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Nintendo Gives No Ground In Handheld Wars
TomO wrote to mention a news item on the site Pro-G reporting on a general consumer confidence in the DS, greater than that of the PSP. From the article: "Wavemetrix, a company that specialises in working out what customers think of products, has released a new report on the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. The report, rather shockingly, reveals that the 'DS is better than the PSP in every important area.' This includes games, quality, screen and value." Relatedly a Gamespy article states: "Few could have imagined it, but the DS is becoming the most significant new console in Japan since the PS2. What started as a rumbling -- with great novelty games such as Wario and XX/YY -- has recently turned into a full-scale dual-screen uprising led by Electroplankton and Nintendogs."
Why is this being reported as true? The linked Pro-G article basically describes the conclusions the study comes to as 'baffling', concluding with: 'I don't think that the general opinion on the two systems is as clear cut as the report suggests.' Joystiq agrees: 'A report like this is hard to take seriously.' Then again, so is /. these days...
~ Aero
I purchased a PSP first because of the initial draw of Metal Gear Acid (eh - not bad, but not that great really). Putting movies onto it lost its appeal, and right now I'm using it as an emulator with the 1.5 BIOS hacks. (Playing, oddly enough, my Game Boy Color games that I haven't finished, that I can't play on the DS).
But the DS has a ton of games. Between the Ace Phoenix, Advance Wars (drool), Castlevania (mega-drool), Animal Crossing (eh, but I know many geeks going ga-ga over it), the Coded Memories (or Another Code, whatever the name is, and I'm too damn lazy to look it up), and on throughout the year, the next six months look *very* nice between the GBA and the DS - and with my new blue DS I can play both of those.
If Sony wants the PSP to do better, it better stop focusing on the UMB movie announcements. Where are the friggin' games, Sony? The only one that looks interesting to me is "Ghost in the Shell", maybe Popocrolis and Medieval (probably not the latter). I look at the "upcoming games" list on ebworld.com, and it's looking good for the DS, and only good for the PSP if you don't plan on buying movies on DVD anymore (and transferring them to my Memory Stick Duo 512 MB).
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
As for Nintendo and the handheld market, you're dead on. I recently took a trip and would have loved to have something like Metal Gear Solid for my PSP (a real one). I'd play games like that. But you also need a strong line-up of "waste 10 minutes" games, which the PSP lacks (except for Lumines, which is best after you've been playing for a while so it gets hard).
As for the dead pixel thing, I think that has been overblown (although I'm not denying that it's an issue for some). But it was definatly bad press.
As for the demographic argument, that's a good one. Lots of parents would buy their kid a Game Boy, but a PSP? Nintendo is a big name, and has great games. So far, there hasn't been much for the PSP that is really for 12 year olds. They seem to be aiming at the same audience as the PS2 (as you said), but the problem is that there are far more 12 year olds and far less 25-35s in the handheld group than in the console group.
Sony has stumbled, but I think we'll see things pick up (they won't let the PSP die without a fight, and the system has quite a bit of promise). But Nintendo has been doing great from day 1. The only thing they missed on is not having a bigger title or two near launch (Wario Ware, the new Mario game, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, something like that).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
And why, exactly, was Electroplankton a "straight flop?" I don't even think it's come out here.
Theyre both fine systems, but the DS is really the only one that has catered at all to the portable market.
Who is surprised?
On one hand we have a game system that plays homemade videos, a proprietary movie format, mp3s, and games.
On the other hand we have a game system that plays... games. And not even regular games, but weird new stuff that can literally only be done on this one system
People have gone on about the PSP's lack of quick games. The DS is perfect for this, and developers seem to be tailoring games to this philosophy. Dont have much time? How about a "2-Minute War" in Meteos? A quick time trial in Kirby? An attempt at a new high-score in the falling portion of Yoshi? Really the only game that I can use like this on the PSP is Lumines, but Lumines was meant to be played for a long period of time, not in short relays like Meteos.
I keep my PSP at home where it is safe and where I can sit down after work and play. I keep my DS in my briefcase where I can take it out during a break (or slow work day) and play (and then quickly hide if a customer comes through).
As as been said, one of the many problems facing the PSP is its lack of viable "pick up and play" games. Those short wondrous games you can just power on, hit start, and do something. Exactly why this is so damaging hasn't been hit on the head yet.
While huge, involved games are the power houses of the home console, the environment there is rather different. While there are a significant portion of people who do not have time to plunk into Final Fantasy XXIXIIVICIXIVIXM, a larger number of home console gamers have hours to waste on RPGs, and involved action titles.
The handheld market is the opposite. You have games there that take time to complete, and ask for a greater time investment per session (any Legend of Zelda game for example). However, the most common use of a handheld fits into the "I need to kill a half hour as I wait for X" category.
When most of your titles for a handheld fit the home console demographic better than the handheld one, you've got a problem. This is what Sony is facing. Nintendo hasn't dominated the handheld market for no reason whatsoever, they understand the demographic and have used that knowledge to well.
The PSP has sold enough units to potentially bounce back. It just needs to rework the battle plan a bit. Unfortunately, things have been set up to be an uphill battle.
Like all other things, we'll have to wait and see what happens.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Nice work, AC. Your wisdom is ever appreciated. Check out this hypothetical situation:
Alan and Bob are gamers. Say Nintendo is the only company producing handheld gaming machines. So both Alan and Bob buy the Nintendo handheld, the DS.
Now say that a new competitor enters the market with a new handheld, the PSP. Now, there are a few things that could happen. If one or both of them decide to forgo buying a DS in order to buy a PSP, then you can clearly say that Nintendo has lost market share. If Alan and Bob are only given the choice of one handheld and at least one of them decides to buy a PSP, then Nintendo's market share has dropped to 50% or even 0% in this market. In this case, it's clear what's going on.
But now we can see cases in which it's not so clear. Say that (just like before) both Alan and Bob buy DS's, but one or both of them also buys a PSP. Whether or not Nintendo has lost market share depends on your definition of "market share". Obviously, the added PSP's in this market means that Nintendo's handheld no longer accounts for 100% of the number of handhelds in the market. However, in our hypothetical situation, Nintendo has recieved the *same amount of money* and has the *same user base* as they did before Sony entered the market.
This seems like a more appropriate definition of market share, as it accounts for the instances in which having a second competitior in a market actually helps *grow* the market, perhaps to the point where everyone is better off. The thinking goes like this. If I have a lot of money and decide to buy a DS, I will still have a lot of money left over. I won't buy another DS, because there's only one of me. However, if another handheld comes along that I like, I can spend some more of that money to get it, thereby pouring more money overall into the handheld market while still giving money to both competitors.
It is also possible that competition may help bolster sales for both competitors. An example: Say Cindy really isn't into games. One day Alan and Bob show her their gaming systems, and she likes them so much that she decides to buy a PSP. After playing her PSP for a while, she really gets into games, and starts searching for more sources of entertainment. One of those sources could potentially be a DS, since it could fulfill her desire.
As I understand it, this is part of Nintendo's strategy that they're realizing with the DS. They hope to get new people into gaming - people who were uninterested, or who just didn't know about it. When that happens, it's better for everyone.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
As an employee of a major video games retailer, I can state that we sell far more PSP systems, games, and movies than we sell in DS. I don't have the actual numbers available here, but I'd wager it's almost a 10:1 ratio. Worldwide the DS might be on par with the PSP, but not in my local experience.
Well, the PSP is not even on sale in Europe yet, so obviously the DS outsells it there.
The DS is also currently outselling the PSP in Japan by a pretty significant margin (scroll down a bit), and is now ahead on total numbers there too, coming from behind earlier in the year.
I don't doubt that your individual store in the US sells more PSP's than DS's, but as others have pointed out, the DS is far more appealing to the casual Wal-Mart gaming crowd than the PSP is. It's possible that the PSP may outsell the DS at places like EB and GameStop while the DS destroys the PSP at department stores and discount centers. The latter would be a far greater retail presence. I haven't seen actual sales numbers for the US (US console sales numbers are always hard to come by), but I can almost guarantee the PSP is not outselling the DS by a "10:1 ratio" nationwide, and it would surprise me if the DS was not outselling the PSP just as it is in Japan.
If you go by Sony and Nintendo's own statements, then the DS is outselling the PSP worldwide by about 2:1 overall. Knowing the situation in Europe and Japan, you can basically deduce from that that things are at least roughly equal here in the US, and it's pretty likely that the DS is ahead.
Actually, I think it's more along the lines of "90% GBA, 7% DS, 3% PSP".
... reads like it was written by a Sony apologist. The article spends more time looking for things to criticise about the DS than actually acknowledging where the DS has apparently got it right over Sony. But then most games reviewers have been pimping the PSP as the "best thing evar" and probably feel pretty stupid that people have ignored them and bought the DS.
I own both machines myself, I only use the PSP for emulators at the moment, and aside from GTA:LCS and Burnout Legends there aren't any games on the horizon that I'm interested in compared to the 10 or so for the DS.
Time and time again, we've seen what goes into making a handheld sell:
1) Price
2) Baterry Life
3) Portability (size and protected screen are big factors here)
4) Games - particular ones that can be played in short bursts
It really is no surprise to me that DS is outperforming PSP in marketshare and apparently mindshare, given these factors. (Of course, given these factors, I still maintain that the GBA SP is the best portable system on the market).
library building takes time. but it will get there.
With all the power of the PSP, why couldn't Sony have made a PSP program that emulates a PS1 ISO stored on Memory Stick Duo media? That would surely increase the PSP's library. Before you kneejerk answer "piracy enabler", consider that Sony could require the ISO to be ripped from a genuine PS1 CD using Sony's tool and that the ISO could be encrypted to work with one PSP unit's serial number.
as for it shooting discs out, i would probably crack the screen if i twisted mine hard enough for the umd to pop out.
Then the PSP isn't as durable as the Nintendo DS, which handles WarioWare: Twisted! (in GBA mode) just fine.
and the screen really is too small for a FPS.
Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, and Doom II ran in 320x200 pixels. Is that really so much bigger than the 256x192 pixels of the Nintendo DS top screen?
"PS - Stop making tiny consoles!!! The Micro looks horrid - you have to have hands like a kid to play games on it - you want to improve your Teen-mature image? Design a console that people don't Physically outgrow after 6th grade."
Tell that to the dozens of people I see every day playing games on their cell phones.