New Red DS has updated firmware

[the_dude]

Regarding the red DS: YUCK

I'm with wush here, that red DS looks like a used tampon. Great games though!

[Tig]

I don't really like it It looks eye-wateringly bright. Maybe it's okay 'in person', but honestly, I think I'd feel a plonker playing that on the bus.

But as for this firmware update - that is very interesting. See, I want to know whether Nintendo will insert 'online play' menu options into the DS operating system, via a future firmware update. Because right now, the DS does not look like a console designed with any sort of online service in mind. There's no mention of online connectivity anywhere in the system menus!

If 'Nintendo Wifi Connection' is to be more than a bodge, Nintendo should rectify this somehow. Seeing this news, now I think it could be a possibility...

[kernow]

so how come pictochat lists a maximum of 64 people?

[Ouenben]

I don't really like it It looks eye-wateringly bright. Maybe it's okay 'in person', but honestly, I think I'd feel a plonker playing that on the bus.

But as for this firmware update - that is very interesting. See, I want to know whether Nintendo will insert 'online play' menu options into the DS operating system, via a future firmware update. Because right now, the DS does not look like a console designed with any sort of online service in mind. There's no mention of online connectivity anywhere in the system menus!

If 'Nintendo Wifi Connection' is to be more than a bodge, Nintendo should rectify this somehow. Seeing this news, now I think it could be a possibility...

If anything it'll be under download play or in the game cards themselves, or maybe with the right game inserted it will make a new option appear on the menu

[Psyduck]

Why should it have "online play" in the main menu? People would get confused and wonder why it didn't work for some games. Surely it'll just be in game like Ben suggested...

[MartyG]

Looks like forced firmware updates are becoming the de facto way to combat piracy and unlicenced software at the moment. The PSP does it, the DS is doing it, and the Xbox has done similar things with various exploits.

And it's just what the teams like - another challenge to get around. Any firmware update will be gotten around as there are plenty of clever people out there, in fact, probably more so than there are people working on the other side.

As for the red DS, I think it looks pretty garish.

[NekoFever]

Yeah, I agree with you there. A lot of them do it for the challenge and kudos more than the desire to pirate software, and being locked out by ever more strict security features means that it's an evolving challenge - Sony released 1.52 for the PSP to fix security holes in 1.51 before they were even exploited.

It keeps everyone on their toes and just means that we end up with cool stuff like the PSP browser quicker than we presumably would if Sony didn't want to tempt people away from ISO loaders and SNES9x.

[mattSix]

online play will be cart specific - ds firmware lacks the protocols necessary for online interaction out of the box.

i very much doubt you'll see an update to change that - implementing a tcp/ip stack within firmware seems to be something they've decided against...

[Sketcz]

<sigh>

Will there ever be a time when corporations stop behaving like spoilt children, always demanding their own way?

I wish there were the possibility for homebrew devvers to legally and easily make homebrew software. This licensing crap with consoles and handhelds needs to stop. PCs don't have it. No one really wants it. And in the long run, without it, games would be cheaper, hardware sales would go up, and there would be more choice. Hell, thinking about it, so long as precautions were in place to limit piracy, I think corporate profits would only go up if they embraced the homebrew community. The losses due to piracy I find are also grossly blown out of proportion.

Long may the hackers prosper and find ways around these silly firware updates.

[vertigo]

<sigh>

Will there ever be a time when corporations stop behaving like spoilt children, always demanding their own way?

I wish there were the possibility for homebrew devvers to legally and easily make homebrew software. This licensing crap with consoles and handhelds needs to stop. PCs don't have it. No one really wants it. And in the long run, without it, games would be cheaper, hardware sales would go up, and there would be more choice. Hell, thinking about it, so long as precautions were in place to limit piracy, I think corporate profits would only go up if they embraced the homebrew community. The losses due to piracy I find are also grossly blown out of proportion.

Long may the hackers prosper and find ways around these silly firware updates.

You're forgetting one thing, of course. There would be more innovation in games! You or I might have a great idea for a fun game tomorrow that would be a great little distraction in 30 minute bursts and we'd be happy to sell for a fiver a go, instead of having to go through the corporate rigmarole of basically rimming some city bloke for some money, then changing your game completely to what their vision of your idea looks like. Not to mention bulking the code up with online modes, unlockables, some sort of story so that everyone can empathise, all that **** and then slapping a ?40 price tag on it to guarantee you almost no sales. The 8-bit computer industry in the UK would have been absolutely nothing, even less than it was, had a company like Nintendo been running it. The simple fact that anyone could lay their hands on code simply by typing a few strings of text into the computer and that this sort of thing was actively encouraged in the manual that came with it seems to be worlds away from where games are now, with the exception of the PC which comes with its own headaches (hardware compatibility, which video renderer and controller parser to use, etc, etc) before you even start to make an actual game.

I absolutely agree with you that this sort of closed box behaviour has to stop and it's great that someone viewed as an evil corporation such as Microsoft is actually encouraging as many talented people as possible to make their fun stuff. It's still not a completely open system, but it's a start.

Surely there has to come a time when Nintendo surrenders to the XBox Live Arcade way of life. They can innovate all they like, they'll carry on with the same few of us, but at the end of it all they won't have the mainstream services that appeal to the masses and can't continue to act like their old stubborn monolithic self which really doesn't exist any more outside of the NCL offices. Getting old Yamauchi to move along a bit helped, but there's more work to be done. Essentially, they must adapt or die.

Edit: Holy crap! I just realised this thread was 12/8/05, not last week. Sorry! Funnily enough though, isn't it interesting how almost nothing changes in a year, save the XBLA aspect?

[Welrain]

How on earth did you find this thread btw?

[vertigo]

I was searching for emulators to play on my DS.
It's a good thread though, and some of the points made about the industry's unnecessarily restrictive attitude are definitely still valid.

[oblivion_6]

Old thread for the win!

I can live without homebrew and stuff coz the red DS looks the business, its the only thing stopping me getting a DS lite now

[bootmonster]

passme2?

yeh you can use homebrew on all ds's now, passme2 was released and now there are the maxmedai launcher's and the like. doom on ds connects to the pc servers and is ace, as is beup, which allows you to use msn messenger on your ds, icluding the drawing funtion from msn 7.5. Is well good!!!!