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[Instro]

Has the trailer for Hollywood Crimes been posted here btw? I just saw it now and it looks pretty interesting.

 

[Mr_Brit]

I thought the PSPs dithering issues were caused by the gpu?

It was caused by devs choosing lower RBG bits compared to console games which mostly use 32bit colour. This was mainly due devs wanting to saving processing power and was less noticeable in some games than others, e.g. MGS Portable Ops was detrimentally affected by the heavy dithering.

Dithering wasn't the main visual downcoming of the PSP. It was the low resolution of the screen which caused severe aliasing as well as causing any object not in the direct foreground to be lost due to there not being enough pixels making up the screen. This is the main problem the 3DS is going to face visually, a 240p screen just isn't good enough for most modern 3D videogames(272p barely cut it for the PSP in 2004), in 2011 this is inexusable.

 

[Kuran]

It was caused by devs choosing lower RBG bits compared to console games which mostly use 32bit colour. This was mainly due devs wanting to saving processing power and was less noticeable in some games than others, e.g. MGS Portable Ops was detrimentally affected by the heavy dithering.

Dithering wasn't the main visual downcoming of the PSP. It was the low resolution of the screen which caused severe aliasing as well as causing any object not in the direct foreground to be lost due to there not being enough pixels making up the screen. This is the main problem the 3DS is going to face visually, a 240p screen just isn't good enough for most modern 3D videogames(272p barely cut it for the PSP in 2004), in 2011 this is inexusable.

PSP has a low resolution screen? Funny, I didn't notice.

 

[wsippel]

It was caused by devs choosing lower RBG bits compared to console games which mostly use 32bit colour. This was mainly due devs wanting to saving processing power and was less noticeable in some games than others, e.g. MGS Portable Ops was detrimentally affected by the heavy dithering.

Dithering wasn't the main visual downcoming of the PSP. It was the low resolution of the screen which caused severe aliasing as well as causing any object not in the direct foreground to be lost due to there not being enough pixels making up the screen. This is the main problem the 3DS is going to face visually, a 240p screen just isn't good enough for most modern 3D videogames(272p barely cut it for the PSP in 2004), in 2011 this is inexusable.

Aliasing is all about ppi, not resolution. The 3DS screen has 132ppi, compared to 128ppi for the PSP screen. Therefore, the 3DS has slightly less noticeable aliasing by default.

 

[LCfiner]

PSP pixel density is 128 ppi. hardly terrible. it's just a bit low compared to some of the higher 200+ ppi screens in other CE devices the last couple years.

 

[Mr_Brit]

PSP pixel density is 128 ppi. hardly terrible. it's just a bit low compared to some of the higher 200+ ppi screens in other CE devices the last couple years.

Like I said aliasing isn't its only problem. The other main problem is that there aren't enough pixels to draw any objects which aren't directly in the foreground which means that anything just a few metres from the camera becomes murky or pops into and out of view.

 

[Takao]

Edit: There's too many 3DS threads, I got this one confused with the other one. Sorry.

 

[LyR]

Kids and teenagers didn't buy 140 million DSes for themselves.

... parents aren't gonna pay another 250 bucks for a handheld shortly after they bought them a 300 €/$ console (imo) ... and the DS sold the most units at 180€/$

 

[Akai]

... parents aren't gonna pay another 250 bucks for a handheld shortly after they bought them a 300 €/$ console (imo) ... and the DS sold the most units at 180€/$

Clearly you didn't get the point. It's not just parents buying systems for their kids, either...

 

[rollingstart]

Aliasing is all about ppi, not resolution. The 3DS screen has 132ppi, compared to 128ppi for the PSP screen. Therefore, the 3DS has slightly less noticeable aliasing by default.

Slightly is an overstatement. The PSP Go, with a .5 inch smaller screen and same resolution, is 145ppi and it is still very noticeable.

I think the real thing the 3DS has over the PSP are generally very smooth looking games. A lot of the big PSP games were pretty choppy; I believe Peace Walker was around 20 fps. So far the 3DS games shown are very smooth. Whether or not that is consistent, we'll see.

 

[Azure Dream]

Now DSi games, including annoyingly stealth DSi games like Sonic Collection, will be region locked.

Sonic Collection basically confirmed that Sega was one of the third parties asking for region locks on handhelds.

Are you sure that confirms it? I thought that was more of a side effect of including the DSi mode, which the game uses to improve the emulation, since DSis are stocked with more RAM.

 

[Glix]

Fucking AR cards, how do they work?

Is it bar codes? Can people make their own? That would be SICK!

 

[Father_Brain]

Fucking AR cards, how do they work?

Is it bar codes? Can people make their own? That would be SICK!

AFAIK, there's no data encoded on the cards themselves - all the game data is part of the AR Games app. No reason why you wouldn't be able to print your own copies with the same effect, but different games would require a different or updated app.

 

[Dreamwriter]

Fucking AR cards, how do they work?

Is it bar codes? Can people make their own? That would be SICK!

It's not bar codes, the cards do not actually tell the 3DS what to do, they only tell it where to put the graphics.

How they work is, the AR card has a clear, easy-to-read design on it. The game system can see that design, and it knows exactly how big the design on the AR card is in real life, so it can figure out the device's exact orientation and distance based on how big the design appears to the camera. Then whichever specific game you choose to run replaces the card with its own 3D graphics, drawing them at exactly the angle and orientation offset that the camera is from the card.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

Clearly you didn't get the point. It's not just parents buying systems for their kids, either...

Pretty much this. A $250 price isn't the path to another 140+ million sold, but DS covered a wide enough spectrum that there's certainly got to be quite a few million in there who can and will pay that as a launch price.

 

[jkh13]

So now Play-Asia has announced their price point for 'preorders' as $480, who's going to be getting it imported now?

Imo a pretty ridiculous price, it would add up to almost $700 if you include shipping+customs price. That's almost triple the US price . PA scalpers like the rest of them...

 

[ZZMitch]

Well I told my self I wouldnt get the 3DS until at least Mario Kart came out... but the stars alligned and I gave in

I was on the way home from a trip with family and we decided to stop at walmart and my gamestop was *right* next to it and I had just gotten 50$ as a late Christmas present so I just said fuck it and went in and preorderded. Also picked up Chinatown Wars.

 

[Bizzyb]

Well I told my self I wouldnt get the 3DS until at least Mario Kart came out... but the stars alligned and I gave in

I was on the way home from a trip with family and we decided to stop at walmart and my gamestop was *right* next to it and I had just gotten 50$ as a late Christmas present so I just said fuck it and went in and preorderded. Also picked up Chinatown Wars.

Don't feel bad. Many will soon follow this path as well.

 

[wsippel]

Fucking AR cards, how do they work?

Is it bar codes? Can people make their own? That would be SICK!

It's just a geometric shape with a high contrast to make it easy for the camera to pick it up and calculate the orientation. Other that that, there's nothing special about the cards. You could print them yourself.

 

[JoshuaJSlone]

It's just a geometric shape with a high contrast to make it easy for the camera to pick it up and calculate the orientation. Other that that, there's nothing special about the cards. You could print them yourself.

Hmm. Now there's a fun tattoo idea.

 

[Preble]

This is probably a stupid question , but I'm not to good with online buying.

I was planning on preordering a 3DS on Amazon.com, but is there a guarantee I'll recieve it around the time it comes out or will I have to wait a couple months for it to restock?

Thanks to all that can help.

 

[Dreamwriter]

I'm sure you'd get it by at least the second shipment if not the first - so a couple weeks later at worst. It's so far in advance right now, probably not too many people have preordered the device from Amazon. Especially with the fact that Amazon can't get it to people on launch day (because it's a Sunday), so if someone must have it on day one, they won't order from Amazon.

 

[vatstep]

I'm sure you'd get it by at least the second shipment if not the first - so a couple weeks later at worst. It's so far in advance right now, probably not too many people have preordered the device from Amazon. Especially with the fact that Amazon can't get it to people on launch day (because it's a Sunday), so if someone must have it on day one, they won't order from Amazon.

Well, both colors were the top-selling items in Video Games on Amazon almost immediately they were available to order, and stayed in that spot for a few days. So I'd say it's likely that a good number of people have pre-ordered one. But still, this is all speculation since no one knows how many will be available at launch...

Not surprisingly, black is much more popular than blue (black is #6 in Amazon top-sellers right now, while blue is #15). There's no way to know what the balance will be between black/blue units available at launch, but if you're concerned about getting one, I'd say blue is a safer bet.