DS vs PSP - Developers, Press Sound Off 85
Sean O'Neill writes "Over at GCAdvanced.com, we've got a large feature interviewing handheld developers and gaming press about the Sony PSP and Nintendo DS. Marc Nix of IGN says: 'I think a lot of system fans and game reporters are gearing up for a big Portable System War of 2005, but the problem is, gamers traditionally haven't cared all that much about handhelds.' However, it's also pointed out that 'incredible features for the new handhelds... will undoubtedly elevate their appeal' - the article then gets responses from more than 20 developers/press on their views of the conflict to come."
The Winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The Winner (Score:4, Insightful)
Imagine a local MMORPG variant of Pokemon or Yu Gi Oh - it's like selling solid gold!
Re:The Winner (Score:1)
Re:The Winner (Score:2)
Re:The Winner (Score:2, Insightful)
Nintendo proved long ago that it matters less what the hardware is versus what the software is. If you look back at the original Nintendo Gameboy and the Sega Gamegear, you will see that Gamegear had *color*, while the Gameboy had *monochrome*. The Gameboy won.
The winner will be the system that developers create the most popular games for.
Re:The Winner (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Winner (Score:1, Informative)
Re:The Winner (Score:2)
If Nintendo pulls off another Pokémon-like stunt for the DS (at least in Japan), then they already won the battle... Ya just can't beat a game that has a bunch of japanese schoolgirls interrested...
Re:The Winner (Score:1)
Handhelds are the future! (Score:5, Interesting)
However the potential for a mobile PC with camera / peripherals, and more importantly, instant, fast, GPRS or local connectivity (WiFi) that can easily be built into games (and lets not forget GPS) will make a whole new breed of gaming.
This is already happening, and the whole of Tokyo is host to the first (?) real life MUD, where people can walk around the city using GPS to reposition themselves in the game, and taking different commutes to work to fight new monsters.
Pocket PC's are shockingly cheap now, and except for thier bland input keys, the stylus mode of input can be used as an analogue stick (by orbiting around a fixed center)
Quake2 plays nicely on my Axim30. Of course, this is about 'console' handhelds. As the price barriers blur between the two, it is hard to say what is what.
A sony and nintendo will have something that PPC will not have - a distribution chain. Even though we want digital distribution, cartidges will probably still be developed, or a mini dvd disc.
Perhaps games will come on SD cards in the near future, bringing their costs down for all other users.
The good thing about OTA distribution is the ability to on the fly encode some DRM (yuck!) that would disable the full game if copied onto another device, unless the person 'transfers' the license somehow....
Re:Handhelds are the future! (Score:3, Interesting)
Imagine that a significant portion of the commuting population were vested in this game. They had the hardware and the desire to play this game and did so.
Imagine that this population also wanted to fight these new monsters in game, so they all started altering their commuting patterns.
I wonder how, if at all, this would affect traffic congestion. High traffic areas with much congestion might see some relief as commuters elected to pick differe
If the /. effect got loose.... (Score:3, Funny)
Some say this has already happened.
'Tis a wild thought!
Re:Handhelds are the future! (Score:1)
Thankfully, this MUD will probably be too pain-in-the-ass for most Japanese, thereby maintaing their transit infrastructure.
DS guaranteed winner (Score:5, Interesting)
Remember back in the day gameboy vs. game gear? Even Nintendo admits openly the game gear was superior technically. But gameboy won because it had Tetris. It had portable games. The PSP is going to have console games. Taking PlayStation games and making them portable will fail for the same reason that taking PC games and putting them on console systems fails so miserably. Just because you can take a game with you in the car doesn't make it a portable game in the same way that playing Quake 2 on the N64 doesn't make Quake 2 a console game. You get it? Nintendo is the only company that seems to understand this. Look at advance wars, that's a portable game. It wouldn't work any other way. But it looks like Sony is just going to try to miniaturize the playstation, and it wont work for the same reason the game gear didn't work.
Nintendo knows this. Nintendo is making portable games. Sony is making a really small console.
You can read it here [planetgamecube.com], straight from the horses mouth.
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:2)
What did people DO with their longer battery life?
Gameboy won becuase of its games. Tetris and Super Mario World blew away anything the Game Gear had to offer.
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:2)
If the master system games were so great, then the system would have sold better. They weren't, and it didn't. Same for the gameboy/game gear.
And the same will be true for the DS and PSP.
Software sells the hardware. If it were the other way around, consoles would cost $500 and games would be the loss leader.
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:3, Informative)
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:4, Insightful)
They don't have to regularly stop their game because the battery died.
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:2)
The games do sell the console, and ultimately I think they are very important to the end game. However, to think they are the most important thing will cause you to lose sight of goal. Nintendo certainly has had the best first party games on the G
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:5, Insightful)
The biggest problem was switching batteries out every few hours of play... that gets expensive really quick unless you want to be tethered to a wall wart. I think this, more than anything else, killed the system. I'm not saying that's it's only problem, but arguably it's biggest.
The PSP will have rechargable batteries, so you don't have to worry about battery cost (at least not for another 3-4 years). The big question is the life per charge. 2 hours avg will not be enough. 8 hours (judging from the number of iPod fanatics) will probably be just fine. 16 hours is probably dreaming :-)
Once they jump the battery life hurdle, then people will start looking more seriously at the games...
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:2)
That, and that the games Sega released for it weren't "portable-ready". Sonic for GG, for example, might take two hours for an average player to play from beginning to end. Unfortunately, you could only get an hour and a half from a set of batteries, meaning you could never finish the game unless you were running on AC power. And there was no battery-backed savestate or password feature, either... in the end,
Don't know, the PSP looks way way way better (Score:1, Interesting)
Further more in the time of the Gameboy Nintendo was THE company. That is no longer the case. Nintendo is now an also ran in console land and Sony has the shelf space.
Frankly I like my gba but the screen i
Re:Don't know, the PSP looks way way way better (Score:5, Insightful)
As a sidenote, although I said that two screens are no better than one, that's only theoretical. You could have two viewpoints of the same area with a single screen, but splitting one screen across the middle for single player hasn't been done before. I don't know why. With the DS you may effectively only have one screen twice as high, but it won't be used like a single screen much. There's nothing to stop developers putting a 'second screen' in console games, but on the DS they -will- do that. The two screens really just tells them, 'Hey! You know what would be cool? Instead of choosing between camera angles, if you could use both!' - whether or not they'll realise that any time soon remains to be seen.
Re:Don't know, the PSP looks way way way better (Score:1)
The DS only allows 3D images on one screen at a time so you "could" have two views but only if one is a top down or side on 2D view.
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:1, Insightful)
Not withstanding that Doom 2 plays wonderfully on the Gameboy SP, they're going to be taking console games and putting them on a portable console system. The only issue is the "pickupability" of the game - the ability jump in for 5 minutes of play time and get a rewarding experience without having to play for 2 h
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:4, Interesting)
IMO, part of why Game Boy has successfully trumped so many competitors is that they don't make "portable games." They make games that happen to be portable. While most other handhelds seem to take the stance of "Now you can play your favorite colsole game X on the road!" (with versions that often paled in comparison), most of my favorite 4-shade Game Boy games didn't really have console analogs, at least not initially. SaGa and Seiken Densetsu were re-branded in the US but didn't have anything in common with Final Fantasy beyond their new names. Gargoyle's Quest* went on to inspire sequels on the NES and SNES. Metroid II is just... well... Metroid II. And don't forget where Kirby got his start.
And with the Game Boy library maturing with the hardware itself, Sony and the PSP's publishers will have to try that much harder to be something far more than "the hand-held version of the PS2," I don't see much hope for it.
When the Super Game Boy came out for the SNES, relatively early in the Game Boy's life, people scoffed. "Game Boy is supposed to be portable! Why would I want to play portable games on my TV?" Things have continued to build, Nintendo has released their Game Boy Player for the GCN and people are no longer laughing. Forget about playing PlayStation One/2 games on your PSP, the PSP won't be able to succeed until people start to want to play PSP games on their PlayStation 3.
* Capcom was making noise at one point about an MMORPG based on the Ghouls & Ghosts & Goblins/Gargoyle's Quest/Demon's Crest universe. What happened to that?
Re:DS guaranteed winner (Score:2)
It wasn't a MMORPG, just an online game, like the next Resident Evil for PS2. I readed a preview once. Don't know what happened.
Developers (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Developers (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Developers (Score:1)
Well, that's all nice and heart warming, ya know? But it doesn't matter - it's the publishers who decide what platform the games will get made for.
Re:Developers (Score:2)
Re:Developers (Score:1)
Dude, as a game developer, you really should know this by now, even if you're not developing for the PSP.
Will there really be a war? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will there really be a war? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Will there really be a war? (Score:1)
Re:Will there really be a war? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Will there really be a war? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm not sure about undoubtedly. All of you who think this is gonna be a portable PS2, think again. It's not. It may be a similar archetecture and based off the same technology, but it's not gonna be nearly as fast. It would draw too much power and require too much cooling to be that fast. The DS is damned powerful from what I've seen, and I've yet to see a reasonable screenshot of something actu
It all comes down to game base (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:It all comes down to game base (Score:2)
Re:It all comes down to game base (Score:2)
Re:It all comes down to game base (Score:1)
It's a 3-way fight. (Score:4, Interesting)
Like the PC, cell-phone games are a little trickier to build (for the same reasons: multiple platforms and standards) but also like the PC in the 90s, it has a major advantage over the "consoles": connectivity. You can play your buddies (even if they're not in the same room, which is as much as you get for connectivity with the PSP and DS. Add to that over-the-air delivery of games, and you've got something going on. And everybody will own a cell-phone anyway...
And sure, the first Ngage sucked hardcore, but they'll fix it. Unlike Nintendo or Sony, Nokia is used to changing and improving their products yearly, and you better believe the other cell-phone makers are working on gaming handsets too.
Just you watch, the major feature of the PSP2 and/or DS2 will be more robust online and over-the-air access, but by then they'll be playing catch-up (kind of like how the PS2 and XBox are trying to catch up to the PC in terms of connectivity).
Sure is an interesting time to be a gamer...
Re:It's a 3-way fight. (Score:2)
Re:It's a 3-way fight. (Score:1)
One of the key features of the DS (at least in my mind) is built in Wi-Fi and Nintendo's "Bluetooth" (it's not really Bluetooth, but something similiar).
Personally, the idea of using a cell phone for anything other than a phone is anthema to me. I'd much rather carry around a small phone and a game system, both of which can do one t
GameSpy Does it again (Score:4, Interesting)
I'd take this more seriously if it came from a source with a shred of journalistic integrity. These are, after all, the people who listed such classics as Donkey Kong Country, Halo, and Quake 2 in their "Top 25 Most Overrated Games of All Time" list. Considering the fact that all three of these games are generally considered to be excellent by most gamers years after their release, they're obviously not overhyped. This is compounded when you consider, as Penny Arcade aptly notes [penny-arcade.com], that Gamespy plays as much a part in the hype machine as anyone else. It's rather obvious that they were picked by Gamespy to create controversy instead of presenting a list of games that deserve the shame of being called overhyped. It seems to me that the "iPod of gaming" remark is yet another of these gambits, aimed more at ushering more hits their way than providing any useful information.
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:1, Insightful)
Sure, gamespy is not what I'd call the most reliable and balanced source of information, but I really can't blame them for naming those three games in their overhyped list. Donkey Kong country was pretty, but as far as gameplay goes, it's not really in the same league as the best games of the SNES generation. I'd rather play Super Mario World or Sonic any day. Quake 2 was, IMO, a step back from the original Quake: The single player game was just as forgettable, the graphics were not a major improvement (IM
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider Donkey Kong Country. At the time when the next-generation, 3D consoles were coming out, it was a stunning-looking SNES game. It looked 3D! But that was the trick -- it had to have the look of 3D in order to compete with the newer games that actually were 3D. So they gave the sprites the shiny, plasticky look that pe
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:3, Insightful)
No, that's not really true. People get over graphics pretty quick. If the game was only mediochre, it would have died a quick death instead of being held at the highest bar.
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:2)
If only that were true. Just look at Donkey Kong Country!
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:2)
I feel that underrating occurs when too many people buy a game that isn't their style. If lots of people like me went out and spontaneously bought THUG a
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:2)
Re:GameSpy Does it again (Score:2)
Re:Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Difference (Score:1)
Re:Difference (Score:3, Insightful)
I'd like to see you justify either of those claims, that Sony is "more onwards" ("looking forward" perhaps?) or that Nintendo is going backwards.
Sony is certainly going forwards, they've got improved graphics, wireless, new media, and the ability to play music and movies in some format. However Nintendo is also going f
Technology shmeck-ology (Score:4, Insightful)
In all likelihood it will end up being the DS because they'll use the same model that Playstation itself used (and Gameboy for that matter). Backward compatability. This gets you the first months when new games are slim and all the early adopters pay prime dollar to get the latest and greatest. Out of the gate, PSP will only have the games available at launch.
Plus wouldn't you rather play something like WarrioWare rather than Madden 2005 on a portable? I'd rather view Madden on a big screen.
Also, who cares?
2 markets (Score:1)
I would never only own a Nintendo console, because they don't have the very best titles (Sony have traditionally managed this, while MS are trying to buy their way into it), but they do have a lot of the most innovative and down right fun games. These kind of games that large publishers like EA can't see a guaranteed paycheck from and so never touch but Nintendo have a belief in their gaming, even though the
Re:2 markets (Score:2)
Um, they don't? [gamerankings.com]
Maybe _you_ don't think their games rank at the top, but i can show you any number of other sources that think that Nintendo has always had a lot of the very best games out there. The general complaint has never been that they don't have some of the very best games out there, it's that they don't have enough games in general, especially in the "pretty good" to "almost but not quite the very best" range.
I stopped reading when. . . (Score:3, Insightful)
The PSP, playing your mp3s, dvds and PS2 games in a handheld, but you'll need to buy them all again.
Re:I stopped reading when. . . (Score:2)
Which is quite idiotic. Sony has some good game software talent and good hardware talent, but they are being controlled by their music/movie divisions. Their media divisions are holding back inovation in th
Re:I stopped reading when. . . (Score:2)
Wow, and I thought Spiderman made a shitload of money.
And if the Sony hardware talent is so great, why does their stuff break so often, have audio hissing, etc.??? Why is SonicStage 2 universally disliked?
I actually use MDs (they're the best alternative for
Re:I stopped reading when. . . (Score:2)
Not A War, Just Different Niches (Score:1)
Re:Not A War, Just Different Niches (Score:2)
I'm not sure that's Sony's actual plan there. Sony would much prefer to steal a ton of GBA users, particularly the older crowd by playing up the "adult" angle of the PSP. Sony is no doubt looking hard at Nintendo's failed connectivity experiment and recanting all their proposed "Yo
touchscreen vs. fun. (Score:1)
do you guys really want to play games made with analog sticks in mind on a handheld?
i would much rather have fun games then realistic looking games.
i heard the marketing as.s from nintendo talk about what excites gamers and he was talking about a touchscreen interface. i don't really care about touchscreens, do you?
i do love the wireless mulitplayer stuff though.
i'll
Re:touchscreen vs. fun. (Score:2)
handheld on TV (Score:2)
so this begs the question: will there be a GBA DS to TV player? as these portable "consoles" keep getting more powerful, why aren't there better ways of docking them and using them on
Re:handheld on TV (Score:1)
Re:handheld on TV (Score:1)
Price (Score:1)
The PSP is supposed to cost as much as a regular console's launch price. How many parents want to spend that much on a toy their kids can drop/break/lose?
Any suggestions for the next feature? (Score:1)