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Preview Bias in Portable War Coverage?
KaiEl writes "Is Nintendo being penalized in the press for releasing their Nintendo DS before Sony's PSP? That's the quesiton I ask in a recent post on The Video Game Ombudsman. While DS games are being held up to the harsh standard of hands-on reviews, PSP coverage is mostly rosy glow previews and lofty PR promises. Readers comparing the two very different types of writing might notice a "preview bias" that seems endemic to video game writing. Is this a serious problem, or am I just expecting too much from what is simply a preliminary review?"
I've never heard of such blasphemy! You must hate America!
Maybe we're reading different material, but at least 80% of all reviews I've read were glowing towards the DS. Given, I don't really read all reviews put out, but I don't stick to just one site or one magazine, either.
One thing that may throw you is that a lot of the reviews took their time hypothesizing what a certain feature could be used for. The idea of a dual screen is nothing new, but the idea of a dual screen with a touch pad is.
If there is a bias, it's probably not 'against Nintendo' as much as it is 'for Sony'. By that, I mean that it doesn't seem that people are going out of their way to attack Nintendo, but they are doing so to boost the PSP.
In the end, though, I personally don't care. I'm more than happy with my GBA SP.
One of my friends works for a well known publisher coding for both the DS and the PSP. He's got hold of a DS here in England months before the public starts hearing about it
He's also coding one of the release titles for the PSP
The verdict is that the PSP will definatly be the better of the two, not only in hardware but also in games released. He's not writing the DS off totally, but the PSP will probably be the most popular. And this is just his opinion, he could be completley wrong.
The two most common elements in the universe are Hydrogen and Stupidity.
The PSP is out in Japan, and any decent game site you're reading has already got their hands on one. So "lofty PR claims" should not be attributed to Sony, but to the review sites themselves who are afraid to do actual reviews until the goods are for sale in their country.
Go find a hardcore gamer who's imported a PSP, and borrow it. I defy you to compare Ridge Racers DS to Ridge Racers PSP and make the same claim of bias. If you'd had both systems in your hands and played games on either of them for just a few hours, you'd quickly realize that the DS is outmatched. It's not hype that's leaving the DS flat... It's the DS that's leaving the DS flat.
Most video game previews are written by people with no hands-on experience with the game, so they are pretty much forced by advertising markets of the game in question to write glowing previews, even if the game will probably be a potential stinker. It's a well-known fact that most magazine previews are just rewritten PR statements about the game.
What market have they blundered themselves out of already? They make software and consoles and handhelds. They are still in those markets. OK, sure, they used to make playing cards way back when (maybe they still do in Japan?), but I'm sure they didn't "blunder" their way out of that market.
Despite the PSP's geeky allure, Nintendo is still the standby brand for millions of parents around the world. When a child says s/he want a portable game system, by default s/he gets a Nintendo. Most adults don't know to compare price, performance, battery life, and game selection when making a purchase for their child. The Nintendo DS might be getting worse press because those who read reviews are likely looking forward to the PSP anyway. Nintendo's largest consumer population doesn't know the difference.
The tough treatment of the Nintendo DS could also be the game industry itself knowing its most profitable market, somehow channeling this wisdom through reviewers? Reviewers appeal to die-hard gamers by being harsh on what's current while oggling everything in the future. Preorders ensue and the cycle repeats itself. I remember the previews for Beachhead 2000 being plated in gold, while the game itself was one of the worst of the year. This is SOP in the industry.
Everyone is just waiting for Nintendo to blunder their way out of YET ANOTHER market.
Right, like the GC was a huge money sink hole, losing hundreds of millions a year. and the GBa and GBA sp were horrible paving the way for the N-gage to steal market share....
As far as I know, the GC is doing better world wide then the xbox, doing almost the same as the xbox in North America and is both makign money and havign a steady stream of hits. If my blunders are half as successful, I'd be more then happy with my life.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Apparently, somebody isn't familiar with the typical cycle of game reviews:
DS games have had hands-on reviews, while the typical PSP title is still enjoying the butt-kissing that comes from a well-orchestrated demo to the TGRSs.
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I don't think it should come as a suprise to anyone that PREviews are generally more positive than REviews. Critics (and people in general) have less information on pre release stuff, and they are more willing to overlook defects that 'will be fixed' in the final version. Actually having the final product in your hands, you can spend some time to find all its flaws. Those flaws stand out more too, because the developers chose to leave them in (or didn't QA it enough to find them).
Portable gaming system::Gameboy Portable audio player::iPod Operating system::Windows Web browser::Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer (depending on whether the person is used to a Windows or Macintosh OS) There are many more examples of this, but you hit the most prevalent ones.
And We will all never forget the tragedy of the Paper Card Snafu of 1921. It's a wonder they got back on their feet after that.
SAILING MISHAP
You never see Burger King or Wendy's bitching about being number #2 in the burger market, despite having better food (fwiw, none of it is good, IMO...) and just as many locations.
Nor does Pepsi complain about being #2 to coke in sales.
-- Homer Simpson
"More organs means more human." - Zim
This totally reminds me of the issues that Sega had with the Dreamcast. A great system, but had to deal with Sony and everyone else coming after.
There's two ways you can launch your system. One, you can launch first, try to capture an audience while there's no competition. Two, wait it out make your product the best, because it's been in development longest, then launch and catch up.
The preview bias exists because Sony with the PSP won't allow crap to be shown. People are excited about a Metal Gear game. It's a CARD game. Wait til you try to play a dual-shock game with one stick. It's going to be ridiculous. But a PREviewer can't grasp that yet. On the flip side, there may be preview bias, but Nintendo sure has a lot more DS's out in the hands of game players right now and when the big games roll out, they'll sell many more, unless the PSP is able to take this preview bias and roll it into enough sales and momentum to overtake DS.
Does anyhow follow any of the Japanese coverage? How are they handling the two systems now?
Flamebait my ass, he states the truth.
Karma be damned.
...I got nothing.
You can't compare PSP previews with DS reviews - reviews have a much stricter standard simply because previews relate to unfinished product and any fault found with a preview product may be something that is not yet finished. In reviews however you have all details in the game you're playing and this is the final word your publication will have on this game.
Personally I feel that the DS is just an upgrade to the gameboy series, Mario 64 DS is the only game I'm interested in so far whereas the PSP has more games I'm looking forward to like Wipeout and WRC, and that Mercury game looks really interesting too.
Concerning the topic though, I haven't really seen much coverage either way. I have heard more hype about the PSP over the DS however.
It's called a "category killer".
Previews are ridiculous.
up until recently, I worked at a place making an FPS, and I was always astounded at howpositive, or at least "neutral" the previews were. We'd cut them a build and think "Oh man, this is so shit" and we'd get back reviews that say things like "This game shows a lot of promise!" or "We can't wait to see the finished game!!" and other such BS previews. Half of the material in there was marketing crap as well.
So. Yes, I agree it is a problem. While we still suffer from IGN-style reviews (their rating system goes from 9.0 to 10.0 I think), the previews are even worse.
If the previews were bad, they wouldn't get all the nice free crap from game companies, and they wouldn't sell as many ads.
i don't know what my point was.. but previews are definitely waaay too generous.
You're being biased! I'm telling Slashdot.
Ok, yeah, I'm bored.
they used to make playing cards way back when (maybe they still do in Japan?)
Many stores in Japan certainly still sell Nintendo brand playing cards (e.g., Lawson). I wouldn't be surprised if the name recognition from their success in video games has helped them in that market too.
We live, as we dream -- alone....
Nor does Pepsi complain about being #2 to coke in sales.
That's because Pepsi doesn't sell coke.
I think it is very possible that there is a bias - the PSP is sleek, stylish, and powerful, whereas the DS is kinda clunky and has mediocre graphics. What I expect out of the PSP: A stream of good games through out the systems' life time. What I expect out of the DS: Many so-so titles outshined by highly inovative first person titles. (Just none of these have come out yet 0.o).
Is it just me, or is this product already out in Japan and in competition with the Nintendo DS? I was under the impression that most of the reviews were running on actual hardware.
We're only gonna die from our own arrogance, that's why we might as well take our time...
They weren't even too keen on them in the NES and SNES days, they went SEGA-->SONY-->inching towards microsoft. So if your gaming taste is soccer games, rally games and the like, definately buy the PSP. I'll go with the DS and get the nice japanese RPG's and the innovative end products of japanese Psilocybin consumption ^_^
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I suspect it's because Nintendo doesn't spend enough to buy off the press, but Nintendo never gets their fair shake. How many articles about the impending doom of the never-profitable XBOX have you seen? How many times do you see Sony taken to task for features they never deliver? The PSP is a prime example. People keep talking about UMD movies and music when Sony's own studios haven't committed to supporting the format.
At E3 Sony brought a PSP unit that had to be fed by internal computers. It didn't even work yet, but GameSpot and others gave it "Best of Show." High praise for a plastic mock-up.
1. People would rather read PSP hype because it fills them with anticipation, even if they aren't going to buy one. All of the people who were excited about the DS and didn't buy one are over it.
2. The DS isn't worth writing about right now due to a lack of interesting games. How many screenshots of Metroid Hunters do people really want to see? Until Nintendo and third party developers start pumping out software don't expect much more than "ho-hum, Mario 64 is just as cool as it was in 1996, BFD."
3. Adult gamers got burned with the Game Boy Advance software lineup being almost entirely of horribly designed, unplayable children's games with TV and movie tie-ins. Because of this, most game magazines relegated Game Boy news to the back of the magazines. EGM even gave Seanbaby a column to mock all those crappy Game Boy Advance Games. Readers have responded well, so why wouldn't the press be fine assuming that reader's don't really care about the DS?
Disregarding the possibility of out and out bribes, game reviews show up on gameing web sites and on gaming magazines. The bulk of the revenue for those sites and magazines is from advertising.
Sony is, at this time in the game industry, the giant. It has a huge installed user base. This means many games are published for it. This in turns means that more money is spent advertising on Sony's platform then Nintendo's.
It would not be wise for a magazines to anger Sony by being harsh on the PSP until after the damn things is in enough users hands to make such a judgement call worth while.
END COMMUNICATION
are not good ways of gauging a final product. A beta developer's DS? Whoopie, you do know that developer versions often come with flaws just because they haven't even decided on what color to paint it right? Hell just look at beta PC games, sometimes they don't even release the cover of the final product until a few weeks before launch and you expect companies to have the HARDWARE nailed down MONTHS before launch? You have to be pretty gullible to take your friend's word that quickly.
Well, I own a DS, and the preveiws, I must say, reflect it accurately. It's not nearly as good as the PSP. The PSP promises to have better games. There is no one that can even begin to argue with me about how shitty the DS games are right now. Soon they will get better, but there is only good game right now, but it's a port from a 9 year old game... Still, I play it and I love it. The PSP gets better preveiws simply because it is a better system. The specs and the game library are awesome, the DS can hardly live up to it.
It's this exact type of hype that fanboys bought into that killed the Dreamcast. Typical Sony marketing machine agenda is as follows; 1: Announce platform and state that it's gonna blow the doors off anything else in existence. 2: Announce ports/sequels of titles from previous platform, and then accuse competition of lacking innovation and originality. 3: Show demos @ trade show-actually running on a $100,000.00 workstation-Sony fanboys begin to salivate. 4: 4-6 weeks before platform launch, leak to the press news of problems producing enough units to meet launch demand-making Sony fanboys salivate even more. 5: Launch platform in limited quantity-making fanboys wait in front of the local Best Buy for 12+ hours as a local TV news crew interviews the lose, er, customers anxiously waiting for the store to open, feeding the hype machine even more. 6: Casual gamer sees the hype coming at him from multiple directions and decides he/she must now have one so his/her friends will consider him/her 'cool'. Also now thinks competition's previously released platform as being lame, uncool, and, my personal favorite-'kiddy'. 7: Major game publisher decides their newest title doesn't fit the competition's 'kiddy' image, so it's launched exclusively on new Sony platform-other game publishers follow suit even though titles would sell like hotcakes as a cross-platform release. 8: Sony laughs all the way to the bank-celebrating another impending 4-6 years of console domination.
come on, that's funny as hell
Have you given the DS a hands-on? It is clearly not a work of love in comparison with the GBA or GBA SP. It is the work of marketers and executives, who, by definition, can only love yen -or dollars-.
Forget about PSP. DS's mediocreness as a product needs not outside of brand comparisons. The press should be looking into Nintendo to see how could they come up with something as appalling as this. I have a hunch the responsible will not be found among technologists or artists.
HAD
A flamebait mod certainly wasn't fair. More like overrated, since he apparently can't keep up with the whole last year or more of console sales in the USA if he thinks the Cube is doing almost as good as the Xbox...
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
Most of the news I see is Pro-DS/Anti-PSP. This article is just Nintentroll bullshit
he's a programmer. He's going to side with the console that gives him more power, and makes it easier to realize his vision as a developer. Heck, given the choice I'd much rather be turned loose on the PSP hardware than the DS. But as a consumer who's going to be lugging the thing around and having to keep the thing charged, I'll pass on both and stick with my GBASP.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
USA is not the world. Nintendo is doing fine everywhere else.
I would like to refer the original poster to the fact that the PSP has been in release for over a month. I don't know how the original poster could not have know that. Sure its only released in Japan, but the current release is not all that far from the US release, in fact it already has english language menus on its GUI.
Thus, for well over a month, there have been no previews of the PSP. They are all based on actual working units in consumers hands.
And, by the way, it is simply phenomenal. This is not based on any preview or review. I loaded it up with MP3 titles, JPEGS of my family, MP4 video clips, and the bright sharp screen just rocks.
Oh, and the games are good too.
It may be possible the DS can do the same stuff, I don't really know. all I know is, everytime I walk by one in the store, I can't stand the way it looks. However precocious it might possibly be, its still an ugly stepchild.
Oh, and the PSP looks as good as it functions.
The fact is, and no one can be accused of being a fanboy for saying it, all those glowing reviews are due to the PSP actually living up to the hype. This is a first for Sony, I can't imagine how much money they must be losing per unit initially to have accomplished this, but I am sure glad they did.
I don't understand why everyone has to treat this as a "Zero sum" game. Both can succeed, because I think they appeal to different groups. As usual the Nintendo appeals more towards kids, and people loyal to the brand, while the PSP is more appealing to adults and techs. Although I still think PSP will have much less sales then the DS because the primary buyers of portables are kids. I personally have no use for either cuz I'm the one who drives, i don't travel often etc...but when I was a kid I used portables all the time in the back of the minivan etc...
You worked on Duke Nukem Forever? ;)
That is a very insightful description of Sony's marketing machine. I'm impressed.
Probably you dont know it but theres a rumor about a gba 2 in the works (sort of a portable gamecube) actually if you read back in the revolution rumor article slashdotted a while ago you will notice the system will lack DS support, but will support the "gba succesor".
.. although unconfirmed, the fact that they never called it a "succesor" is a bit worrying.
The DS (as everyone knows) was a way to keep the PSP at bay (actually Nintendo never called the DS the GBA succesor) so
Of course this is great news for everyone except for those who actually bought the DS. how much time will the DS be in the attention span of nintendo? (a year maybe 2?) You may want to pay attention to the early signs, lack of advertising, lack of titles or big titles being produced (in the future) etc. (You have to take into account a major such as a 3d rpg title needs a good 1-2 year timespan to be produced)
Of course this is all rumors.. however we have to wait until e3 where "revolution" (apparently) will officially be announced and hope they mention DS support or any word of a gba succesor.
P.S. Even if this rumor is true, it doesnt mean the DS is dead, revolution is rumored for a 2006 release, the gba 2 is not even dated yet, so thats a 1-2 maybe 3 year expected life period for the DS however it does mean it may have less attention and titles than those initially expected (specially from third party publishers). And if theres an actual GBA2 in the works, the PSP may be facing some serious problems in the coming years
And before you mod me down, please research a bit, the rumors do exist and so the official statements where Nintendo specifically mentions the DS is not the GBA succesor.
So go ahead MOD my day
Go ahead MOD my day!
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And so continues the saga of completely inscrutable Slashdot headlines!
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Obviously I was responding to that part of this post.
And speaking of "USA is not the world", neither is Japan (where the GC is doing alright, though still being trounced by the PS2). What about Canada, Australia, or most of Europe, where the Xbox is all easily outselling the Cube as well?
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon