Would this machine have a future?

[karsten]

I'm currently very disappointed with the continuous trend of handhelds with lower and lower battery life... do you think that nowayday a modern handheld mostly 2d based, with a reasonably big screen, with the ability to read ebook and a very good battery life (i.e. 30 hours) would have a market?

[kendrick]

Not to be discouraging or anything, but it's never about the specs. It's always about the software. Nintendo and Apple understand this, and this is why they can get away with little imperfections or annoyances in their products. Sony didn't understand this, and so western gamers (on the whole) were less willing to put up with control and battery issues. As long as I get to hunt Pokemon or fling enraged avians, who cares what the battery life is? That's how the market thinks.

2D graphics and a big screen. What sort of games do you plan for this hardware? That's always going to be the question I ask as a potential buyer of this widget. Although truth be told, given that I own an N-gage, a Game.Com and a Neo Pocket, I'd probably buy one of yours too anyway. :)

[karsten]

oh it's not like i would plan and make a console :D

it's just that the direction the current handhelds are moving is opposite to my tastes.

for example:
i like 2d games on the road more than 3d and all companies bet on 3d and even glassless 3d like the 3ds

i like 4:3 screens on portables and all the new generation one are going 16:9

i love an handheld to have veeeeeeery long battery life, all new handhelds don't reach 5 hours

and so on :D so i was just wondering if someone else feels the same as me and feels disappointed in the direction taken from psp, DS, vita, 3ds etc etc.

[Fabrizo]

Well the 3DS does technically have a 4:3 screen (2x). But no, limiting game designers to just creating 2D games would never fly these days. Sprite based, hand painted, flash-based, etc. are all still abundantly available though if you look for them.

edit: Actually I was wrong, the bottom screen on the 3DS is 4:3, but the top is 5:3

[alecjahn]

Yeah, I wouldn't count the original DS a "3D" system. There's very few games that I actually want to play that are 3D.

Advance Wars, Pokemon, Trauma Center, Starfy... uhh