on iOS is about as good as Tekken 3 with a keyboard though, which actually puts it above. Games like Siberian Strike are also great for Shmups. Tilt steering on Parcel Panic is pretty awesome too. Some FPS games work really well (NOVA, ToonWarz). Airplane shooters also work well (like Skies of Glory), and of course there's all the quirky indy games that might as well be homebrew that are quite fun. I get a lot of fun out of Dizzy Pad, Bird Strike, Flight Control and Spider. It's got several categories of games that are unplayable on any other system. For emulators, it's also not bad for turn based RPGs. Chrono Trigger is fine, although I stay away from Crystalis, and any of the Super Mario games are unplayable since they require simultaneous action button presses with one thumb that the screen doesn't recognise properly.

But like I said, this is moot for the purposes of this topic. Apple didn't decide they'd make a gaming system and release the iPod touch. They decided they'd make a feature phone without any app support, people started hacking it and found it was pretty powerful and got emulators working, so Apple decided to keep people from jailbreaking they'd natively support app installation. Then quirky games like Zen Bound got released, and it became more viable than any other cell phone for gaming, and finally developed into a really solid game system. It really follows the same history as early gaming PCs which would use the MIDI port on a sound card for a joystick. A DOS 5.0 system wasn't intended for gaming the same way a SNES was, but it turned out that the DOS system was actually better for a certain category of games.

Battery life on my 2G touch is around 6 hours, and I only use it for gaming. Some games are more taxing than others.

 

[x68000]

Despite it having some serious devs on board, the best apps are the simple ones which are more homebrew in style. Doodle jump, flight control.

I hate those on screen dpads they use.

@migo, I get two hours battery life max If I play games on my 3DS, which makes it far worse than any handheld.

I'd like to know where you got your 3DS from so soon.


EDIT: By the way, I know what you mean, but I'm afraid you might have a guff battery. I spent 4 hours on the train the other day playing MGS4 on my 3GS and by the end of the journey, I still had over 50% battery.

Mmmmmmmm, see what i did there, i have 3DS on the brain right now.

Maybe my battery is knackered, but i'm not too bothered as i should have my 4th gen in a few days

 

[migo]

If you've got WiFi and cellular data turned on while playing the battery life will be sapped faster. If I'm on the go I make sure to turn WiFi off as it's useless while moving anyway.