Slashdot Mirror
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.
If I remember correctly, didn't Nintendo say that the DS is not a sequel to the GBA? Besides, one of the real selling points of the GBA (and PS2) was that it could play every single Game Boy game ever released since the system debuted in the late 80s, and thats certainly a negative for Sony's PSP.
RCA Video and Audio out jacks. You can find the real estate for it.
I should be able to plug into any TV with convenient front a/v jacks and play up on the big screen.
The A/V hack for GBA is by far the coolest, IMO. Build this functionality in, don't try to sucker me by offering me a 60 dollar addon for a 100 dollar console to play my games on TV (GBA player).
I'd spend so much more time playing the games (and consequently buy more games) at home on the TV. As it stands, GBA is good to occupy you while you take a dump, but it's not something you sit down to play.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Sony's PR department has a history of doing this sort of thing.
Dreamcast is about to ship? Announce the PS2. Show clips of amazing rendered video being run through an Emotion Engine chip, and claim it's being generated in realtime by a Playstation 2. Claim a near release date. Get everyone so excited about the PS2 that they're willing to wait. Push the release date back once it gets too near.
PS2 Ships. Aside from SSX, launch games are a crushing disappointment, as not one of them beyond this title demonstrates clear technical superiority to the aging Dreamcast, despite the huge gap in their release dates.
X-Box ships. X-Box Live! ships. Christmas buying season approaches. Sony announces the PS3. Talk about the fantastic power of grid processing and cell chips. Imply that the backward compatability of the PS2 will also be in the PS3.
Nintendo ships GBA SP. Sony announces PSP in concept, claims a near release date. Push back as release date approaches.
Nintendo is about to announce portable dual-screen system. Sony re-hypes PSP, releases a few more tidbits of detail, the tech press predictably goes rabid.
Gamers decide to wait for the PSP.
As gamers, how long are we going to put up with this shit from Sony? Haven't we learned from our mistakes by now?
PSP is vapor, and shitty vapor at that, until proven otherwise.
Even Jesus hates listening to Creed.
It's pretty funny that the Playstation 2 has done as well as it has. Yes, you're right, the PSX was much easier to develop for than the Saturn. With the PS2 though, development was much more difficult than even the Saturn.
Regardless, there are 2 factors you didn't take into account: time to market, and cost of games. Since the PSP is essentially a mini-PS2, complete with large capacity discs, the overall development time and cost for PSP games will be substantially larger than for GBA games. Longer development time = less games. To offset the larger incurred costs, expect PSP games to be on-average more similar to it's console brethren than portable competitors. I think those 2 factors will determine whether the PSP (and DS possibly) succeeds. I wouldn't be surprised if at the end of the day, the GBA is still left standing as the winner, even against a system from the same company.
Nintendo and their Gameboys have stayed on top for 2 reasons: lots of games, and long battery life.
None of the other competitors in handhelds have had these 2 things. Yes, there have been more powerful handhelds. But they didn't have games, or the battery-life sucked.
Sony will have the games, no doubt. And from what I've read about the PSP, they'll have good battery-life, too. Not to mention really, really powerful hardware (for a handheld). So Nintendo may be in for a battle.
As far as Nintendo and their flagship titles/characters- Does anyone really care about Mario or Zelda or Pokemon anymore? They're good games, but I think burnout has really set-in for most gamers when it comes to the Nintendo brands.
That said, I love my GBA. Best system Nintendo has had since the original NES, if you ask me.