Slashdot Mirror
DS, PSP Could Claim Supremacy in Console Wars
njkid1 passed us another link to a GameDaily article, this one quoting analysts at DFC Intelligence as seeing a sort of usurpation of the console space by portable games. With the DS consistently outselling almost every other system on the market since last year, it's possible that the DS may become the best-selling system 'of all time'. Moreover, portable consoles may actually grow to have a larger market share than their more expensive, high-def cousins. "This comes from DFC's latest report on the portable gaming market, which the firm predicts will exceed $10 billion in worldwide revenue this year, led by the DS. DFC said that the PSP will 'establish a solid position in the marketplace' but that much of the Sony portable's fate will depend on how much effort Sony Computer Entertainment decides to put into promoting the platform over the next few years."
But ONE of them could claim supremacy in the handheld wars.
When someone gives us a handheld that has a video output that allows us to play the games on a television, then they can claim supremacy in the console wars (if they outsell the consoles.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
The actual linked story headline is "DS Could Be Best Selling Video Game Platform Ever". Adding the PSP to the Slashdot version is a little skewing.
I don't know about everyone else, but does owning a handheld even impact playing games at home? I own a PSP and, quality of titles notwithstanding, never play it unless I'm commuting or traveling somewhere. When I'm home, I have no desire to play a portable system since I can play a more powerful, more immersive game on my TV.
So, my point: Is installed user-base all there is to care about? Don't Sony/MS/Nintendo make the bulk of their profits on the games? I'd be more interested in seeing the ratio of portable to non-portable games sold. Maybe they are in fact on to something here, but hardware sales numbers don't really tell the whole story.
Also I'm getting tired of these articles that claim to forecast "the answer" after one holiday season of incredible hardware droughts for several systems which forced many buyers to go to their plan B or C anyway.
why? forty-two.
The DS may just be the perfect gaming machine. It's kid-friendly with plenty of titles to appeal to youngsters, but it's adult friendly too in the fact that you can pick it up and play it when you've only got a few minutes to spare. Just flip it closed and it goes into standby until you open it back up.
Plus there's the price point. Parents can pick one up for $130, which way less than a PSP, and games are not more than $34.99 each (with rare exceptions). They can choose from DS and GBA titles, which also appeals to parents because they can keep playing their old games too.
As both a gamer and a parent, I can say that I play my DS far more than Xbox 360, Wii, and PS2 combined. I own more DS/GBA games than all three combined too, just because they are cheaper and often much more fun (New SMB anyone?)
I've been saying this for quite some time now. Out of this generation, the DS will likely be the console winner. I'm not just talking about raw sales, the GBA outsold the PS2 by a lot, but it was still thought of as being a very very different kind of machine. No, what I mean by "winner" is "winner" in the truist sense of the word: competing head to head with the 360, PS3 and Wii, as a console, not just as a handheld console.
Firstly, the DS has the ability to play the same kinds of games that the 360, PS3, and Wii (a little less so) can. For the first time in over a decade, we're seeing canonic games of major series (and not just "handheld spinoffs") coming onto a handheld. Not only that, but it doesn't really feel like "just a handheld" anymore. The DS has things, above and beyond portability, that no other system can do... so there are reasons for purchasing it and playing it, even if your not interested in the portability. No other handheld system can claim this, outside a few very minor exceptions.
When I play a DS, it feels more like I'm playing a TV-based console, then a GBA. It's got a solid, robust design, the screen is incredibly clear, and it has full 3D graphics, that, for the screen resolution, can sit right next to the GameCube.
Just watch, many series are going to jump ship from TV-consoles. We're already seeing it start to happen.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
The DS is successful because it provides simplicity and compatibility in a low-cost package.
The DS is simple. I put in a game, I turn it on, I play it. I'm not told to join an online service, or pay for "points" for microtrasactions, or update firmware, or create a profile, or enter a password, or set up family accounts, or download patches, or view my online achievement scores, or update billing information, etc. (Note: it's true the DS can play over the internet using Wi-Fi, but the feature isn't very prominent and a lot of avid DS players don't even know about it). My DS is happy with being a little machine for games. It doesn't want to run my life, and I think a lot of casual-to-moderate gamers don't really want their console to become an online/entertainment hub. The games are the thing.
The DS is compatible. Not only does it have a lot of very nice games of its own, its backed by the massive Game Boy Advance library, with all sorts of treasures. I think pretty much everybody is getting the idea that backward-compatibility is the only way to go these days. While this is porbably good news for consumers (a PS3 is able to play 13 years worth of legacy games, for example) it'll be interesting to see if any other consoles are able to survive in such a market, building a stable of titles from the ground up. N-Gage, Gizmondo, and Zodiac all crashed and burned, for example.
The DS has a very very low entry price point. With a new DS lite running about $130 and a used original DS weighing in around $70 or so, the DS is by far the cheapest entry point to the current generation of systems. Unfortunately I think console manufacturers have lost sight of how much the public are really willing to pay for games, and the current console bunch (PS3 in particular) are prohibitively expensive for the masses. The people who make games and systems for a living tend to focus on those who eat, sleep, and breathe videogames, and forget that for every customer who would give up a kidney and wait in line for a week for a limited-edition Halo sequel in an exclusive holographic slipcase, there's a thousand parents who just want something fun for the kids to do on long car rides, or a suduku simulator to make the morning commute more bearable.
The current systems lineup offers something for everyone and an amount of diversity we've never seen before. Regardless of how it turns out, we're all in for a hell of a fun ride.
Andrew Lenahan http://www.starblind.com/
More likely the person in question has large hands. As much as I wanted the SP, I found I couldn't play it for more than a half an hour or so without some massive hand cramps, from clawing my huge paws around the tiny system. So I kept my original GBA. I had the same problem with the Dreamcast, though that was due to the extremely awkward trigger buttons (And D Pad)
Now that I think about it, I'm glad I never tried a GB Micro.
The DS-Lite fits in my mits perfectly, thankfully.
CORRECTaMUNDO! I'm bloody gigantic and so are my hands. In fact googling slashdot alone will probably turn up several hits with me bitching about Microsoft dropping the full-size controller for the S on the Xbox.
And the version of Tetris that I typically play on the SP is the original. The kind where the cart sticks way out.
But he was right about one thing; Tetris Worlds does suck.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"