The Battle of the Handhelds

For anyone who's been waiting to buy a Nintendo DS, the time is quickly approaching that you'll want to reach for your wallet (and realize you still need to search between your couch cushions). Behold, the fast-approaching Nintendo DS Lite!




Yesterday, Nintendo announced the upcoming Nintendo DS Lite (in Japan; you'll want a translator to parse that announcement for you), which will be smaller, thinner, and lighter than the existing DS. To be exact, the Lite will weigh in at 5.24 x 2.91 x 0.85 in. (or 12.96 cubic in.) and 20% lighter than the original DS (which measures 5.85 x 3.33 x 1.13 in., or 22.01 cubic in.). That's roughly a 40% decrease in volume (if you kids care about how much water a DS displaces vs. a DS Lite). To offer a standard by which to compare these, though, try this on for size: the Game Boy Micro is 5.6 cubic in., the Game Boy Advance SP is 9.81 cubic in., and the Xbox360's power brick holds roughly the same volume of water as Lake Michigan.



Of course, this bird's-eye view of the two consoles side-by-side doesn't quite offer the best representation of the two sizes (since you can't determine thickness at this angle), but the decrease in footprint alone is rpetty remarkable.



Now doesn't that just make you start to salivate all down the front of your shirt?

Of course, no announcement of this magnitude can be left untouched by our good friends at Microsoft; BusinessWeek Online ran an article outing some insider information hinting at the possibility of a Microsoft-brand portable something. Primarily, they've formed a research team to look into the feasibility of an iPod-like portable digital media device. BW didn't have to make a large leap in logic when they wrote: “any Microsoft media device would have to leverage the company’s most significant consumer strength, video gaming.” Obviously, the likelihood of another "iPod beater" succeeding in a market already saturated by lack-luster music players, vying to compete with the heralded Apple iPod, is remarkably slim. Of course, Microsoft doesn't like to play unless they can win, and with their success in the video game and console market, they'd have to be... slow, to say the least... to not want to create a new type of portable device, an amalgam of digital music and portable gaming.

I just don't want to see this on shelves (thanks to Joystiq for the image).

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Beware, Gamers of Texas...

If gubernatorial candidate for the Texas GOP Star Locke gets his way, you could be seeing a tax placed on your favorite "violent" video games.

In a bold proposal, Locke wants to do away with property taxes in the state of Texas. That's right, no property taxes in the largest of the contiguous 48 states, where there's the most property to go around. Of course, that would mean a lot of lost revenue for the state, so how does he plan on balancing the budget? Get this: he wants to place a 10% sales tax on soft drinks, a $10,000-per-abortion tax (I'll give you a second to let that sink in), and a 50% sales tax on the vaguely-defined "violent" video games.

Okay, let's face it: in most parts of the U.S., sales tax is ~ 7%. That's not really too bad at all, and most people overlook it entirely when they purchase everything they purchase on a day-to-day basis. A 3% increase on your favorite soft drinks isn't that big of a change, and while people might complain at first, it would quickly be forgotten. However, it should be noted that tobacco products have a higher sales tax in nearly all (if not all) 50 states. Is Mr. Locke trying to group Pepsi© or Coca-Cola© with mind-altering, addiction-forming controlled substances? I would surely hope not, but hey, we have to give those oil barons and ranchers one hell of a tax break, and a property tax cut would certainly save them a ton of money.

Games. They've been under public scrutiny and political debate since the early days of Doom. We're in an age where everyone likes to point a finger and blame everyone but themselves, and games are the victim du jour. Some kid goes to his school with a gun and shoots someone, and suddenly Doom is the cause of his irrational behavior. Some inner-city thug carjacks an old lady and beats her to death, and Grand Theft Auto is at fault. Let's ignore the fact that there are literally millions of people who play video games in this country, billions around the world, and none of them commit any crimes. None. Hell, I've been playing video games since my first NES, and my wife's been playing them just as long, if not longer. We've never gone on a shooting spree. There have been no psychological studies that show a definitive causal relationship between violent video games (or any media, for that matter) and violent acts of aggression. I won't deny that there is plenty of psychological evidence showing that violent games can induce a higher level of aggression, but there's as-of-yet no evidence at all to suggest that this heightened aggression will invariably lead to a high risk of lashing out violently at another human being.

*sigh* But I digress.

In an attempt to do what Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and of course our favorite Miami-based assclown... err, attorney Jack Thompson have so far failed to accomplish, Star Locke is hoping to effectively prohibit the sale of video games through simple economics, rather than actually prohibit such sales through legislature. As much as I resent all of these politicians who seem to have nothing better to do with their time than to try to fight the 1st Amendment, I feel I owe Mr. Locke a round of applause on this. Its the first time a politician has thought outside the box on this subject. Rather than trying to fight the Constitution, he just decided it would be easier to make us not want to buy the games by making them ridiculously expensive. A 50% tax hike on games deemed "violent" by a board of 10 appointed evaluators (and you know that it won't be unbiased because us gamers haven't quite succeeded in infiltrating the highest tiers of our government yet) would be absolutely devastating to both the consumer and the gaming industry as a whole. Let's put that 50% in perspective: a new Xbox game retails for $50, but would now cost you a total of $75. A game for the Xbox360 retails for as much as $60, but you'd have to shell out $90 before you could take it home.

Lastly, I'm not even sure that there's much I can say about the ridiculous $10k/abortion tax. In a rough draft of this article, I had written much more, but it really detracts from the gaming atmosphere I'd really like to maintain here. Suffice to say that I'm not happy, that I think its probably the dumbest, most inhumane idea for a tax I've ever heard, and that I pray for the women in Texas who might end up affected by this.

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