Reggie tells us why the Nintendo DSi doesn't have mp3 support

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Grand Master

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I agree that Nintendo are overzealous with their profit margins. That's why they keep leaving stuff like DVD and MP3 out. However Nintendo have made money on the Wii since day one.

Would they have sold any more units is they had included DVD in the Wii? I doubt it, so they didn't bother. It might have been nice but I can live without it.

Also I don't believe that Microsoft make a profit, per unit, on the ?99 360.>

They PROBABLY don't, but my point was more along the lines of poking at Nintendo for saying leave this/that out saves us money, but our RRP hasn't changed in 2 years.

Even the Premium 360 at ?130 is cheaper than the Wii.

The Wii probably doesn't cost much more than it costs Sony to make a PS2.

Nintendo are refusing to price cut because of the amount of units shipping, wise business practice, but it still isn't going to stop me poking fun at them with their money savings rants when their console price doesn't really reflect that.

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Grand Master

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I wonder how much it would cost to add mp3 support per unit. I'm guessing penny's.

It'll be a one off licensing fee probably.

However if you span it out they way you are, with the amount of DS sales that go on per month, pennies probably isn't far fetched.

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monkey13

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They PROBABLY don't, but my point was more along the lines of poking at Nintendo for saying leave this/that out saves us money, but our RRP hasn't changed in 2 years.

Oh I'd agree with that statement. The idea that it is left out "for our benefit" is a joke. It's just Nintendo's business model, to maximise profit.

I'd have more respect for them if they said it was all done for business reasons to maximise profit, but for some reason Nintendo have always tried to make it look like they are doing everything for their customers and they just happen to make a profit because they are doing it so well.

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Grand Master

The Teej

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I've never used my DS for music anyway. My phone, and my iPod (obviously) are much betted suited to the job. So as crap as I think this is (and I think it's very crap) It won't affect me.

How many of you use your DS for music?

I've never really used mine for music. The problem I find is that I'd have to take my DS out of my pocket, open it up, and press a button (or probably an icon on the screen in this case) just to skip the track. IMO the DS (or the DSi) isn't really a practical media player for media on the go (nor are any clamshell devices, when have you ever seen any popular clamshell music players? case in point), which is why I question the whole idea of turning the DS into a media device. Now if the DS screens could flip the other way (so both screens are on the outside), it could really make the DS an awesome device.

With both screens on the outside, you could easily just take the device out for a second, see what's on the screen, and then either change the track or put it back in. Plus, it would also make viewing videos when on the train or whatever a lot simpler, because you could have this useless other screen on the top (or the bottom) which you really don't want to have out when you're only using one screen.

Imagine something like this (which I've mocked up personally):

dsimovie.jpg

dsimusic.jpg

You could flip the screen so you only have the one, and still watch movies or music on it. You could even turn off the other screen to conserve battery life. Plus, it's smaller in general because the DS's size is now in half.

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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No real reason?

How about MP3 being the most popular format for audio.

What is everyone with an MP3 collection suppose to do?

Transcode all their audio to get it to work on their DS? No thanks (N)

Cheap cheap move, even most cheap ?30 DVD players support MP3 nowadays.

It's the element about making consumers happy with popular formats that counts here, instead of restricting or forcing people to change to other formats. They ditched DVD playback in the Wii as well, citing what? We want to save money and offer you a cheap product? Uhh last time I checked the DVD playing 360 Arcade is like ?99.

Most popular? Maybe in the 90's but those days are gone. Unless you get your music from torrents, I don't see a reason why people would opt for MP3 encoding against AAC these days.

I also had my library in MP3 once, then I started re-encoding everything to AAC, much smaller and sounds crisper too (in my tired ears opinio:):))

What I'm getting at is that while you have your library in MP3, others have AAC, Ogg, FLAC. MP3 isn't the supreme format it used to be, AAC is widespread nowadays too, even my car radio reads it.

I still remember when Nintendo dropped support for MP3 in the photo channel and opted for AAC. Yeah, I could finally use my music without encoding it to MP3. I was happy.

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Grand Master

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Most popular? Maybe in the 90's but those days are gone. Unless you get your music from torrents, I don't see a reason why people would opt for MP3 encoding against AAC these days.

Got a source?

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Grand Master

Eric Veteran

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I still use MP3. It works, it's supported on almost every platform, and it sounds fine. Amazon, eMusic, and many other sites sell MP3s. I don't see how the MP3 days are 'long gone.'

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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I still use MP3. It works, it's supported on almost every platform, and it sounds fine. Amazon, eMusic, and many other sites sell MP3s. I don't see how the MP3 days are 'long gone.'

I didn't say MP3 is gone, it's just not the juggernaut it used to be.

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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That only highlights MP3's losing marketshare--not that it's no longer the most popular. The pie chart it shows just proved that it's still the most popular.

In case you missed it, that was 2004. Four years have passed since, iTunes has grown a lot of market share, also big players like Nokia/Sony have embraced the format [AAC] for their cellphones. Times have changed.

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Grand Master

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In case you missed it, that was 2004. Four years have passed since, iTunes has grown a lot of market share, also big players like Nokia/Sony have embraced the format [AAC] for their cellphones. Times have changed.

So still no source? Scientific research that shows MP3 is no longer the most popular format on hard drives.

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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So still no source? Scientific research that shows MP3 is no longer the most popular format on hard drives.

I've shown you the trend, and a couple of facts. Do your math if you will.

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Grand Master

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I've shown you the trend, and a couple of facts. Do your math if you will.

Too early for me to do math. Even so, a couple of sales trends won't prove anything on which is the most popular format.

The point in the end though is that Nintendo skimped on this. MP3 is still widely popular and their lack of willingness to license it shows much about their business practices. I have no doubt at all in my mind that they could more than afford the licensing fee that every other manufacturer pays.

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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Too early for me to do math. Even so, a couple of sales trends won't prove anything on which is the most popular format.

That's perfectly acceptable, not gonna force my math on you.

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Grand Master

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Well, music players are referred to as MP3 players for a reason :rolleyes:

Other formats may be coming in and taking marketshare (iTunes does this as it doesn't allow you an option, you HAVE to buy in AAC), but MP3 is still hugely popular.

It's nowhere near a point where we can start ditching support and believing no one will be ****ed, heck I don't think that day will ever come, so much music is already encoded in/is going to be encoded in LAME.

Many online digital distribution sites for music (legal), still go in MP3.

I also had my library in MP3 once, then I started re-encoding everything to AAC, much smaller and sounds crisper too (in my tired ears opinion :))

When you say re-encoded, I hope you meant re-ripped from source.

As if you went MP3 - AAC, there is NO way anything was crisper or better sounding.

It would've been worse sounding if anything.

As for saving space, I use VBR with all my music to do so. AAC still might be smaller I dunno, but VBR saves space over CBR.

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Grand Master

BajiRav

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In case you missed it, that was 2004. Four years have passed since, iTunes has grown a lot of market share, also big players like Nokia/Sony have embraced the format [AAC] for their cellphones. Times have changed.

You forget the fact that most stores now sell DRM-free MP3 tracks (Amazon, Rhapsody and Zune). It's only Apple who is pushing AAC. MP3 is not dying anytime soon.

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Grand Master

Ricardo Gil

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Well, music players are referred to as MP3 players for a reason :rolleyes:

Get with the times Audio, it's "MP4 player" now :p [Made in China]

Other formats may be coming in and taking marketshare (iTunes does this as it doesn't allow you an option, you HAVE to buy in AAC), but MP3 is still hugely popular.

It's nowhere near a point where we can start ditching support and believing no one will be ****ed, heck I don't think that day will ever come, so much music is already encoded in/is going to be encoded in LAME.

Many online digital distribution sites for music (legal), still go in MP3.

Jeez, I didn't say MP3 died, of course it's used widely, it's just not the same as it used to be.

When you say re-encoded, I hope you meant re-ripped from source.

As if you went MP3 - AAC, there is NO way anything was crisper or better sounding.

It would've been worse sounding if anything.

As for saving space, I use VBR with all my music to do so. AAC still might be smaller I dunno, but VBR saves space over CBR.

Of course I re-encoded it. Going from MP3 to AAC would probably result in a big mess, and just not worth the trouble.

And since my CD collection wasn't that big (~60 albums) it didn't bother me to re-encode them one at a time...

My last MP3 encodings were made with foobar+LAME btw, nowadays it's just iTunes for me.

V0 ftw

Anyway, conclusive proof that mp3 is the most popular format...

http://www.googlefight.com/index.php?lang=...c&word2=mp3

:laugh:

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Grand Master

Smigit

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They ain't a charity, they're a business, but for the consumer there has to be a line drawn somewhere on skimping out on pretty "normal" features/support.

...hell they might make more sales by supporting it.

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CelticWhisper

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I could perhaps see them oferring some sort of Video Game Music Service, though, where you can download game OSTs for a small fee. That's a market unexplored that Nintendo could go for.

I WOULD KILL FOR THIS.

If done right, they'd make $500 off of me inside 3 months with LOTS of repeat business as more soundtracks come out. It'd have to include lossless downloads (not directly to the DS as FLAC is a battery-killer, but perhaps a code sent to an E-mail address or some such), for me to consider it, but I am an absolute sucker for video game music and my collection thereof is over 3x the size of my collection of all other genres of music COMBINED. Knowing how "Nintendo" has long been synonymous with "video games" (not as much anymore, starting in 1995 when the Playstation first launched, but people still know exactly what you mean when you say "Nintendo") they'd be the first ones I could see pulling this off and doing it right. I'm bummed at the meager selection of VGM that's on the iTMS - it just screams "Here's your lip service, now go away."

Will it happen? Probably not. At least probably not with the DSi, but maybe Ninty or some other game company can manage it on a future handheld?

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