Something I've noticed about Nintendo products

[limpport]

While reading Nintendo Power last night, I saw the article about the DS Lite. It made me realize something about Nintendo's products. They tend to come in threes before they switch to something new. For handhelds, there was the Gameboy, gameboy pocket, and gameboy color. Then there is gameboy advance, gameboy advance sp, and gameboy micro. There is the DS and DS Lite. I bet there will be another verson of the DS before they come up with a new handheld. The conseles are the same. The NES, SNES, and N64 all take carterages. The Gamecube and Revolution use disks. I also bet there will be another system that takes disks after the revoultion before a new kind of systems. Am I right?

[Lucretius]

Nintendo does have a nasty habit of making multiple versions of the same basic consoles. 8 gameboys, four of which are advances, three of which are plain GBs...I wuldn't be surprised if we saw a third DS with some needless feature.

[totokan]

Nintendo made GB, GbPocket, and GbPocketLight, then they made Gbcolor. There aren't multiple GbColors, are there? NO! So stop complaining. If they made multiple types, and they all sold, that means someone wants them. The DsLight is an improvement over the Ds because it's smaller and thus more portable. Now, when they improve the DsLight, that's insane.

[kidw/32+systems]

I bet the best feature to improve the DSL (Hmmm) would be to make both screens touch and so you can switch wich one you want to play DS games on.

[Turbo Tax 1.0]

that point about there homeconsoles using carts really has nothing to do with you arguement, all that is is the media they chose and its not like they could choose CD's for the snes or NES , and i think that every console from now on will use discs of some type. sp i completely disagree with you on home consoles but i bet your right aboutthe portables and i agree that there probably will be a new DS in a few years

[Sparkfist]

Well really what else can they add, a new port so it can be used like a controller on the Revolution? If they do what they did with the GB and GBA then we might as well make the term DS, mean Damn Small. The DS is really rather compact for a console of it's size and power.

And are you guys forgetting the all famous, Color Gameboy. You know the stupid Gameboy upgrade that was nothing but a color case. So if you throw that in there is the GBO, Color GB, GB pocket, GB color; four different version.

And the whole three consept. What about the NES? it only had two versions, unless you want to count the Famicom as version 1. It would be the same for the SNES. The N64 is the only one for sure that had two versions as the second only had a transparent color shell. Last the GameCube has had zero make-overs, likely cause it was made well the first time, unlike say the PS2 and Xbox.

[Fanboy]

What about that GCN made by Panasonic or whatever that plays DVDs too? I think that's a revision...

[Motoman]

you think Nintendos doing a lot or redesigning!? Jeez just look at the I-pods apples been putting out

First Generation (Firewire, Scroll Wheel)
5GB Mac: M8513LL/A
5GB Mac: M8541LL/A
5GB PC: M8697LL/A
10GB Mac: M8709LL/A
[edit]
Second Generation (Firewire, Touch Wheel)
10GB Mac: M8737LL/A
10GB PC: M8740LL/A
20GB Mac: M8738LL/A
20GB PC: M8741LL/A
[edit]
Third Generation (Dock Connector, Touch Wheel)
10GB: M8976LL/A
15GB (April 2003): M8946LL/A
15GB (January 2004): M9460LL/A — replaced M8946
20GB: M9244LL/A
30GB: M8948LL/A
40GB: M9245LL/A
[edit]
Fourth Generation (Click Wheel)
[edit]
Grayscale
20GB: M9282LL/A
20GB U2: M9787LL/A
40GB: M9268LL/A
[edit]
Color (Also known as iPod Photo)
20GB: MA079LL/A
20GB U2: MA127LL/A
30GB: M9829LL/A
40GB: M9585LL/A
60GB (October 2004): M9586LL/A
60GB (February 2005): M9830LL/A — replaced M9586
[edit]
Fifth Generation (Video)
30GB white: MA002LL/A
30GB black: MA146LL/A
60GB white: MA003LL/A
60GB black: MA147LL/A
[edit]
iPod mini
[edit]
First Generation
4GB silver: M9160LL/A
4GB blue: M9436LL/A
4GB pink: M9435LL/A
4GB green: M9434LL/A
4GB gold: M9437LL/A
[edit]
Second Generation
4GB silver: M9800LL/A
4GB blue: M9802LL/A
4GB pink: M9804LL/A
4GB green: M9806LL/A
6GB silver: M9801LL/A
6GB blue: M9803LL/A
6GB pink: M9805LL/A
6GB green : M9807LL/A
[edit]
iPod photo
Same as Fourth Generation iPod Color above
[edit]
iPod shuffle
512MB: M9724LL/A
1GB: M9725LL/A
512MB: MA133LL/A
[edit]
iPod nano
1GB white: MA350LL/A
1GB black: MA352LL/A
2GB white: MA004LL/A
2GB black: MA099LL/A
4GB white: MA005LL/A
4GB black: MA107LL/A


( not on the list is the Ipod u2 edition and all the I pod videos)

[limpport]

I kinda ment the way the games were. The NES, SNES, and N64 all took cartreges. The Gameboy pocket, color, and original all took a certain kind of cartrege. The Gameboy Advance, SP, and Micro all take a certain kind of cartrege. There are (almost) two kinds of DS out right now, and there are also (almost) two kinds of systems that take CD's.
Wow, I just restated what I said before, because some of us (Sparkfish) who didn't read it very well.

[limpport]

Wow. Apple must be pretty bored.

[bicostp]

With all the iPod versions, there have been changes to the hardware and firmware. But with a lot of Nintendo's re-re-redesigns, there is little, if any, technical change.

I think they just make different versions of the same consoles to refresh interest in them, or to appeal to thrifty buyers as the new systems come out. For example, prices for the NES plummetted when the SNES came out. (If I remember right the top-load NES was $50). There's only a couple cases where Nintendo's redesigns were actually beneficial for the end user:

NES Top-loader: No more cartridge jobs! (if only they left composite output on it...)

GBA SP With "improved screen": The first truly backlit GBA system. (I think they just used a DS screen on it, but it looked better than the milky SP frontlight.)

Other than that, it's just cheap marketing to make a shiny new version of a tired old system, in comparison to designing an entirely new console.

But hey I'm the one who still uses a GBC and a GBA original... Yay GBC! *hugs GBC*

[vb_master]

CD-based Gameboy anyone?

[loup]

CD-based Gameboy anyone?

That would be a kiss of death. so far the different versions of the gameboy have been mostly backwards compatible, a CD based one wouldn't be. I am also of the opinion that an optical disk based portable (mass market anyway) is just a bad idea in general, the disks would be far too easy to scratch.

[NES_fanatic]

CD-based Gameboy anyone?

On hackaday wasn't there a gameboy made to play roms off a floppy? Not exactly a cd but a disc nontheless. The famicom also had that floppy based add-on. And there was going ot be a CD-based add-on for the SNES through a deal with Sony, but Nintendo got cold feet (yall know that expression, right?) and canceled. Then Sony noticed there was nothing stopping them from releasing the CD-based system themselves, and thus Playstation was born.