DS Claims EU Dominance

Gamasutra reports that, at least in the EU, the Nintendo DS has the portable war pretty much locked up for the time being. 200,000 units of the DS Lite were sold in the ten days after its launch. From the article: "According to Nintendo of Europe, the Nintendo DS has now secured the lead in the handheld market in Europe, with sales of the format exceeding 5 million. No sales figures from Sony are available to compare directly, with only a "shipped" figure of almost 6 million for all territories bar North America and Japan." Interestingly, 136,500 units were sold in the United States in just the first two days after the handheld console's launch.

Comments

Re:Region-free=good

[minus_273]

you know I hate hearing europeans (EU) complain about this. The reason it takes so long is not only do you not use NTSC like the US and Japan, you dont even have a standard (PAL,SECAM etc). Then you dont even have a standard language. In Australia, US, Canada etc it is english. In Japan it is Japanese. In europe, it has to be translated into several languages. Even though England speaks english and there is a version of the game in english, it has to wait for a french translation. Who's fault is that? not tha game makers.

I own both and must say I am torn

[SmallFurryCreature]

I imported a DS lite Navy blue and bought a PSP giga pack. Both are okay, limited compared to a PC, sometimes maddingly so but acceptable. I don't own any regular consoles. In fact the Gameboy line is the only consoles I ever owned.

Now to compare the two devices is very very hard. Neither is perfect especially if you own both and can see where the other device is just so much better.

First off the oh so important size. The PSP has often been called huge and it is. But the regular DS is in fact even bigger. The DS Lite is almost exactly the same size but 3cm shorter. It tells you a lot about fanboys that during the original launch the Nintendo fanboys called the PSP large. The truth is both devices are HUGE larger then a PDA. Fashionable people might not have the storage space.

Weight is something else. The PSP weighs a ton and that is not good. It will really pull your pants down. This despite the similar size makes it harder to carry around.

The PSP is open with the screen seemingly unprotected. Both DS versions of course are a clamshell design and this makes them very safe from scratching. Except that my PSP so far has not been scratched. This is not an iPod and sony seems to have found a pretty good screen material. Gameplay wise it makes no difference.

Battery time is hard to judge and also depends on the game. Can you really compare a game like say Advance Wars Dual Strike with Grand Theft Auto Liberty City? Maybe the PSP battery will be drained faster but I will have played more intensly in that time. Basically bring extra power if you are really going to need them because both will run out before you know it.

Power saving. Now here the DS Lite takes a nose dive. Compared to the PSP Nintendo's designers just don't seem to have a clue. In the game animal crossing you are told of for switching of the game without saving. Cute but then don't put the goddamn power switch in such a lousy spot. It is on the side, sticks out and is a slide switch with a spring, you slide it up and that causes the device to switch off or on and then it slides back. This easily happens in your pocket and the DS had not "lock" option.

The PSP buton works the same but puts the device in power save mode meaning if you accidently switch off you can almost instantly switch on again and resume where you left off. This helps mitigate a stupid design they made by combining the power and lock switch. Unlocking it will frequently cause the switch to overshoot and put the device in power save mode. But since you can resume easily this is only a nuisance.

The DS however will just loose all your progress. If you judged the DS on its own it would not be so bad but compared to the PSP this really is a very stupid design choice.

Part of the DS charm is being able to play all your old GBA games. Except that in the DS Lite the catridge doesn't fit. This not only looks ugly it also makes even the DS lite bigger then the PSP. Nintendo fanboys eat your heart out.

Ah but sony can screw up too. The screen on the PSP is beautifull oh those damn pixel problems. Everyone I know with a PSP has some problems, nobody I know with a DS (either version) has any. Or for that matter with the GBA not even idiots like me who installed an afterburner. There is also a ghosting problem.

The dual screen? Well it is a nice touch but 99% of the time you only look at one of them, it is rare to find a game where the action happens on both screens at once. The PSP screen contains a lot more action and some games do look damn impressive. There are plenty of times I would with the DS had more screen real estate. In practice however I can't compare them because the games I play on them are just to different.

So wich is better? Well frankly both are flawed devices. Neither company has an excuse for the mistakes made. Nintendo should have done a better job with the powerswitch and Sony should really have handled the screen better. Both have plenty of experience with small devices after all.

Gaming wise