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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.
Didn't Sony claimed the PSP would destroy the DS? I wonder if this is a sign of their upcoming ill fate...
I have to say I'm impressed with the DS. It is the first portable console I have ever gotten and I am playing metroid constantly.
I've always had a bit of a nintendo bias, but these days I'm nearly becoming a fanboy. Something has really changed at the company. They seem to be making all the right moves.
They must all be playing brain training all the time. Their brains are way younger than those Sony execs...
Pablo
PSP looks nice and all, but they missed out the "gaming" part...
The DS even seems to be winning in the UK (source), where Nintendo has never done as well as on mainland Europe. It's been interesting watching the size of the DS section in shops grow, mostly at the expense of UMDs.
I have to say that I'm impressed in general with video game consumers. The most successful products are the consoles that treat their customers right. PS2 creamed the other consoles of its generation due to great games, an outstanding gamepad, an out-of-the-box DVD movie player, a low price, and backward compatibility. Even though the PS2 has the crappiest hardware of the 3 consoles it's still far and away the best seller.
It's especially fascinating to see Nintendo out-Sony Sony! The DS has great games with tiny load times, innovative display and control schemes, a low price, and backward compatibility. It's the big seller by an enormous margin even though the graphics pale in comparison to the very pretty PSP, which has loads of (severely locked-down) additional features, but I think people are much more comfortable carrying a clamshell portable game system than a scratch-prone beauty queen.
There are so many markets where the biggest names get the biggest sales, regardless of quality (fear not, I won't start my iPod rant). However, in the gaming world I feel fairly safe going with the crowd.
Big kudos to Nintendo for the DS. They've earned all the fanfare.
Another parallel can be drawn from this. Proof that (Speed & Power) != (Fun). Developers love programming for the DS, over the PSP. The games are simpler, and the focus is drawn more towards fun.
Perhaps the future of the console wars does not rely on power as much as everybody thinks. I wouldn't be suprised in the least to see the Wii take the #1 slot in the next gen market (Even if it is a Gamecube++).
Colonel Cranium this is Rectal Reconnaissance, we are on a collision course sir, Abort Abort!
According to Nintendo anyway. This means that if I got one I'd have to run multiple WiFi networks in my house which seems a bit too much like a pain in the neck for a games console.
Of course the GP2x has no built in WiFi at all, but it does seem like a missed opportunity for a product revision this late in the WEP-is-broken world.
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In other regionally-divided platforms, the European gamers often seem to get a raw deal, waiting ridiculous amounts of time for their version of things to be released. I think the fact that DS is region-free really helped cement them a top position in a market that's tired of waiting for stuff to find its way over there.
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I bought into the PSP hype, picked up mine on launch day. Im a grown up so GTA didnt peak enough interest to buy it, but I did buy others to try and get into the PSP, Untold Legends, Lumines, Dead To Rights, Popolopis and SSX. I ended up buying a DS back in March after growing frustrated waiting for anything to come out other than Lumines that I had any interest in playing. I already had my gamepark for homebrew and emulation so that wasnt a real draw either. Its been months since I picked up my PSP but I play my DS every day, usually its 5 minutes here and there but thats whats great about the DS, for those without hours of time to dedicate to gaming there is plenty to offer.
I'm evidently not alone on this opinion, heck ive had it listed on craigslist for 3 months with a more than reasonable price and failed to even get a nibble, around here it seems the PSP is already dead.
On the other hand, my white PSP doesn't show nearly as many marks as my brother's black one. His black DS Lite is a fingerprint magnet, too. So you may well be just fine, and indeed better off with a while Lite.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
It sounds kinda goofy but the Mr Clean Magic Eraser works great at cleaning the DS. Though its too early in its lifecycle to be a problem yet, I am betting odds on NON-Acetone based nail polish remover working great at removing any future discolorations as well. I'd love to take credit, but both are tricks the Ipod and Ibook communities have found and use regularly.
As far as the Nintendo / Apple comparisons go, I think it's safe to say that they are kindred spirits. While it's true that Apple lives off high-end high priced products, it's their quality, image, innovation, loyal customer base, appeal to the average user, and reputation for being worth it just for Apple's software alone that really make them successful. There are plenty of high-end computer makers out there, but none of them enjoy Apple's reputation.
Nintendo simply takes a different lane on the same road, one more appropriate (and more profitable) for their market. They do all the same things, except instead of producing high end high priced hardware they produce right down the middle. Apple could do the same thing if the computer industry only had 3 manufacturers and 2 of them were stupid enough to produce overly expensive boxes. The low end positions in the computer world are already taken, and require really high volume to maintain. So Apple naturally took the high end.
As for the DS, I'm not a fan of the direction handhelds are taking in general. Of course, I'm even less of a fan of the direction Sony is going so the DS is my natural favorite of the two. I'm honestly not sure how it has done as well as it has, other than relying on the reputation Sony got overnight when the Playstation became the "adult" that it is now forced to share with Microsoft (at least in the US).
The only thing that angers me is the color of the Lite. White sucks. There should be some sort of rule aginst only releasing one color (unless it's black).
Haiku for you!
Ultimately, what keeps the games away from the PSP is that Sony didn't really understand what developers wanted when it came to handheld systems. Most existing handheld developers had been working on the GBA as their main platform and did not have the technological nor the financial resources needed to produce a PSP game; consider that you can make a GBA game for $250K-$500k whereas most PSP games require $2 Million or more to create the game. Constrast the PSP situation with the DS where Nintendo told developers they could continue to produce simple 2D games but Nintendo wanted developers to take advantage of both screens; this means that developers where given the choice whether to increase their costs or not.
The interesting thing to note is that both Nintendo and Sony are using the same strategies for their home console systems; one has to wonder what the outcome will be.
The game where you're a lawyer and can literally yell objection.
Yoshi Touch and Go which requires heavy use of the stylus.
Meteos which would be a different game without a touch screen (the ability to "launch" blocks with the stylus is half the game).
The Pac Man game where the action is totally controlled by drawing.
Lost Magic the first RPG with immersive spell casting.
Trace Memory makes use of nearly every DS bit of functionality.
The Princess Peach game which has levels and a mini-game that require blowing into the mic. Sexual innuendo, a lot of DS games seem to require blowing.
The Bomberman game where, in multiplayer, you can set bombs or blow them up by yelling nonsense.
Of course Warioware which has tons of way to play with the stylus.
I was just in my local game store today (a GameStop, to be specific) to pick up a WiFi USB Connector for the DS, and a copy of Metroid Prime: Hunters (the DS doesn't like my college's WiFi, especially the WPA authentication). I noticed that the DS stuff was off in a corner of the store, took up maybe 4 racks (all about 2 feet wide and vertical to each other), nowhere near the front. However, the PSP games were all right in the front, with signifcantly larger racks. They even had the audacity to fill out the DS racks with the cases for used games mixed in with the new games. The biggest thing to take away from this is that the DS games were all the way in the back, almost like they were trying to hide them, mixed in with the near-absent PC, GameCube, and Xbox 1 games, and not one game was tilted so that you could see the front art (all were arranged so that you could read the spine). The PSP games, on the other hand, were in the very front of the store, each arranged so that someone walking by outside would be able to see the cover art clearly. Yeah, this is off-topic, but I think Sony pays GameStop good money to have Nintendo's stuff all the way in the back and their PSP stuff put in the front.
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