The Rise and Fall of Handheld Console Battery Life: A Modern Tragedy

After hearing the news about the Playstation Vita's 2012 U.S. release date, I again began to debate whether this handheld is worth waiting for, or if I should just take the plunge and buy a 3DS.  Inevitably I decided to compare the reported battery lives of the two handhelds, and the results were not too satisfying.  Both the Vita and the 3DS have an approximate battery life of 3-5 hours, meaning you'll be spending a lot of time with your good friend Mr. AC Adapter.  Apparently I'm not the only one upset about this.  Whatever happened to the good old days of handheld gaming?  Remember when changing batteries in your original Gameboy seemed like a rare occurrence?

With that in mind, I decided it would be interesting to look at the battery lives of some of the more popular handheld gaming consoles over the years.   Let's graph these suckers:

Click to expand.

Well you can thank the Sega Game Gear (3 hour battery life!) for ruining my hypothesis that battery life had improved up until a certain point, after which there would be a steep drop.  But still, look at that 30 hour battery life of the Gameboy Color then compare it to the approximately 4 hours of the 3DS.  Portable gaming just isn't so portable anymore.  Until battery technology catches up with modern hardware, we will still end up tethered to a power outlet most of the time.

After hearing the news about the Playstation Vita's 2012 U.S. release date, I again began to debate whether this handheld is worth waiting for, or if I should just take the plunge and buy a 3DS.  Inevitably I decided to compare the reported battery lives of the two handhelds, and the results were not too satisfying.  Both the Vita and the 3DS have an approximate battery life of 3-5 hours, meaning you'll be spending a lot of time with your good friend Mr. AC Adapter.  Apparently I'm not the only one upset about this.  Whatever happened to the good old days of handheld gaming?  Remember when changing batteries in your original Gameboy seemed like a rare occurrence?

With that in mind, I decided it would be interesting to look at the battery lives of some of the more popular handheld gaming consoles over the years.   Let's graph these suckers:

Click to expand.

Well you can thank the Sega Game Gear (3 hour battery life!) for ruining my hypothesis that battery life had improved up until a certain point, after which there would be a steep drop.  But still, look at that 30 hour battery life of the Gameboy Color then compare it to the approximately 4 hours of the 3DS.  Portable gaming just isn't so portable anymore.  Until battery technology catches up with modern hardware, we will still end up tethered to a power outlet most of the time.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Nintendo 3DS and the Raiders of the Awkward Right Joystick

Sorry for the lack of updates the past couple weeks, I have plunged into the world of web development and have been caught up learning PHP and CSS, as well as re-learning HTML (an annoying language in my opinion).

Anyway, a bit of news about the Nintendo 3DS that I thought worth mentioning in this blog of strangeness: the incredibly awkward-looking right analog stick add-on.

Is it just me or does this add-on look incredibly clunky and uncomfortable?  From an aesthetic standpoint, it gives the impression of a cheap and rushed addition.  Also it seems as if the face buttons would be a little difficult to reach during an action-packed gaming session.  Here's hoping for a future redesign of the 3DS that will incorporate dual analog sticks into a better controller layout.

Sorry for the lack of updates the past couple weeks, I have plunged into the world of web development and have been caught up learning PHP and CSS, as well as re-learning HTML (an annoying language in my opinion).

Anyway, a bit of news about the Nintendo 3DS that I thought worth mentioning in this blog of strangeness: the incredibly awkward-looking right analog stick add-on.

Is it just me or does this add-on look incredibly clunky and uncomfortable?  From an aesthetic standpoint, it gives the impression of a cheap and rushed addition.  Also it seems as if the face buttons would be a little difficult to reach during an action-packed gaming session.  Here's hoping for a future redesign of the 3DS that will incorporate dual analog sticks into a better controller layout.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad

Gaming News: Sony Cuts PS3 Price to $250

Let us deviate from our path of game strangeness for a minute and report that Sony is cutting the price of the PS3 from $299 to $249.  Looks like Sony decided to play a little follow-the-leader after the recent price drop of the Nintendo 3DS.

Regardless, it is now a bit more affordable to try out some weird PS3 games such as Catherine, where you get to experience the nightmares of the protagonist, while solving puzzles along the way.

Let us deviate from our path of game strangeness for a minute and report that Sony is cutting the price of the PS3 from $299 to $249.  Looks like Sony decided to play a little follow-the-leader after the recent price drop of the Nintendo 3DS.

Regardless, it is now a bit more affordable to try out some weird PS3 games such as Catherine, where you get to experience the nightmares of the protagonist, while solving puzzles along the way.

reade more... Résuméabuiyad