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[Dacvak]

For those of you that don't know, the DS's touchscreen is pressure sensitive. I only know of two things that take advantage of it, though. There's some retail RPG, whose name eludes me at the moment, that made minor use of it when launching certain spells. (I think it might have been Lost Magic, but don't quote me on that.)

Spoiler

I've heard that the DS Kanji Coach might do it, too, but I've never played it.

But the application that makes the most use of it is a homebrew mini-photoshop program called Colors that allows you to draw using pressure sensitivity. Here's a time-lapse video of the DS program being used:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aS6NFakFY_w

Why don't more developers take advantage of this? I'm sure it could have it's uses. I know that the obvious answer is that it promotes the user to press harder into their screen, which if you're stupid, could damage it. But Nintendo warns their users about everything else in their games. Shit, some games even warn me to stop playing them and go outside once and a while.

But that's only under the impression that the game requires pressure sensitivity. Perhaps it could be a sort of "hidden" feature that you don't really notice unless you were told about it or pay close attention, like how some games use the DualShock 2/3 pressure sensitive buttons.

I know that some people are truly stupid and would press much, much too hard on their screen if they knew it was affecting their game, but those are the types of people who throw Wiimotes through their TV, and purchase UMDs for their PSPGo, and drive after drinking. They'll have to learn the hard way. Besides, they screen isn't at risk of being damaged until well after the point where the actual screen becomes discolored, which requires you to press pretty damn hard.

Regardless of the fear of physical destruction, I think it'd be way cool if developers used this awesome, yet fairly unknown feature of the DS.

Edit:

i think it's because various hardware iterations have had very different touchscreen hardware in them and there is no way to make it reliable from system to system.

Yeah, I meant to address that in the original post. Oops. Nintendo could counter that by having a universal pressure calibration in the DS's main settings. Colors has one and it works great.

 

[SnakeXs]

Multiplatformism.

And just being something that's not easy to do right.

 

[diddlyD]

nintendo's lotcheck won't let you ship a game that relies on any pressure sensitive support (assuming they catch it). i think it's because various hardware iterations have had very different touchscreen hardware in them and there is no way to make it reliable and consistent from system to system.

 

[onken]

Woah, didn't know that. Though you can understand that putting a "hard push" command in any game is just asking for the stylus to crack the screen.

 

[sohois]

I'm pretty sure The World Ends with you uses it for certain pins; the scratch attack ones. It doesn't really work very well though.

 

[Dacvak]

nintendo's lotcheck won't let you ship a game that relies on any pressure sensitive support (assuming they catch it). i think it's because various hardware iterations have had very different touchscreen hardware in them and there is no way to make it reliable from system to system.

Yeah, I meant to address that in the original post. Oops. Nintendo could counter that by having a universal pressure calibration in the DS's main settings. Colors has one and it works great.

 

[ShinNL]

I have colors too and my problem is that a very very light touch sometimes fails because of my screen protector, making the pointer jump to some random corner. Since there's no undo option I always get frustrated when that happens and have to patch up the random line :lol

 

[Why would you do that?]

From what I understand, the DSi isn't pressure sensitive. I just got a DSi flash card a couple days ago, and didn't try Colors! yet.

Edit: Pressure sensitivity fails in the corners of my DS Lite, though. The DS Phat was the best for using the program with, at least for me.

Edit: Nope, no pressure sensitivity in the DSi.

 

[Dacvak]

I have colors too and my problem is that a very very light touch sometimes fails because of my screen protector, making the pointer jump to some random corner. Since there's no undo option I always get frustrated when that happens and have to patch up the random line :lol

Try setting the pressure sensitivity calibration. That happened to me. After I set it, it never happened again.

 

[Alphahawk]

You talk about "stupid" people pressing the stylus too hard, yet your question is essentially "Why doesn't said game reward me for pressing the stylus harder than normal."

Think about that for a second...

 

[Dacvak]

From what I understand, the DSi isn't pressure sensitive. I just got a DSi flash card a couple days ago, and didn't try Colors! yet.

Edit: Pressure sensitivity fails in the corners of my DS Lite, though. The DS Phat was the best for using the program with, at least for me.

That's kind of a bummer. Does messing with the calibration help any?

 

[Dacvak]

You talk about "stupid" people pressing the stylus too hard, yet your question is essentially "Why doesn't said game reward me for pressing the stylus harder than normal."

Think about that for a second...

Perhaps you should reread.

 

[Why would you do that?]

That's kind of a bummer. Does messing with the calibration help any?

With calibration, the pressure's always at 0.

It really is a bummer, because I appreciate the DSi's and DSi XL's large screens for drawing and stuff, but oh well...

 

[FoxMcCloudDS]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpXShHiCbeA&feature=related

I like this one, at the end. hahahaha

 

[Wallach]

This is a feature basically no longer supported by Nintendo. The DSi does not even have this capability.

 

[Dacvak]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpXShHiCbeA&feature=related

I like this one, at the end. hahahaha

Lol, uh, NSWF?

 

[comedy bomb]

This is a feature basically no longer supported by Nintendo. The DSi does not even have this capability.

Sweeping it under the carpet so they can add it as a bullet point for the DS2.

 

[Dacvak]

This is a feature basically no longer supported by Nintendo. The DSi does not even have this capability.

Now, was it a feature that they originally intended to use, or was it just an exploit based on the way the hardware reported data from a touchscreen input? I always figured it was the latter, but perhaps Nintendo, at one point, planned on using it?

 

[ZealousD]

Was the Moai Doo-Wop mini-game in Rhythm Heaven pressure sensitive or was that just a timing thing?

 

[Wallach]

Sweeping it under the carpet so they can add it as a bullet point for the DS2.

Unlikely. One of the main reasons behind the abandonment (from what I understand) was the risk to damage of the screen. Unless the next DS is not stylus based (or they really find some new screen tech that makes this extremely safe in basically all cases) I wouldn't expect it to return.

 

[Gomu Gomu]

It's hard enough trying to be accurate with the touch screen. I don't want to concern myself with pressure sensitivity.

 

[∀ Narayan]

Was the Moai Doo-Wop mini-game in Rhythm Heaven pressure sensitive or was that just a timing thing?

Timing thing. Just like everything else in that game.

 

[Wallach]

Now, was it a feature that they originally intended to use, or was it just an exploit based on the way the hardware reported data from a touchscreen input? I always figured it was the latter, but perhaps Nintendo, at one point, planned on using it?

I believe it was the latter, in fact. The change in DSi hardware was sort of a guarantee that input pressure was normalized, so that nobody ever tried to use a method that required more than minimal input pressure.

 

[Dreamwriter]

This is a feature basically no longer supported by Nintendo. The DSi does not even have this capability.

You mean "has never been" supported by Nintendo. There's never been anything in their programming libraries or documentation about it.

 

[Caesar III]

Now, was it a feature that they originally intended to use, or was it just an exploit based on the way the hardware reported data from a touchscreen input? I always figured it was the latter, but perhaps Nintendo, at one point, planned on using it?

I'm sure it was the latter. If you do press harder the area where the touchscreen gets a signal is larger so this can be calculated into higher pressure. It's like the touchpads on most notebooks.

 

[Deleted member 22576]

Unlikely. One of the main reasons behind the abandonment (from what I understand) was the risk to damage of the screen. Unless the next DS is not stylus based (or they really find some new screen tech that makes this extremely safe in basically all cases) I wouldn't expect it to return.

Truthfully I don't see the need for pressure sensitivity, but it would be interesting if they used something similar to wacom where the pressure sensitivity is in the stylus itself, and not the screen. At least I think that's how those work.

 

[Caesar III]

Truthfully I don't see the need for pressure sensitivity, but it would be interesting if they used something similar to wacom where the pressure sensitivity is in the stylus itself, and not the screen. At least I think that's how those work.

yeah and one of those stylus' is like 50bucks :lol

But they are great. I love my tablet PC.