Cabbage

I wonder if the DS will ever be able to use the GBA slot to store DS data. I wouldn't mind a game where you left in the DS cartridge but switched out the GBA cartridge every once in a while. Especially if that game was a Final Fantasy III-style remake of Final Fantasy VII.

Nintendo is having a little invitation only get-together on September 14th. I imagine that will be where everything becomes a little clearer.

I think there are good things and bad things about this interface. The interface is great for bringing up while playing a game. It doesn't distract too much, just lets you do what you need to do, the whole "immersion" buzzword. I'm not commenting on what the interface allows you to do, since that is likely to change on a home system, just the overall layout.

For outside of games, however, this does feel a bit like a cellphone. I realize they wanted to have the same layout for both in-game and out of game, and the more important one to get right is the in-game one, but they could make the icons a bit larger, etc. There will probably be custom skins for the whole thing, though, perhaps even homemade ones using the supposed Linux setup.

Maybe they want to make it so bland that everyone gets to experience Playstation's "Marketplace" clone when they look for something better. Maybe it will function the same but look completely different when it hits the home consoles. Maybe Sony haters don't need to worry about something they'll never see in real life anyway. Someone should make a background with Kaz Hirai and Ken Kutaragi's heads laughing hysterically with the word "Sucker!" coming out of their collective speech bubbles. There's still a lot we don't really know.

Mike- I still disagree with what you are saying. You say that if I am tech savvy the other MP3 players are somehow better than the iPod. "Better" always depends on the user's needs. I see available accessories and conveniently simple interface as the two most important "features" an MP3 player can have.

While I agree that the majority of consumers don't know much about MP3 player functionality, I don't agree that they are "idiots" or "chimps." Most people are lazy, yes. Most people want it to work out of the box with software they already own, yes. That doesn't make them idiots.

I realize this is a fanboy site for a Microsoft product, so Apple haters should be fairly common here, but I don't know why a tech savvy person can't appreciate well designed software and user interface.

In other words, I'm sure you see a lot more people debating MP3 player purchases, and have more insight into what they are thinking. I'm sure that for your specific interests there are better MP3 players out there than the Apple iPod. I just feel that the negative vibe in your last post was totally uncalled for because desiring an iPod does not make you somehow less intelligent than someone who owns one of the "rebel" MP3 players.

@Kai:
"Pat Buchanan" was really the "none of the above" answer. The link attached was not the funny part, it only tried to explain that since he only got 0.4% of the vote, he was a throwaway vote, or a "neither Bush nor Gore."

To post on topic:

I think that the Zune has a good chance of doing well in the marketplace. As Mike has clearly illustrated, it is the current trend to bash on iPods due to their popularity. The problem is that there hasn't been an obvious alternative to the iPod juggernaut. The other 20-25% of MP3 players purchased are all split up between the various makers, with Sandisk at the top and Sony at the bottom. If MS markets this as "it's cool because it's not the iPod" they may pick up a lot of that 20%.

Once MS has a marketshare greater than 10-15%, and with most of the other players pushed out of the market, accessories will start to be available for Zune devices. That will help equalize the Zune and iPod, and eventually there will be the iPod fanboys and the Zune fanboys. The other makers will go the way of the Gizmodo/Tapwave Zodiac/N-Gage, but at least there will be a real choice.

After establishing their prowess at music/video playback, MS can roll out their ZuneBox with gaming functionality. This will truly be a PSP killer, as people will be confident in Zune's ability to play music and Xbox's ability to play games. It will connect to Live Anywhere and games will be released that can be transfered between the Xbox 360 and the ZuneBox without losing progress.

Things may not happen exactly that way, but that's what I see as happening. PSP will release its revision/upgrade to fight off the momentum that the ZuneBox brings in, but the original PSP won't stand a chance against this carefully laid out plan to break into two very lucrative fields.

Similarly to the home console war, with two expensive and graphically intense alternatives on the market, Nintendo will stick to their innovation, simplicity, and long battery life and ride things out with little trouble.

@Mike:

I'm sorry you are such an angry person/techno-elitist. Do you think you are better than other people because you use a "better" MP3 player than all those "idiot" "chimps"?

There are two groups of iPod users, those who buy it because it is fashionable and those who buy it because they like the feature set. There are also two groups of non-iPod users, those who buy it because it makes them feel superior to chimps and those who like the feature set.

I bought my wife an iPod nano. At the time, Best Buy was offering me $50 to buy ANY other MP3 player. Why did I get the nano? Because we can plug it directly into a boom box and listen to music while it charges. We can plug it into the car and listen to music while it charges. She can easily find an armband for it that she likes. The list goes on and on.

I'm sorry you feel the need to think other people are somehow stupid just because they have better things to do than learn about other brands of MP3 players.

Honestly, you remind me of all the kids who shop at stores like Hot Topic because it makes them feel superior to those "fashionable" people who shop at American Eagle. They're just sheep following a different shepherd. Think it's trendy to like iPods? It's just as trendy to hate on iPod users.

vidGuy, I really don't think the nunchuck is as limited as you are thinking. If it can sense forward/backward, left/right, and up/down then it can also sense combinations of those, and it isn't an on/off thing either. I highly doubt Nintendo would ever use a non-intuitive strategy like "right to block" "back for an uppercut" when they could just sense that the nunchuck was moving forward and up at the same time and call that an upper cut.

I think that Avatar uses basic directional movements so that none of them are in any way similar. That way you don't accidentally jump while trying to stab or something like that.

.ed is right, vidGuy, the nunchuck can sense the direction of motion. This is used in many games where swinging up on the nunchuck does a diferrent thing than swinging side to side. In think Avatar uses both of those motions to do different things as well.

I always wondered why you guys insisted that there wasn't going to be special use of the Wiimote. On July 21st there was a video interview on IGN that talked about shaking the nunchuck for charging up an attack and other stuff. I'm glad you found something else to complain about instead.