Nintendo DS Lite intelligently designed hand-held games console
Nintendo really shouldn’t be here now. Its Game Cube console, if you believe some areas of the press, has been a total failure, while the Nintendo DS was all set to be completely overwhelmed by Sony’s PlayStation Portable hand-held.
And yet here we are. After the PSP’s strong start, Nintendo’s DS has shot ahead in sales, the Game Cube has still managed to ship over 20 million units worldwide and the forthcoming Wii console has been garnering the kind of positive buzz that money alone simply can’t buy. And it’s arriving on time.
Nintendo has, to be fair, been arguing for some time that there’s more to games machines than sheer brute force. Certainly on paper the PSP eases ahead of the DS in terms of sheer performance potential.
But in the same way that the original monochrome Game Boy saw off the colour Atari Lynx and Sega Game Gear, the DS is winning many friends, and rightly so. For Nintendo has focused, wisely, on the software.
And that doesn’t mean retreading as many old franchises as you can dig up. It’s about games that may not have the best graphics, may not look the finest in the shop window, yet in terms of playability and originality, they’re simply fresh.
Tagged Under : Console, DS Lite, game, game console, Nintendo, PSP, SEGA
Nintendo - Wii
A bit of an odd review, this one, and we should ‘fess up at the start. We’ve not had a Nintendo Wii to review on our own testbed. Instead, we were invited to a house in the middle of London that Nintendo has kitted out with its brave new hope. The following is based on the several hours we spent hammering a number of games to death and generally getting to know the new machine.
Arguably, the Nintendo Wii is the most important console launch in some time. The reason? Its ethos is different. (more…)
Tagged Under : Console, games, Microsoft, Nintendo, PSP, Sony, Wii
Sony - PlayStation 3 review
To be fair to Sony, the actual hardware was never really going to be in much doubt. And after your first few hours in the company of the PlayStation 3, you’re likely to be impressed.
Several initial thoughts went through this reviewer’s head. Firstly, the machine’s really quite heavy. Secondly, aesthetically, it’s really quite smart. And thirdly, and surprisingly, is that given the immense processing grunt under its glossy, buffed-up exterior, it’s very quiet in operation. It certainly puts the Xbox 360 in the shade in that department.
When we switched on for the first time, following as simple a connection procedure as you’d expect with a games console, we signed up for the PlayStation Network and downloaded an advised, albeit not compulsory, update. This involved us getting the machine online, which was thankfully straightforward. A built-in wireless receiver or the Ethernet port at the back are your two choices, and we tried both, finding the machine adapted to either at breakneck speed.
The download and application of the upgrade took care of the first five minutes or so, but eventually we got to spend some time with the browser interface. This bears striking similarities to the one Sony employed with the PSP, and given that the two machines have a degree of interoperability, that’s perhaps unsurprising.
It was interesting to note, going through the menu, just how Sony has made it easy to support elements you’d usually not expect it to be so welcoming of. The option for an OS install took us aback, and we were pleased to see the Folding@Home client built in too. But on top of that, the likes of keyboards, mice, Web-cams and such like - all of which can hook up via the assorted USB ports - are very easy to add. (more…)
Tagged Under : Arcade, Blu-ray, Console, games, Playstation, PS2, PS3, Sony, USB, Web cams
Microsoft - Xbox 360 Elite
The enhanced version of Microsoft’s successful gaming console has to realistically be marked down as a missed opportunity. On one hand it’s undoubtedly a powerful beast, and better equipped to go toe-to-toe with Sony’s Playstation 3 machine. But on the other, there was a real chance to seize the initiative here, one that Microsoft appears to have squandered.
The machine itself, to all intents and purposes, is an Xbox 360 with some welcome additions. Over the Premium version of the console, the Elite sports a 120GB hard drive compared with a 20GB device (comparing favourably to the PS3’s 60GB), and there’s an HDMI port on the back of the machine to allow easy and proper support of 1080p output (a connection that was picked up and optimised immediately when we hooked it up to our 52-inch 1080p test screen). Finished off in smart black, the list of enhancements stops right about there. (more…)