Slashdot Mirror
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?"
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.
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.
This sig intentionally left blank.
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).
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.
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?
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.
Nor does Pepsi complain about being #2 to coke in sales.
That's because Pepsi doesn't sell coke.
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...
Ridge racers DS is a rushed port of an n64 game(I own RR:DS btw, it has it's moments), RR PSP is the best looking PSP game so far, hardly a fair comparison. Try comparing Need For Speed Underground PSP vs. DS, much better comparison, although the PSP still wins in looks, the DS version stands up MUCH better. Here's some pics for comparison (DS pic is a scan, both pics are not guarenteed final release pics):3 918.html
4 6413#46413
PSP - http://media.psp.ign.com/media/664/664929/img_253
DS - http://www.teamxlink.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?p=
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
I feel the opposite way. I see the PSP as basically being a portable Playstation (duh, considering the name); so far the system seems to have a lot of ports from it's bigger brother, the PS2. While there are ports and reworked versions of games for the DS (Mario64 and Mr. Driller), the fact that the system has a touch screen allows for different types of gaming as compared to another portable. Games such as Feel the Magic wouldn't be practical on the PSP. The one thing I see in both systems, however, is the huge potential they have for multiplayer gaming as they both feature wireless connectivity.
"Our opponent is an alien starship packed with atomic bombs. We have a protractor."
I'm starting to think that the DS will be more popular, but for a completely different reason:
Nintendo owns the under-18 set, and portables are simply much more interesting when you both don't personally don't have the money for a good home entertainment setup (such as is used for consoles), and when you have school to go to every day.
Of course, adults go to work, but they tend to have much more dire perils for being caught playing games. (Ranging from getting fired to looking really dorky.)
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?
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.
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
Actually, it's Nintendo that hates the English (and the rest of Europe to boot). They are infamous for their poor PAL conversions, late release dates (waiting more than six months for a huge game like Metroid Prime is not unusual), ridiculously high prices, just not bothering to release certain big games (Animal Crossing for example), and even (recent) masssive price fixing that has pissed off multiple governments. It's no wonder Europeans favor non-Nintendo companies like Sony and MS! (Which both incidentally also work with a far higher amount of European developers, too. Much of the PS1's huge success was due to European games like Wipeout, and Xbox has had large success with games like PGR2 and Rallisport Challenge.)
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
USA is not the world. Nintendo is doing fine everywhere else.
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!
More opinions here