Well that's true, graphics aren't everything ultimately. In the present market the battery life doesn't seem to be as big of an issue as it was in the past when all the system sucked the life force out of "AA" and "AAA" batteries at a rather alarming rate.
Even the PSP when new was giving me about five good hours of play time on UMD-read intensive games, and even more time than that on games that were less UMD-reliant. Now I get around three hours of play time on the UMD intensive games and five or six hours on the less UMD read intensive games.
Was getting about eight hours of game play time from my Vita when new, but as it has been heavily used over these last four years I'm now only getting about five hours of actual play time out of it, more time than that if I'm just using it to stream videos and browse the internet, but yeah, the battery is getting old. Can still leave it in sleep mode far days on end with minimal battery drain though.
My 1st gen 3DS is abysmal for play time, about two hours play time, down from around four hours play time when originally purchased. And I use to be able to put it to sleep and it could run in sleep/Street Pass mode for about 50 hours, that's now down to about twenty hours of sleep mode power.
I think it important to point out how readily available car chargers are for our modern systems and how quickly their internal Li-Ion batteries charge in comparison to the old Ni-Cad and even the Ni-MH batteries we use to have to purchase separately. Ni-Cads took up to eight hours to recharge back in the day. Ni-MHs, which are still a current product offering from battery companies, use to take two to four hours to recharge prior to the rapid charger technology hitting the consumer market. And worth noting rapid chargers for Ni-MH batteries are still regarded as a premium after-market charging solution.
That being said, I don't personally feel that the batteries of the current system generation are really all that relevant of a point anymore. Fair to point out that the "New 3DS" and 2DS both have reportedly better battery life than the 1st gen model I have.
I can leave my Vita unplugged for 2 weeks.... and it STILL has juice when I come home. (Was on vacation and forgot it)
I can leave that underpowered N3DS unplugged for 2-3 days and its dead.
Play time, about the same honestly..
The underpowered N3DS *should* be the one lasting 2 weeks unplugged, and have at least a much longer playtime than the Vita. but it doesn't..
Same here, power management on the Vita is far superior. Also needs to be noted that even if the Wi-Fi is turned off on the 3DS, it still can't retain power for more than two or three days before it completely drains its' battery, which is utterly pathetic.
Couple things to note. 3DS was supposed to be "comparable" to the gamecube in terms of power, not the N64. Have you looked at a N64 game in the last decade? The 3DS blows it away. I'll assume that was a typo.
GBA compared to the PS1? Sure, maybe in raw processing "numbers" but it was never sold as a real 3d capable machine. Plus we are all smart enough to know that GHz and "bits" comparing between different devices is foolish at best. It was all marketing and that was rampant with every company.
Screen rez with the 3DS at least makes some amount of sense with the 3D aspect. Yes, 3D is a gimmick and it doubles the amount of rendering a system has to do, but it was the rage when the 3DS was being developed. Sacrifices had to be made for it to be designed around 3D. It sucks, but there was a reason. Also 2 screens over 1, yadda, yadda.
Yes Nintendo was cocky with the 3DS, just like Sony was with the PS3, or Microsoft with the Xbone.
PSP sold great (DS too) because of other factors besides games and hardware. They were both pirated to *****. Yes I think that is a plus, especially in the long run when support for the system is gone, but you can not forget about it when talking about sales.
Confusion on my part, but if they were comparing it to the GC... that's even more abysmal than if they had been comparing it to the N64. There were many very slick well polished N64 games from 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party developers on the N64 that looked and played better than some of the games I have tried on the 3DS. Yes, having dual screens can be deemed as an asset, but only when used in a way in which makes sense. Don't misunderstand, I don't hate the 3DS, I'm just very disappointed with it as it isn't perceivably much better than the DS. And I do dearly love the Nintendo DS, it may have been underpowered, but it was still a revolutionary new concept that allowed for some very interesting interface designs that worked quite well for a good number of games on the system.
Where Nintendo keeps failing this century, and why I referenced resolution specs of competing handhelds in the past, is that Nintendo pairing up their new interface concepts with current gen technologies. GBA was really the last handheld they put out on the market where they still felt the need to be competitive and pushed their own envelope of specs further from their previous entries to the system market. Same is true on the console side of the equation for Nintendo, Game Cube was their last truely competitive console. The Nintendo Wii was hardly more than a slightly upgraded GC with a new OS interface, SD Memory Card slot, and crazy TV remote stylized controllers. Wii U has decent system specs, but has so many issues it's almost comical... no, actually it is comical, hence why production is scheduled to cease in a few months... got to make sure they have enough inventory on hand to keep stores stocked another three years.
