Nintendo, Sony Start Handheld Gaming Battle At E3

An anonymous reader writes "There's a Wired News article up discussing the fight for handheld game console supremacy starting at next week's E3 Expo. According to Wired News, 'Nintendo, the biggest seller of video-game consoles 15 years ago, once again faces a tough street fight against Sony, the upstart that stole much of the video-game business with its PlayStation. This time, the fight is over handheld video-game machines, and if Nintendo loses, it could be in serious trouble.' It explains: 'Nintendo is expected to give peeks at its next-generation handheld system -- code-named the DS -- while Sony will release more information about its PSP. Both companies will be vying for the hearts and minds of gamers and -- more importantly -- software developers.' Who's gonna win?" Slashdot Games recently ran a related story that has developers and journalists analyzing the showdown to come.

Comments

Final nail in the coffin for Nintendo?

[fuchikoma]

The handheld market was Nintendo's last virginal cash cow. Anytime the Xbox pulled ahead of the Cube in the US and developer support waned, Nintendo could just crank out a few SNES ports for the GBA. I just hope Satoru Iwata can swallow his foolish pride and go 3rd party with Nintendo's great games after they drop out of the hardware business.

Re:Sony does this

[oGMo]

Sony's PR department has a history of doing this sort of thing. [...] Dreamcast is about to ship? Announce the PS2. [...]

You sound like a Dreamcast fanboy. I'm sorry you pet console didn't make it, but that's not Sony's fault. Sega has a terrible history with marketting anything.

Comparing the PS2 launch to 2nd and 3rd generation Dreamcast games is rather silly. The 1.5-gen to 3rd-gen PS2 lineup was incredible, and they're still at it. (You apparently forget everything from Ico to MGS2, including GTA3, Jak and Daxter, and many others in those generations.) I have over 50 PS2 games, they all rock, and I'm missing a good number of A-AAA titles.

X-Box ships. X-Box Live! ships.

Yeah, all those AAA XBOX titles they have now really make me sorry I don't have an XBOX. Wait, what AAA lineup? They're still using Halo to sell it! Come on!

And XBOX Live? Meh. I'm playing FFXI right now. XBOX Live doesn't offer that, so what's the point? And the PS2 THUG is far better, network-wise, than the XBOX (or Cube) versions. Those are the games I want to play. Not... Halo.

As gamers, how long are we going to put up with this shit from Sony? Haven't we learned from our mistakes by now?

I've learned that I can get a lot of really good, diverse games that play on Sony platforms, everything from the esoteric (Rez) to the epic (Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean, Xenosaga). What mistakes?

Nintendo makes too many dumb mistakes...

[DroopyStonx]

For example, the GBA lacks the X and Y buttons of SNES, thus making a lot of the ports very awkward to control.

They started to lose footing with N64 by going cart based instead of CD based, and as a result, lost quite a bit of licensing. Bye bye, Squaresoft! No FF7 for Nintendo. Don't get me wrong, the console had a few good games (like Zelda), but there weren't many... just like with the GC. Metroid Prime, Resident Evil Remake, and Zelda (although I wish it was longer) were decent games, but... that's about it.

Sony has good sense in the usability department. The last I heard about the PSP, it'll pretty much imitate the PS constroller. 4 buttons on the right, triggers at the top, etc..

Will the DS be backwards compatible with GB/GBA? ...and what's with including the very out-of-place technology? There's been this trend about putting games on cell phones, but... the point of a cell phone is to talk with people, not play games. I don't think "wow, I can play games on this!" has been a big sales factor with phones, just like I highly doubt, "Ooooh, I can send IMs to my friends with my DS/PSP!" will be a big sales factor. What am I gonna do... press the up/down arrows to select letters one by one by one? It'll take ages to type out anything worthwhile. There gonna be a hookup for some type of keyboard? It's like using your cell for Instant Messaging: very freakin awkward and half the time not worth the trouble.

It boils down to games: how well they look, how good they play, and overall fun factor. Since Nintendo seems to be losing their footing, I feel that the victor will be Sony.

Nintendo has made too many mistakes and at this point, it's simply too late to reclaim the throne. They're basically a console for younger players, as those mature enough will find more entertainment in games that PS2/XBox has to offer.

Maybe their next-gen system will do good enough to make licensees think about switching to Nintendo for the console AFTER it, but... the next-gen will pretty much go to Sony again.