Playing Nintendo v2 – Dual Screen What?

[4cr Guest Columnist - Nick Rumas]

Though I’ve owned a Nintendo DS since launch, I’m still puzzled when I look at the little gadget. Despite the fact that I play it all the time, it doesn’t feel as familiar as it should, somehow. This isn’t because there is anything lacking on the part of the device or its games. Rather, I think it’s the inherent quirkiness, the newness of it all that still has me a bit dazed.

When you heard that Nintendo’s next portable system would feature two screens, a concept come up with by none other than the notorious Hiroshi Yamauchi, what was the first thing that crossed your mind? I can still vividly remember my response: ‘Um”¦okay”¦?’ The icing on the cake was a hilarious “˜concept’ drawing by Matt Casamassina on Ign the day the news hit. In short, the announcement didn’t do much to improve Nintendo’s public image. As we all know, however, the company ended up delivering a hit against the odds, even without a decent launch lineup. Let’s turn back the hands of time for a moment and try to figure out just what made the quirky portable such a success.

From a business/marketing point of view, the DS was, and to some extent, remains, a mystery. It’s like the platform equivalent of Doshin the Giant or Odama. I can only imagine the initial response of shareholders when Iwata, PowerPoint remote in hand, proudly stated, ‘This is the future of our great company!’

In hindsight, it’s obvious that we never would have seen the DS so early had it not been for the impending launch of Sony’s PSP, in light of which Nintendo’s portable seems all the more strange. With official prototype pictures and specs of the PSP making the rounds long before its official E3 2004 unveiling, the logical, safe, conservative reaction from a business standpoint would have been to develop a cool, sleek machine with similar multimedia functionality that would launch first at a more affordable price.

That Nintendo threw the oddball DS in the face of Sony completely contradicts an accusation made against the company every day: “˜Nintendo only knows how to play it safe.’ Yamauchi was not kidding when he said that if the DS failed, Nintendo would be crushed. He wasn’t talking about financial ruin, but the fate of the fundamental new direction that the company had set for the future, the first product of which was the DS.

What constitutes a financially conservative business structure, then? In short, such a structure is one that places its greatest emphasis on mass acceptance and gaining control of the market, sacrificing artistic and creative ideals in favor of giving consumers what they want. In reality, all three of the major players operate on such a business model most of the time, simply in different ways. Still, it’s truly admirable when a huge corporation makes a major gamble based on an ideal that means something to it. From my point of view, the Nintendo DS is the greatest example of such a gamble in the gaming industry, especially when compared with Sony’s PSP.

For starters, there’s nothing sexy about it. It has two screens, and they’re small. It’s fat. There’s no analog pad. It has a, um, thumb shoe thingy. It only plays games. The graphics are way out of date. It’s awkward to hold. It looks weird in public. It’s heavy. The list goes on and on. There’s no doubt about it: PSP is way, way cooler.

In the end, then, what made the DS such a success? The answer is that Iwata and company went with their gut instinct and made a platform that anyone, regardless of age, gender or background, would be able to fully enjoy. The remarkable thing is really how simple it all is. The PSP’s launch, on the other hand, has come and gone with all the hype imaginable, yet has done virtually nothing to expand the market beyond existing gamers. Sure, the DS is cheaper, but it’s a lot deeper than that. It features original games with a control interface that is brilliant in its simplicity, an experience that simply is not possible on any other platform. Although I never could have imagined it, I can now honestly say that having two screens actually makes a game more fun.

I think Tempest 2000 creator Jeff Minter put it nicely (“˜bluntly’ may be a better term) on his Llamasoft forum:

The DS is like the ugly, smelly girl who’s great in bed. Once you get a taste for the action you won’t care what it looks like . I actually love my DS, its reassuringly sturdy form factor makes me inclined to take it everywhere with me without a second thought.

As any member of his forum knows, Minter has a certain way with words. Any way you put it, though, the fact remains the same: Nintendo came out of left field and gave people everywhere something they never knew they wanted. It was a gamble, but a brilliant one. Let’s hope they can do the same with Revolution.

Contributed by: Nick Rumas