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PSP Vs. DS One Year Later
1up has a feature revisiting the ongoing struggle for supremacy in the handheld market. The PSP and the DS have had many ups and downs in the past year, and the column lays out the successes and failures for both systems. From the article: "And then there were two. The DS is cleaning up in Japan -- the sheer demand for the console there has siphoned every single unit from the marketplace, while PSPs sit unloved on store shelves. But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race. And, since the PSP launched one year ago on March 24th, 2005, we thought it'd be an excellent time to revisit the past year and gauge the situation as it stands today."
if the japanesse like it then i like it, thats what i always say.
\.
"... and here the race is neck and neck ..."
Of course it is, we buy a lot of hype. An article was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday stating that UMD sales are so dissapointing that stores like Walmart are not going to sell them anymore. Also, movie studios (MGM, etc) are not releasing on UMD.
BTW: I own a DS and it rocks!
Q: I am short, useless and provide no value. What am I? A: a sig
I love my PSP. There certainly isnt enough games for it, something the DS has OVER the PSP. But the few good games i have, (GTA and SOCOM) absolutely rock. Playing socom in a 16 player server while chatting on voice without any wires or anything is very neat. If you have a choice, pick up a PSP over the DS.
Fascism is the greatest political ideology ever conceived. Sorry.
But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race.
A lot of people purchased the PSP because it was new and cool, and for its multimedia features. Now that the PSP isn't so new anymore and the UMD format is falling out of favor, I fully expect that the DS will begin to pull ahead of the PSP in sales. The reason is that DS sales are driven by the titles themselves (e.g. Nintendogs, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart DS, Tetris DS, etc.) rather than the hype of the hardware. As a result, the Nintendo DS is likely to gain momentum as long as Nintendo keeps producing blockbuster titles for it.
In addition, the Nintendo DS targets a far larger market (adult men, teenage men, children, and women) than the PSP (young adult men with disposable cash) and competes heavily at a lower price point. Customizations like "pink" hardware help push it with the alternative markets.
Basically, Nintendo has a winner on their hands, and will do well as long as they don't screw it up. Sony has a first attempt on their hands that did exceptionally well. We'll see if they follow it up with a more focused device.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I haven't read the article, I try to avoid things like this because of the insane fanboyism but..
In the community it seems the PSP is mostly being used for emulation and the DS is being bought for DS games. The PSP might be a good jack of all trades machine, but the DS is for games and in the gaming community it's wiping the floor with the PSP.
To quote a message I saw once "I love my PSP, but it's collecting dust while I play my DS". This seems to be the general feeling around the two handhelds. One is worth playing and the others great, but it's not being used as a handheld, more as a portable PS2. Which is not what people want.
I like muppets.
Warning: the article's data is 75-80% ads, the server is slow, and it's broken up into tiny little pieces. I couldn't find a printer-friendly link.
Translation: reserve most of the afternoon to read this baby if you must.
both of mine are collecting dust...
psp is just boring, it's got a handful of decent games and the upgrades ruin your change to run emu's on it (I can't be bothered keeping up on the every changing hacks)
and the ds is big and klunky and a pain to carry around (im sure the lite'll be better) , plus I find it hard to pay $35 for a GBA quality game when I can get a GameCube or PS2 game for $20-$30...
they do both kick ass for airplane rides though...
It's difficult to ignore, though, that the PSP seems like the most attractive prospect right now for Western developers making "mature" games.
[...]
But in the U.S., the DS is seen as more like the successor to the Game Boy. Far from the brief flirtation with adult games like Sprung, Western devs are looking at the DS and thinking, "kids."
I still don't buy the "maturity myth"--or rather, I'm increasingly convinced that the "mature game" demographic is rapidly shrinking as a percentage of the overall gaming population. I genuinely don't think that either system's success or failure hinges primarily on the availability of "mature" games.
I wish the author had provided some support for his assertions--for example, which Western developers are shunning the DS because they think it is for kids? What makes the PSP inherently more attractive to the makers of "mature" games?
I think that Sony not releasing US sales figures is telling--if they were outselling the DS, don't you think they'd be shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of interest, too, is the slow-death of UMD movies. The DS is flying off the shelves--is the same true for the PSP?
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Really? I know plenty of people who have a DS but no PSP, but everyone I know with a PSP has a DS. Something to do with the utter lack of quality games for the PSP.
The PSP has done well because of its overwhelming advantage in the war of shelf-space. At the local Circuit City, the DS shares a shelf with the GBA, while the PSP has its own special stand devoted to it and accessories. The demo DSs always are heavily scratched and look like shit, next to the PSPs superior (and unscratched) screen. Adding insult to injury is the terrible selection of DS games that most retailers (wal-mart, target, etc.) stock. The games that really utilize the system and show off what it can do aren't even on the shelf, instead you get the EA shit, Disney shit, and crappy ports from other consoles (King Kong). If Nintendo America was really aggressive in marketing the DS over here, I think they'd have a lot more success. DS has been out a year or so and the only ad I've ever seen on TV is the new one for Tetris; the PSP ads (its portable cheese? a nut you can play with outside? wtf?) are on all the time.
DS is beating PSP in Japan, but maybe neck-and-neck in the States? Perhaps, but since Wal-Mart and several movie studios are moving to dump the UMD format, I imagine Nintendo's going to remain on top of the handhelds for a while longer.
Not that I'm an addict. I could stop any time I want.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
When first evaluating my next portable hardware purchase, I was intrigued by the PSP appearing to be a portable "Playstation 1.5" as far as graphics and other capabilities go...
:) but still play the games on the DS.
But I ended up going with the DS for three main reasons.
1. ~$120 USD cheaper
2. GBA-compatible -- I have a decent GBA library so I could give the GBA to my son
3. Mario Kart DS -- 'nuff said
At first I was also dubious about the dual-screen thing, but now I think of it as a great idea. It's nice for even simple things like in Mario Kart where you can glance down to check the overhead view of the other cars, etc.
For future RPG games it seems like a great thing as well to always have map or inventory available on another screen. I'm also looking forward to the recently announced Zelda game.
Not trying to sound like a "fanboy", just my $.02.
Lets not forget the rest of Nintendo's offerings. Not only is the PSP competing with the DS, it's competing with the GB Advanaced (SP), and the GB Micro.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
So, what, does the GBA not count anymore?
Last I checked, that was beating both of them by a fairly sizable amount.
"The two are neck and neck based entirely on vague numbers given by each company with no context at different times, with no dates given to consider. Because we say so."
That's persuasive!
Trying to compare solds in the US is silly. People tried retailers, then realized that underrepresented Nintendo because Wal*Mart wasn't included. So we went to asking companies, which people think would be accurate. But, uh... companies lie? And not just in one direction or to the same degree-- sometimes it makes business sense to understate things, if you have a marketing strategy.
So, this article really doesn't tell us anything useful, verifiable, or insightful, and mostly just ends up being a sounding board for the author. Go Games Journalism!
The article, scant as it was, is remarkably balanced.
I have a DS, but through a friend I had a chance to test the PSP over the weekend. It's hard not to love the PSP -- the screen is amazing, the graphics are superb and the ability to play MP3s and custom video on a memory card is a huge bonus. That said, the PSP has three weaknesses that the DS does not have namely, in-game battery life is a short four hours (which drops like a rock to two hours if playing a WIFI game. Straight MP3 play time is a respectable ten hours, though), the screen is extremely easy to scratch or mar with fingerprints and game load time is excessively long on occasion.
The DS doesn't really have these drawbacks as the battery life is a phenomenal nine hours (in fact, I haven't charged mine in over a month of on and off use. The DS Lite is expected to have a theoretical battery life of 15 hours), the screens seem impervious to scratches and smudges to a large degree and game load time is negligible. That's not to say the DS doesn't have its flaws as I feel the design is clunkly, the built in speakers offer tinny sound and the 3D graphics capabilities are underwhelming.
On the whole, I'd have to say the PSP is ideal for the type of 3D single player game you're used to on a PS3, but the DS is perfectly suited for multiplayer WIFI games like Metroid Prime and Advance Wars DS (duh, considering there doesn't seem to be a PSP analog to either game).
I bought myself a PSP a few weeks ago. I was attracted by the homebrew scene, and thought it just looked like an interesting piece of kit.
Then, I noticed the problems in the PSP gaming community, and felt a little buyer's remorse. But I think things are looking up.
The PSP was done no favours by the Playstation development community. Games seemed to be ports of PS(not P) games. Porting an existing franchise is a safe bet when a new platform's released. The Nintendo world did better out of this: Nintendo have a legacy of great games targeted at portable play. Developers saw the PSP's pretty damn awesome abilities and gave in to the porting temptation. But not straight ports from regular console games rarely survive 100% intact after the move to a portable. Even if the portable's got all the tech to make it an almost seamless port, many games just don't feel right on a portable. The controls are odd. The 'style' of play feels wrong. _Splinter Cell_ is a great example of this: the original was great, the PSP version's technically gorgeous.... but it's a bastard to play.
I think Playstation development world needed a taste of failure to make them take a step back and actually develop _for_ the PSP. Continuing along the 'Splinter Cell' vein, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is what SC on the PSP should've been. The 'stealth-combat' genre reworked for the portable format... and it's fantastic. Nintendo already knew how to make great portable games, and the DS has some brilliant titles. Looking at some upcoming PSP games, I'm a bit more happy with my purchase. It's taken a while, but I think the PSP's on its way towards getting out of the shadow of the PS. I hope we'll see some games that are both great to play on a portable, and make full use of the PSP's abilities.
What's the frequency, Kenneth?
Just analyzing the numbers is interesting.
.. I think I lost my point somewhere in there. :) Let's just summarize with this:
Hardware wise, in Japan, the DS is cleaning house. (And even more so now with the DS Lite is out). But in the North American market, it's a more even race.
Software wise, in Japan, the DS continually has 7-9 titles in the top 10 software sales charts. That's incredible if you ask me. I don't know of any place that tracks North American software titles by system, but if Japan is any indication, then it sounds like people are buying the PSP for other reasons than games.
What does this mean? Well, it's reported that the PSP sells for a loss, with the hope of game sales to help the bottom line. But if people are only buying the psp to do other things like rips movies/tv shows and listening to music and playing home brew software, that means software sales aren't going to be as high as they want/need to recover hardware costs. Is Sony worried about this situation. I think they are. Just look at all the trouble they're going through to get new firmware out there that'll prevent people from running their homebrew stuff.
Hmm
It seems to me that people are buying the DS for playing games and since games make Nintendo money, it's no wonder they're the best looking gaming company financially. Meanwhile, the psp continues to sell to those people who just want a gadget to play around with. I wonder if Sony is making money on the PSP at all?
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
One of the upsetting things about the DS was that it basically looked like a big chunk of ugly plastic compared tot he PSP - it was not exactly something cool to be seen with, or at least that was how I felt when I was roaming around the airports at Cristmas......this was alleviated by the fact that I was playing Mario Kart :)
The DS Lite looks like it will change all that - the hard core gamers are saying that they are getting one to replace their existing one because the screen is much improved, but everyone knows it's really bacuse it just looks swish compared to the old one and is no longer so strangely bulky. Now lets hope that Nintendo get their skates on and announce a US release date sooner rather than later.
https://comerford.net
Who cares if the PSP and DS are neck and neck here in the US.
How well are PSP games doing?
Last time I saw numbers the DS was selling way more games.
I'm sure Sony is losing money on each PSP sold so who cares about that.
I want to know who is selling the most games. That's where the money is.
That's an excellent comment.
When I think of truly mature games, I think of the games that adult visitors would be willing to play in a group setting (hint, not DOA volleyball). My games that currently fall into this "mature" category are:
1. Mario Kart DD
2. Donkey Konga
3. Super Monkey Ball
I own other good games like Resident Evil 4 (or now Oblivion on the PC) that feature more non-child-appropriate content that's appropriate for the type of game. I suppose there's a teen demographic that specifically looks for violent or sexual content - but that content is hardly "adult" or "mature", it's adolescent and often detrimental to a game. It certainly dissuades me from buying it, as it makes it much less likely to ever be played multiplayer. It's not that my friends are prudes, it's just that very few females I know are interested in playing a zombie game. They find it distasteful - and when the content is not attractive they assume the gameplay will not be as well (although they'll overcome their distaste if they do like the gameplay - Typing of the Dead is a favorite with many visitors who don't like other games).
I don't hunger for more "adult" content on my Gamecube or DS - in fact I wish more games were cast in less threatening settings, as it increases the number of people who can enjoy playing.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
As E3 2006 draws near and the great next-gen console war begins to take shape, it's easy to forget, in all the hype surrounding the Nintendo Revolution and the Sony PS3, that there's already a major knock-down, drag-out brawl in progress.
That fight is, of course, between the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP. And it's been a bloody affair. In fact, the portable-format wars have already seen their share of casualties. Nintendo and Sony, for all their competition, can take heart in the fact that the time and money invested into their handheld battle has at least had the effect of destroying all the other competition in record time, from the Zodiac to the Gizmondo to the N-Gage.
And then there were two. The DS is cleaning up in Japan -- the sheer demand for the console there has siphoned every single unit from the marketplace, while PSPs sit unloved on store shelves. But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race. And, since the PSP launched one year ago on March 24th, 2005, we thought it'd be an excellent time to revisit the past year and gauge the situation as it stands today.
Dueling Announcements
E3 2003 was pretty boring.
Nintendo's booth was mostly filled with the scattershot dregs of its ill-considered "Connectivity" campaign, a disappointing early version of Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, and a Japanese-language demo of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles that nobody knew how to play. Microsoft did no better: Besides the hands-off demo of Halo 2, all its booth had to offer was a bunch of half-finished Rare titles that wouldn't be released for another two years.
Sony didn't have much to get excited about, either. And maybe the company knew that, which is why it dropped a bomb that seemed very much like a last-minute addition to its press conference. In a shocker, Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Ken Kutaragi said the company would debut a handheld system the very next year. Although no images of the console were shown, the specs announced were enough to make "PSP" the buzzword on everyone's lips.
Nintendo's immediate reaction was to point out that "PSP" was just that: only a buzzword. It didn't exist yet. But the company knew that Sony was serious, and it was widely speculated that Nintendo would end up announcing a new Game Boy soon enough. What nobody expected was that in January 2004, Nintendo would begin to talk up an innovative new portable system that featured two screens in a vertical alignment.
These tiny scraps of information were all anyone had until E3 2004. Sony's PSP showing was impressive -- the unit was sexy, and the games looked positively PS2-level quality. Journalists then packed into buses and rode to Nintendo's press event, wondering how the company would top the PSP. Whether the stage debut of Reggie Fils-Aime (Nintendo's then-new executive VP of sales and marketing), did indeed best Kutaragi is a matter of debate. But the early videos of games like Super Mario 64 DS and Metroid Prime Hunters were impressive, and the system's stylus-based touch screen controls took everyone by surprise.
Two Launches
The DS and the PSP ended up dropping on Japan within days of each other in December 2004. The price difference wasn't as pronounced as many speculated. Industry insiders said that, at ?19,800 (approx. $180) for the Core Pack, Sony was losing around $200 on each unit sold. But the DS still undercut the PSP at 15,000 yen, which was roughly equivalent to the U.S. launch price of $149.99.
The DS launch was unique for Nintendo in two ways. For one, it was the first Nintendo gaming system ever released in the U.S. first, hitting during the lucrative Thanksgiving shopping season. (Early indications from Satoru Iwata are that the same may hold true for the Revolution.) The launch also differed from past system debuts in that Nintendo's own launch games were bumped off the lineup to make room for Western developers, which were present in full force with games like Activision's Spider-Man
I will acknowledge that the general public are not developers or hobbiest's before my post. That being said, I take the PSP hands down any day over the DS due to how easy of a device it is to code for. Once you get the psp-sdk(modified gcc for embedded hardware) from www.pspdev.org compiled and running, you can easily start developing games and applications for the psp, without any expensive hardware mods.
With the sdk, comes tonnes of samples which outline how to use the features inside the psp, such as audio,gu,wifi,umd, controller, usb etc.
The PSP development communities also have some amazing tools out, such as PSP-LINK which lets you control your psp via a shell over a wifi connection, and lets you attach gdb debuggers to debug your games. Homebrew is possible on the DS, just not feasible. The PSP on the other hand has got to be my favorite handheld system EVER, mainly for the fact that i have an nes/snes/genesis as well as upcoming n64 and psx emulators, movies, tv episodes etc... right in my hand at 480x272 resolution on a sweet screen. The main driving force in my purchase though was definatly the development options.
Fugu (or pufferfish) is very delicious, both fried and sashimi (raw). Not eating it because a little bit of it is poison (a little bit that licensed chefs are specifically trained to deal with) would be silly. Kind of how buying a graphically superior system with far fewer good games is silly . . . .
Last I checked, that was beating both of them by a fairly sizable amount.
American sales numbers are notoriosuly hard to get ahold of, but in japan at least the NDS and DSL have been smearing _all_ the competition over the last few weeks. The SP and Micro are selling only a fraction of that and the original GBA is being outsold by the XBox, not that winning by 117 to 98 is really something for Microsoft to boast about :)
This Space Intentionally Left Blank
And then play Daxter! No loading screens? WTF! Every other PSP game in my collection should hang their collective heads in shame!!
If emulation is all you want my friend, I highly suggest you check out the GPX2. This is a linux-based opensource handheld gameplayer and media player. Files are stored on standard SD cards, full support for just about every encoding method around for movies and music, and emulators for nearly every classic console and computer are either in development or 100%. With it's dual 200MHz CPUs (overclockable to 266Mhz, and for some units 300MHz even PSX emulation is becoming playable dispite the lack of a 3d GPU. www.gp32x.com is the main community site and file archive. Best $200 I ever spent.
Devil bunnies! I snort the nose! Lucifer! Banana! Banana!
For homebrew games, one can use the buffer overflow in GTA to launch a loader.
If you're simply trying to pirate PSP UMD images and play them from a memcard...then, yes, you need a 2.0-or-below-BIOS.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Basically, the PSP suffers because the major game developers aren't putting much energy into it--the new games mostly suck, and the good games are just vaguely rehashed ports of old games for the PS2, PS1, and occasionally things like SNES.
However, there is a fairly lively community (mostly in the US, I think) of PSP hackers who are falling over each other to exploit the kernel to run unsigned code, so they can have emulators, port Linux/NetBSD, etc etc etc. If Sony can exploit this large community of "amateur" developers, the PSP could be a big hit.
For example, they could sell an "Hobbyist Programmer Kit" that would include a UMD that can run code from the Memory Stick in some kind of protected mode, and maybe some developer tools for the PC to go along. If they were really serious, they'd have a USB keyboard for the PSP's odd USB jack, and then people really could run a free MIPS unix from the UMD, and develop for it at the same time. It has all the hardware you need to make this work: wireless networking (apparently with NetBSD's TCP/IP stack, no less), good hardware, writing flash memory. However, doing so would require acknowledging that the usual model of licensing game packs to offset the costs of the system doesn't work for the PSP, and finding a better way to make money.
Think about it. If you could get a portable free *nix-supported system with keyboard for ~$300 that had a good graphics card, wouldn't you want it? Plus it could still play UMD games, media, now porn, too. If Sony wants the PSP to be a money maker, they have to tap into the markets that are available to them (hackers and techie types) since their original target demographics (gamers) isn't really panning out for them.
When the DS and PSP were revealed to the public, but not yet released, I thought that I would probably purchase both, but get the DS first. I got as far as the DS, and I don't think I'll be picking up a PSP. There's a lot of cool things about both systems, but when it comes down to it, I love the touchscreen. The PSP offers me a portable version of PS2 gaming, which is cool and all, but I don't really play video games away from the house, even with my DS. Since I have the PS2 experience at home, I might as well get the console that has totally different gameplay? If you haven't seen the bonus games that came with Super Mario 64 DS, they are a perfect example of what is possible with touch screen gaming. The ones where you draw a line, and it becomes a trampoline for Mario are amazing. There's some game coming out that's a RTS RPG (the stylus is a great replacement for the mouse, so PC style strategy and FPS games work quite well) where the player casts spells by writing runes on the screen. The better your handwriting, the more powerful the spells. It's quite cool to have a totally unique perspective on gaming like that, and the GBA support means I have Street Fighter Alpha 2 on it.
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Oh yeah, please buy my computer.
Don't be silly, that comment is obvious, it doesn't require backing up. The PSP has a higher resolution screen and more polygon power, it can display more realistic pictures of heads being shot off with spewing blood, hookers and car crashes. Basically, the PSP can do a 3D GTA game, the DS couldn't really cope with it.
Of course, you can argue about the definition of "mature", but you'd be wasting time. It's industry jargon with a set meaning (violent/sexual), even if that meaning does not intersect with the dictionary definition.
I say this as a DS owner and fan: the PSP has better graphics. It's not a better console though.
"That's not to say the DS doesn't have its flaws as I feel the design is clunkly, the built in speakers offer tinny sound and the 3D graphics capabilities are underwhelming."
Just want to share my opinion on these points you made, which are certainly all valid.
1. The DS Lite serves to fix the clunkiness factor as far as the platform is concerned. It doesn't help existing owners who don't plan to upgrade, but new buyers are all set.
2. If you'd ever compared speakers of the same tiny size, you'd know that the DS speakers perform surprisingly well. They don't just seem to be typical headphone drivers glued to the inside of the shell. They are very clear, and are excellent at reproducing a wide range of frequencies (I have a pair of amplified electrostats the same size that play nothing but silence at frequencies the DS can handle easily). Stereo separation is simply AMAZING on the DS. I can use the DS outside of what you might think the angular sweetspot would be on something this small and STILL clearly differentiate between left channel and right channel sounds. I've heard higher-end portable DVD players (meaning, not the $200 8" models) with stereo speakers that sounded much worse. And the DS gets loud, too. It can get louder than the PSP, with no audible driver-induced or mounting-induced distortion at max volume.
I hope the DS Lite sounds as good as the original. Hoping for better would be unnecessary for something with this size and functionality, in my opinion. I haven't heard any reports from anybody who already owns a DS Lite.
3. It's approximately equivalent to a portable N64 on [two] small screens. I liked N64 on my big CRT SDTV a lot back in the day, and I think this level of performance works very well in portable format. I have yet to find myself wishing for better while enjoying any of my DS games. I'm someone who still gets impressed by well-executed art direction in 2D games, however, and I know that people like this are sadly becoming the minority.
(Sorry for the length of #2; I'm a home theater and recording enthusiast and I love the sound performance of my DS!)
I work at Gamestop. Remember a couple months ago when Sony announced they had shipped x million units worldwide? Less than a week before that announcement my store received a serious overstock of PSPs. Now we're loaded up on PSP "core" systems as well, which leaves out the memory card and other little extras for $50 less. It doesn't really matter, though, because we always have used PSPs in stock and people always buy those. The PSP's biggest problem is that people don't buy many games for it, they don't buy many UMDs for it, and when they do they buy used product. There's never a "must have" new game that people are willing to spend $40-50 on. Then end result is that Gamestop profits more off the PSP than Sony (90% of UMD movies I sell are used also).
PSP's market penetration is comparable to the DS, but like the XBox in the console world, it's a monetary black hole for it's developer. Sony needs to find the guy who decided the PSP didn't need two analog sticks and fire him, even if it's Kutagari himself.
Awesome idea. Buy the game console without the games.
If you convince enough gullible people to buy PSPs, maybe somebody is going to make a few games, too. In the meantime, the rest of us will be happy playing tons of utterly awesome games on our DS consoles.
The DS does play Lumines. It's just called Meteos :-)
Seriously, though, since Tetris DS, all other puzzle games are dead. And there are plenty of awesome puzzle games on the DS.