The Digital Home 18: What about Nintendo fanboys?

Don Reisinger starts off this week's episode chatting with Dick DeBartolo about his tech experience on the Queen Mary 2. After that, Don sits down with Microsoft to discuss Windows Mobile and the future of the cell phone industry, then rants about the Nintendo fanboy. Also, check out the out-takes after the closing theme!
Listen now: Download today's podcast

EPISODE 18

TODAY'S LINKS:

Play Dick DeBartolo's "What the Heck Is It?" game!

The Queen Mary 2

Thanks to Microsoft!

[pcnerd37]

I love the show this week, especially the couple of minutes after the show. It thought having Dick on was great.

I agree with everything on your last segment as I am an anti-fanboy person, but I cant say I agree with your thoughts on cartridges. While what you said was true in the past, I believe that the industry would benefit from going back to cartridges. With the advancements that have been made in flash memory, cartridges could be superior to optical disks in many ways with the possible exception of cost.

I believe Nintendo still sees cartridges as a viable option which is why even their handheld systems continue to use them rather then choose to go the avenue of optical disks like Sony choose for the PSP. When you compare the DS to the PSP, the cartridge that the DS uses has several major advantages over Sony's proprietary UMD format. First, the DS cartridges are several times smaller than a UMD disk. It is easier to carry the DS cartridge in a smaller space and have more games in the same space a UMD takes up. Second is durability. I have owned every Nintendo game system (except the Wii), some I have multiples of, and the cartridges they use are practically indestructible. I have walked on their cartridges, thrown them and done pretty much everything to them except run them over with my car and they take no damage. Compare that to an optical disk which is easily scratched and can become nonfunctional with little effort, it is clear that cartridges are the better hardware. Im not sure how much experience you have with the PSP, but I find that over time, the the plastic surrounding the UMD disk seems to break which creates a non-playable game. It is extremely frustrating when I have to buy games over and over again off of Ebay so I'm not paying full retail price for the game over and over again.

Anyway, that is just my thought on the cartridge vs. disk debate. I love the show and keep up the good work!

-Jeremy "pcnerd37" Bray

[pcnerd37]

Apparently the comment system doesn't know how to recognize line returns. I had that broken up into several paragraphs and instead it turned into one huge mass of text.

[reefinyateef]

Don, thanks for another great show. I am with you that fanboys of all types are ridiculous. However, I have to disagree with your analysis of Nintendo and third parties. Nintendo takes tons of risks - hell, they bet the farm on the Wii - that third parties usually are not willing to take. Third parties tend to stick with what they know and appeal to the lowest common denominator - hard to blame them sometimes when their entire financial fortunes can ride on a few titles. That's part of the reason why most of them shovel out trash for Nintendo consoles. If they actually assigned their triple A teams to develop Nintendo games, there is no reason why they couldn't equal the quality and success of a Nintendo first party title. It's hard to blame Nintendo for making great games for their systems.

[KevLeviathan]

Wow I didn't see that ending coming... who gave Don the drugs? I don't think I've heard a better impression of O'Reilly :D

Nice episode, interesting interview with the Windows Mobile guy, I don't think M$ should be so smug about their market lead.