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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.
my Dreamcast and Saturn beg to differ.
When it comes to handhelds, portability is also a factor. I don't want to be carrying a fat portable playstation if it uses disks...
Although I don't see either of these devices going the way of the Game Gear, They have to have simple, fun games or they will die. Its flat and simple. Most people only play hand held games for short bursts, and they play console games for hours on end (Final Fantasy). The puzzle games of old (tetris) had it right. Simple, Fun, Short.
Sorry to state the obvious, but the winner will be us as consumers. For once we'll have two powerful companies fighting for our money with products that kick butt.
Nintendo, Sony Start Handheld Gaming Battle At E3
Nintendo rolls a 16, hitting with the Vorpal Blade!
Sony makes the saving throw and takes 8 HP of damage!
Sony casts a Magic Missile spell at Nintendo and hits for 6 HP!
Nintendo hits Sony with the Vorpal Blade again, with an 18 roll!
Sony fails the saving throw, Sony loses its head!
The system with the best games will win.
Uh, given how one gamer's "best" is another gamer's "complete waste of bits", this is a meaningless statement.
And if you think time-to-market and name brand recognition don't play a major role, you're nuts. There's a ton of other factors to. (In particular, I think certain genres make or break systems as much as particular games.)
I'd cite examples, but than my rampant fanboyism might show through.
SO YOU'RE GOING TO DIE: The Comic for Dealing with Death
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the DS a side project, and NOT Nintendo's actual follow up to the GBA? Calling it Nintendo's "next generation handheld" implies that it's a replacement for the GBA, which I'm pretty sure is not what it is intended to be.
It'll be complete with a hard drive, cpu, cpu fan, and disk drive. It'll be the size of a briefcase and weigh about 10 pounds. It'll also come in handy as a bludgeon.
There are enough people out there who will buy both to keep both companies happy.
Also, in a way, they go after two different markets. The Gameboy is poised for the younger crowd, with their Pokemon and such. This isn't to say there are no good games for adults, Advance War I & II come to mind, just that I see more GB, GBC, and GBA in the hands of little kids then I do adults. The PS2 will almost certainly go after the older teen market and adults.
And ask yourself how many of you own more then one gaming console. I used to own a Gamecube, XBox, PS2, and Dreamcast. I know of plenty of other people who own at least two. So I don't believe Nintendo is in that big of a trouble, if they can keep their niche alive and prevent the PSP from encroaching they should be fine.
Sir, there is a dragon outside with an armful of armor. He's inquiring if we offer free refills.
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!!!!
And how do you get the best games?
Back in the day when Playstation was new, everyone thought Sony had gone absolutely insane entering the console market because they'd made almost no good games for existing consoles.
But what they did instead was interesting. Sony made alot of programming tools for the PS and helped developers make games on it. Sega's Saturn was technically more powerful but a pain in the ass to program for, and Sega kept all the best secrets to themselves for their own games. Nintendo 64 was much more powerful, but stayed on the expensive cartridge format and Nintendo liked to have control over who could make what for the system, both of which scared off many developers. Sony didn't have a reason to keep secrets or keep other software developers behind them, as they didn't really have their own software divisions worried about keeping an edge over competition. It was only later when games like Gran Turismo came out that Sony started making decent games themselves.
I think Nintendo's going to lose this fight just because they're too used to getting their way and ruling their software library with an iron fist. Granted it's lightened up a bit since the SNES bloodless Mortal Kombat days, but I think Sony's just going to bring more developers to the market with them.
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Meanwhile, Nokia huddles in a corner and cries...
Systems with better games get purchased. This is true. But this is not causation.
The root is that good games are developed for good hardware that's released at the right time with the right marketing effort. Developers create launch titles for systems that they think will do well (or that pay them). At launch, consumers buy systems that have good hardware.
The NGage wasn't dead because it didn't have game support - it didn't have game support because it was a horrible platform.
Conversely, you can't tell me that the PS2 had good games at launch - and yet it sold like hot cakes. Why? Because it was the right hardware at the right time - with the right marketing accompanying that hardware.
As a console matures, the two re-inforce each other. Good games get made for successful hardware, and those quality games in turn make that hardware more successful. There are anomalies here - like Nintendo's guaranteed quality first-party titles or Street Fighter II selling SNES's - but in general they hide the real truth.
The PSP/DS fight will be fought mostly on hardware. The DS should have a guaranteed lead going in in terms of software support (Metroid, Zelda, Mario...) - but I think it'll squander that marginal advantage by being silly hardware.
The much more conventional PSP will end up being the system that's more successful and has better games - but the latter doesn't cause the former. Both will be caused by it being a better platform.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
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.
Looking at the descriptions, I have a bad feeling about the DS. I know I'm not the first one to say it, but it reeks of another nice system, much like the black-and-red '3d' system that flopped years ago.
So we have a nice two screen system by nintendo, vs a simple (and elegant, if anything like the VIAO systems) PS2 portable. The sony system will win hands down.
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.
If history is any indicator, Nintendo.
They beat Sega, Atari, NEC and SNK in the handheld market. They're in the process of killing Nokia. Sony is wasting their money developing such a product.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
In EGM the May edition the Nintendo DS will play the entire GB lib. So no-one will be left out. In EGM the June edition Nintendo HQ admits the codename for the DS is the "Nitro". DS second screen is rumored to have a touch-sensitive pad, handle 3D graphics, a microphone input, and a wireless functionality(wireless connections to the next gen Cube?). Controls list: D-Pad, L, R, A, B, with additional X and Y buttons being considered.
I'm sure this has been mentioned before, but what of power consumption? This is a huge factor when it comes to portable game systems. I used to own a Sega Game Gear, and while it was a superior system (to the Game Boy), it burned through 6 AA's in a hour. I did the majority of my playing on it via the AC Adapter, totally defeating the purpose of getting a handheld.
According to Sony, the PSP uses an optical drive of some sort. Does anyone have any idea how the drive motor is going to impact battery life?
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.
I think it's fricking hilarious that everybody's counting out Nokia. Right now the N-Gage is for developers and those early adopter freaks that spent $1000 for a DVD player. And they failed there.
But remember that Nokia plays in a different world than Nintendo. Nintendo is starting to move from 3rd generation to 4th. (GB -> GBC -> GBA -> DS). That's a rate of about 1 generation every 4 years.
Nokia does a generation every 6 months. They've already fixed the "dork factor" and the "remove the battery" problem.
In 12-24 months, 75% of Nokia phones sold will include the N-Gage "feature". Since everybody wants a nice colour screen anyways, the added cost of N-Gage is miniscule. And the cost will be $0 (with a 2 year contract).
This will be every kid's preferred phone: sure the video games selection sucks now, but it'll text well and there'll probably be at least one good game. A cell phone is a mandatory kid-accessory.
And kids will prefer to buy games for their phone rather than for their Gameboy: you're more likely to be carrying your phone than your Gameboy.
Poof, demand exists, good games start coming, critical mass happens and Nintendo is looking for that truck's license plate.
Sony will eventually integrate PSP into Ericsson phones. Will it be soon enough? They have the critical mass problem and a timing problem.
Nintendo's in good shape though: they can license the GB to Motorola and the other cell phone manufacturers. They've got the momentum: a cell phone that is GBA compatible is a lot more valuable than an N-Gage phone. But they have to get those partnerships in a timely fashion.
Convergence has to be done right: people will not put up with a crappy phone or a crappy game system just for convergence's sake. I believe Nokia will iterate and "get it right". Any partnership will have many more problems doing so...
Bryan
I'm not even past the first few paragraphs, and I've already found errors:
Since when is the GameCube rapidly falling behind the XBox in sales?
Wrong. The Game Boy Advance SP is $100, the normal Game Boy Advance runs around $70.
I guess we've all just gotten so used to the mainstream media just getting their facts wrong that people don't even notice anymore.
Forget the whales - save the babies.