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Sony Describes DS As Gimmick
1up.com has news, via MCVUK, that PSP VP of Studios Phil Harrison has classified Nintendo's entry into the handheld market as 'irrelevant'. From the article: "The idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance...Those formats don't appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth." 1up.com's commentary is well seen. From their piece: "Whether or not you fully agree, Nintendo DS can come off as gimmicky, but Sony's commentary is fairly strange." Read on for my own short commentary.
I know that, for the most part, comments like Harrisons are just the marketing version of "my processor is faster than yours" but I'm honestly surprised at the level of arrogance displayed there. Since the PSP's launch, Slashdot Games has posted article after article with titles like PSP Reception Lukewarm in U.S., PSP Not A Sellout Hit, What's Up With The PSP?, and most recently PSP Usage Lower Than Expected. This last article is especially disheartening for Sony execs because those numbers come from Japan, a nation that has traditionally been Sony's bread basket. If it's not doing well here, and it's not doing well there...do they really think that many Europeans are going to buy it when it launches there next week?
Harrison merely said that the DS' touch-screen was a gimmick, not that the DS itself was a gimmick.
He also said that the DS was not part of Sony's planning as well as it shouldn't be. He believes they're targetting different markets, so why should it?
Way too much irrelevant Sony hatred. Sony does stupid things, but not everything they do is stupid.
Of course if you want to glorify the "technical race" over gimicky things like novel methods of input (like joysticks and d-pads?) than PCs have the dedicated gaming systems beat hands down.
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