Sony PSP vs Nintendo DS

[Fishie]

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

I think that in the non-phone market, Palm is damned if they do and damned if they don't.

As a videogamejournalist and gadget freak I fail to see how the PSP is competition for WinCE

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[Fishie]

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

I think that in the non-phone market, Palm is damned if they do and damned if they don't.

As a videogamejournalist and gadget freak I fail to see how the PSP is competition for WinCE

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[Felix Torres]

Originally Posted by Fishie

]
As a videogamejournalist and gadget freak I fail to see how the PSP is competition for WinCE

Keep an eye on it, you'll see why.

Sony is doing an SDK for it and the hackers are all over it, doing interesting things like (crude) ebook readers, browsers, media players.

With a full SDK to work with and the UMD now a standard there are...possibilities...

CE competes in many areas and the PSP is going to, ahem, play in many of them.
Its a dark horse right now, but looking at the 07-08 timeframe I was quoting, the PSP-platform (not necessarily the existing product) is going to be a contender simply because with PalmOS imploding there is going to be a vaccum.
There will be room for a new platform out there and Sony, unintentionally and all, is in the right spot at the right time.
A few months ago I might've put an evolved pod in that position but the PSP got there first and has momentum...
<shrug>
Think of it as a gut feeling; PSP is going to be bigger than games and media...

[Fishie]

Originally Posted by Felix Torres

Think of it as a gut feeling; PSP is going to be bigger than games and media...

No its NOT.
Its failing horribly, from the sales which are much lower then Sony´s projections to the asswhipping its receiving from the Nintendo DS to the UMD movie sales figures that are fabricated by Sony to the crap quality of the screen to Sony themselves who are doing everything they can to stop homebrew(newer games require firmware to be updated, Sony for the next wave of games is planning to write code on the games that make the firmware update as you insert the game to stop people from messig with PSP´s ).

The PSP is a storm in a glass of water, in Japan its sales are consistently lower then those of the DS becouse the novelty has worn off by now and the games dont offer enough to keep people compelled about the product.

Its got a big LOW RES screen with ghosting problems, memory stick media is crippled and the games are light versions of better console software at prices that are too high.

At this point the LONG TERM prospects of the PSP platform(fture iterations) is in question.

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[guinness]

Originally Posted by Fishie

At this point the LONG TERM prospects of the PSP platform(fture iterations) is in question.

Depends on what you compare a PSP to, a DS or a PDA. If comparing it to the DS, I wouldn't say that it's low res at all, 480x272, compared to 2 screens that are 256x192. Compared to a VGA PDA, the PSP is relatively low res, but for a gameing handheld, it is not. Besides, it took the DS a long time to catch on, when it first launched, it only had a handful of games for it, the only thing that keep it going is that it's backwards-compatible with the GBA.

Playing homebrew emulators on the PSP seems like a waste, since it isn't all that fast, and that I can already do that with my X5.

The Memory Stick Duo is a pain, like xD cards, since they're not as much of a standard, and therefore more expensive. UMD seems like a dead fornat, unless Sony opens it up more, like they did with the Minidiscs.

Can't complain about the screen too much, hardly any ghosting, and no dead pixels.

The biggest positive of the PSP is potential that Sony hasn't even touched yet, it can be upgraded, therefore, many more features should get added to it. Also, it gives competition to Nintendo in the market, how many times can they release the same rehashed GB? Knocks against it are that there really aren't any great games for it right now (love Wipeout Pure though), and the price is relatively high for a portable.

Like the DS, the PSP is a dumb purchase if there aren't any games for it you like.

Once the PSP gets a killer game or 2, all of the problems will get glossed over, I got my PS in 1995, but it wasn't really until 1997 and the release of Final Fantasy 7, that the system took off.

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[bjornkeizers]

Originally Posted by Fishie

No its NOT.
Its failing horribly, from the sales which are much lower then Sony´s projections

In all fairness though, the PSP isn't available everywhere at the moment. It'll be released here in Europe on September 1st - and I'll be first in line to pick up a unit, and most of my gaming friends here with me. You can't compare the figures at the moment, since the DS has a huge head start. Also, the European release has been delayed for months now, so it's only logical that the sales are lower then projected before this happened..

I agree with you on the lack of games though.. not a lot available. I'm waiting for Gran Turismo and the new GTA, and I hope one or both will be available on release (I haven't folllowed the release list)

[Fishie]

Originally Posted by bjornkeizers

I agree with you on the lack of games though.. not a lot available. I'm waiting for Gran Turismo and the new GTA, and I hope one or both will be available on release (I haven't folllowed the release list)

At E3 2004 Sony assured us they would launch worldwide in November 2004, now its launching 10 months later in Europe.
Thats not Nintendo´s problem, its Sony´s.
In Japan too the PSP outsold the DS for a couple of months when it launched, now however week on week the DS is outselling the PSP.
Same thing we will see in the coming months in the US, the DS will hold its sales while the PSP will fall behind until there is a price drop/more compelling games.
A price drop is hard becouse the machine costs a lot to make, and for the games nearly every journalist at E3 had the same comment: Where are the PSP games.

The PSP is intended to be like a miniature PS2, this has the added side effect that to make a high profile release that looks good and plays well a company has to spend several million dollars in making and marketing a game.
On the DS a game can be made for a fraction of that cost and marketed to a bigger installed base.
Sony is seriously fumbling with the PSP.

Another problem Sony has never faced and which Sega and Nintendo have experience with is resource dilution becouse they have to support several formats at the same time.
Sega did a crappy job of that in the 90s when they were trying to simultanously support the Gamegear, Megadrive/Genesis, Mega/SegaCD, 32X and were preparing to launch the saturn.
They foolishly dropped their most profiteable products too early becouse of that(Megadrive/Genesis and Game Gear).
EA did the same and felt it heavily in their bottom line at the start of the current generation, they were hurting becouse they refused to support the Dreamcast and once the PS2 released they dropped support for the PS1 too fast.
Now Sony is making the same mistake, they are entering a new faze with the PS3, still have to fully support the PS2 and the PSP seems to be faling behind becouse of that.
Sony was counting on third parties and the third parties for now on PSP are not delivering.

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[Fishie]

OH BTW, In Japan the DS and PSP launched only a couple of weeks apart(DS released in Japan AFTER the US), not only did the DS have a bigger launch then the PSP, after having lower sales the first few months of the year the DS hasbeen consistently outselling the PSP and its lead in Japan is now well over a million units.

[bjornkeizers]

Originally Posted by Fishie

At E3 2004 Sony assured us they would launch worldwide in November 2004, now its launching 10 months later in Europe.
Thats not Nintendo´s problem, its Sony´s.

Chill dude. You seem to be taking this very seriously. I'm very Angry at Sony and rightfully so because of this. If I was to go to the US or Japan, I could buy a PSP in every store. Obviously, they're not sold out - so if they have stocks over there, why the **** can't they ship some of those damn things over here. :roll: I have money! Please take it! :roll:

Sony definitely needs to learn a lesson from the way Nintendo handled the DS release. Very smooth, two, three good games, available everywhere... Sure, the DS doesn't really have many high-profile titles and a bunch of crap ones (I doubt Tiger Woods golf, Pokemon Dash or Atari Classics sell units!) - but at least they have old Gameboy games to entertain themselves.

Many gamers are holding on to their money for now, because there aren't any games. But that *will* change when the high-profile games become available. Stuff like Gran Turismo or Grand Theft Auto will sell units.

[Fishie]

Originally Posted by bjornkeizers

Many gamers are holding on to their money for now, because there aren't any games. But that *will* change when the high-profile games become available. Stuff like Gran Turismo or Grand Theft Auto will sell units.

Of course I am taking this seriously, this is my livelihood and I am passionate about the games industry.
That being said before the releases of the respective machines many people were saying the DS was stillborn, that the PSP would be Sony´s kiuller blow to Nintendo, that Nintendo had no way they could compete, that game werent that important and that the PSP would sell on its gadget factor alone, the movies, MP3s(people were saying it competed with the Ipod instead of Nintendo), now a lot of those people are saying wait a bit itl happen yet.
Yeah it will get some high profile games along the way, but dont forget, so is Nintendo and a darn lot more at that since its a lot cheaper to develop for(a high profile DS game can be developed for well under 500K, for PSP the figure is between 2 and 3 million).

People are now saying, just wait, itll come.
That is shortsighted since the competition is moving along as well the games cost as much as their console counterparts yet offer less for the money, with DS you have mostly DIFFERENT games and games that are cheaper at that and better designed for portable play.

In short the strengths on which the PSP was supposed to sell arent strengths at all and with regards to games it is not fullfilling its promises.

Its a sexy looking gadget yes but at the moment it is little more, the 50$/50€ games do not convince and the other capabilities are severely crippled.

Sony has the gadget freaks and hardcore buy everything thats released gamers on their side, they however cant convince the mass market outside of those people who get convinced by the aforementioned groups doing Sony´s bidding on their side.

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[guinness]

Originally Posted by Fishie

Sony has the gadget freaks and hardcore buy everything thats released gamers on their side, they however cant convince the mass market outside of those people who get convinced by the aforementioned groups doing Sony´s bidding on their side.

You're glossing over the fact that the DS is backwards compatible with the GBA. At the US launch, the DS only had 6 games, one of which was a straight port of Mario 64, with a few extra levels added on. But people could get a DS over the GBA, knowing that there was added potential with the DS. Sony had 24 games at launch, but most were sports-related, and only 3 stood out: Wipeout, Lumines, and Ridge Racer.

The DS took off in Japan because games like Kirby and Nintendogs, not sure how well Nintendogs would go over here, since Japanese and US tastes are different. Soon they'll release another version of Mario Kart for the DS.

The only thing that will keep the PSP from being successful is Sony. I can't see them dropping the Clie line, and not adding some those features to the PSP at least, that would be very disappointing to me. The Clie's were the only real competition that MS really had in the PDA market, even if the Clie were handicapped by the POS.

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