dangling precariously

I'm not sure how to react. Should I be enraged? Should I make a clever mockery of the codename "DS"? Somehow I knew the collective reaction to Nintendo's big announcment would be negative, given their persistent vagueness in the press. The aptly named "Nintendo DS" portable gaming system (probably a modded Gameboy Advance) will come equipped with two processors and dual screens* allowing you to view a map while still playing a game, manage character inventories, or view the game from different angles simultaneously. The concept itself is not even new for them, and it seems like a waste of everyone's time - including Nintendo's. Through some blind sense of loyalty from gamers they will still manage to survive 2004, maybe even 2005. But if they lose the battle on both fronts; that is, Sony gains the upper hand with the PSP and its outrageous price I will not mourn the loss.

Maybe things work differently over there in Nintendo's Super Lucky Research Facility. I mean the president said himself this device wouldn't be liked by the majority of people. Inconsiderate of these facts, I nurtured a small ember of hope that the mystery device would be some attachment or retrofit to existing GBAs that would help it compete with the PSP until their next generation handheld was available. Some good may still come out of this, however, because beyond the dual processors the press release states it will have "up to 1 Gigabit" of memory (which works out to about 125 MB). Could this be a testing ground for the next Gameboy's architecture? Perhaps it will act as an even more detailed display during multiplayer game sessions in Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles. You know, since they're basically making prospective Crystal Chronicles players buy GBAs at knifepoint. Well, maybe just a really powerful cattleprod.

* These aren't real.