Gamers Abandoning DS, PSP In Favor of Smartphones 305
donniebaseball23 writes "IndustryGamers reports on new research from Interpret, which shows that more and more people are turning to their phones for game time, leaving the DS and PSP behind. 43.8% of the phone/DS/PSP gaming market plays games on phones, which represents a significant 53.2% increase over the past year. At the same time, Interpret says that the proportion of those who play on the DS or PSP has fallen by 13%. The company notes, 'Gamers appear to be defecting from their handheld gaming devices to phones to get their gaming kicks: a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).' Notable games industry analyst Michael Pachter also recently commented that handhelds continue to decline and Sony's much rumored PSP2 would be 'dead on arrival' as smartphones continue to gain steam."
Sony is already working on it (Score:4, Interesting)
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I look forward to the Playstation Phone, however it should be noted that Sony Ericsson has a long history with mediocre mobile phones.
WTF? (Score:5, Insightful)
So already I can't get popular titles to run on my kick ass workstation with high end graphic cards and monitors. To play them I would have to buy a crappy console and hook it up to my mediocre TV.
Now, people want to move from that to playing on a phone?
Seems we are going backwards here.
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Yes, I use it to watch TV, not play games.
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If you're pretending that you're somehow typical of the market, you're disillusioned. Sorry.
Re:Sony is already working on it (Score:4, Interesting)
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The problem with a phone/game platform is that people have to pay a contract which takes it away from a key market: kids.
This nails it.
I know at least 5 kids withi DSes for every adult I know with one.
Not to say that mobile phone gaming isn't on the rise; it clearly is -- but there are a couple key markets that, at this point, will not or cannot consider switching.
what kids are using (Score:3)
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Except that the iPod Touch is not a phone, requires no contract, and plays the same games as the iPhone.
Price is what is killing the game consoles. You can by a much cheaper game on iOS or Android than you can on PSP.
More developers for the iOS and Android creates competition that do not exist on either the PSP or DS.
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that's why you keep the phone for yourself and once you buy a new one give the old one to your kids as an iPod touch. did it with my 3 year old. i'm guessing i can get 4-5 years of life out of every iPhone i buy
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It sure would be nice if one of the major smart phone manufacturers introduced a device with basically the same hardware as their phone, without the phone hardware and the need for a contract....
http://www.apple.com/ipodtouch/ [apple.com]
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cause you know they're gonna end up buying them a PSP or whatever and a phone anyway.
Carriers won't sell plans with only voice and text for use with smartphones. They will sell cheap plans for dumbphones, and what Mom saves on service over two years could pay for a PSP, DS, or iPod touch.
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It's amazing how many kids have smartphones these days....really. Heck, parents might see an opportunity to buy one device instead of two....cause you know they're gonna end up buying them a PSP or whatever and a phone anyway.
Yes, but still smartphone plans are expensive, even more so that they dropped the unlimited data on most plans. Plus, it really makes it impossible for kids to work for and pay for their own games/console. I remember that I worked for my parents all summer to save up enough money to buy a SNES when I was younger. Then as I saved up my allowance, I would eventually have enough to buy a game and hand over my money to the cashier to buy the game. Such things were rather rewarding as a kid and taught me a lot
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Re:Sony is already working on it (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, it isn't even close to a replacement for a DS. Sure, the numbers look like phones are replacing traditional hand helds, but the numbers are deceptive. In 1995, the same know of statistics could show that gamers were abandoning traditional gaming in favor of Solitaire. After all, if you polled PC users, you would find that a much larger percentage of users played Solitaire than any other PC game. We can see how, while technically true, it is implying something that isn't true.
Could cell phones replace traditional hand held game systems? Sure they could. Just adding regular buttons would help with that a lot. As they stand now, they don't. I still think that the solution is to make a case that the phone plugs into that has the gaming buttons. This could also be offered with a keyboard instead. This way the phone maker could make one model of phone, and sell it to the "It has to be as thin as physically possible", the "it is useless without a keyboard", and the "gaming" crowds. The key is that the protocol for the devices to talk to the phone must be standardized and open, so that you don't end up with a hundred different implementations.
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Yes, because Apple has reportedly not approved such a wide variety of games....
On top of that Nintendo and Sony have a wide open platform that anyone can developer for without requiring approval....
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the games better not cost $50. i know they are generally better than iOS but most iOS games i buy are $2.99 or less. and iOS games are getting better and better. with a lot of iOS games i can buy it and forget it about. since it's so cheap i don't think about the purchase and read reviews to make sure i get value.
i have an iPhone 3GS and last i read is that the CPU and GPU in there is faster than the PSP. the software has just not caught up yet but John Carmack and the company behind the Unreal engine have
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The most I'd pay for a game for a phone is about $15. Square-Enix has some great RPGs for about $10 that are worth every penny for the iPhone. If people charge $50 for a game, I'm not bothering, as there are plenty of games just as good or better, most being 99 cents.
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i paid $6.99 or so for Chaos Rings and still haven't finished it. bought a bunch of iOS games last year for $.99 each that i haven't played yet. lately i've been reading on my commute and no gaming
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Just look at what consoles have done to the FPS genre. The controls got dumbed down and I don't personally think that there was anything much added by doing it.
Going from a small number of buttons to basically none isn't likely to be good for gameplay on games tha
D-pad (Score:4, Insightful)
This might work for some genres but the staples of gaming, platformers, shooters, etc, require the precise control of a d-pad.
Re:D-pad (Score:4, Interesting)
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No you're wrong. For a primarily mouse and keyboard (primarily) gamer like me, the "precise control of a d-pad" is inadequate. Yet the vast majority of people game with a Dpads and are happy. Games for DPads are designed for auto-aim and loose control. Similar will happen with the move to touch screen games. Sure there will be dpad games for the hard core, but the majority will play touchscreen games on the go.
At the end of the day the cheap and fun aspect of mobile games like Angry Birds and PvZ will wi
Genres (Score:2)
Games for DPads are designed for auto-aim and loose control.
Not all video games are first-person shooters. For example, Tetris DS with a D-pad is much more precise than the control method that Tetris and EA chose for their iPhone product.
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Nonsense. Consider any console shmup for instance. No auto-aim and very tight controls. D-pads are superior for these types of games because they allow you absolute certainty over what the game is doing. Press the button for a certain amount of time, and you will move a known distance. Analog controls like a touchpad or mouse allow you more options for movement, but less precision in making that movement.
Sure there will be dpad games for the hard core, but the majority will play touchscreen games on th
But gamers can change too (Score:2)
If you want to play a game designed for the d-pad, then you should play that game on the proper platform. I don't want to try to fit Starcraft 2 onto a Nintendo DS, any more than I want to fit Zelda onto an iPhone. If you want to play those games, the best way is to get that platform and play them. I downloaded Golden Axe on my iPhone and learned quickly that slapping a virtual d-pad on an old style game designed for a joystick is not going to be a fun experience.
It's about is the game fun or not. Games
Not all video games are major-label (Score:2)
If you want to play a game designed for the d-pad, then you should play that game on the proper platform.
For which platform should an indie game developer make a game designed for a D-pad? Right now, indie game developers have to make phone games with a virtual D-pad because Sony and Nintendo won't give them the time of day [google.com].
Cell phones are all but required these days.
Smartphones, not so much. Let me know when smartphone service approaches the $15 per 3 months that I currently pay Virgin Mobile for service on my Audiovox 8610 flip phone.
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If you want to play a game designed for the d-pad, then you should play that game on the proper platform.
Agreed. For a great many great games that platform is not going to be a phone.
Cell phones are all but required these days. Gaming platforms, not so much.
I've never owned a cell phone, but I have a DS in my pocket right now. It would take some damn good games to get me to buy a cell phone, but because of the controls few great games are possible.
The physical d-pad is slowly becoming the niche rather t
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Yes. The D-pad (along with the digital joystick) are the most precise input mechanisms around. They allow you to go in precisely 8 directions at precisely one speed with no error. And you can change between them instantaneously.
Compare an analog joystick that allows you to move in many directions, but with more error. If you want to move at 45 degrees, you might end up going at 40 degrees and having to correct. It also takes time to sweep the joystick from one direction to another, and all those interme
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What you're describing as downside for the analog joystick is precisely why they're so much better than digital joysticks. While I'm sure that digital joysticks are better than they used to be, there are many times I can remember gaming where those blind spots in movement would be fatal to my character. And I'm willing to bet that for top tier gamers that the little bit of extra time on the dig
No indie games on DS (Score:2)
the lack of a D-pad is why I would never consider "Smart Phones" a true alternative to my DS.
And the lack of indie games on DSiWare is why some other people would never consider a DS an alternative to their smartphone.
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Being an indie game isn't going make up for lack of a physical control system.
Indie games can't emulate a good dpad with a touchscreen, but they can build games that don't need one in the first place. The touchscreen, accelerometer and cameras provide plenty options for game control beside the dpad. An Angry Bird doesn't need a dpad to work, neither does a Doodle Jump. Even mainstream titles such as Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on the NintendoDS don't need the dpad.
Unless somebody comes up with a really elegant way to hide a real dpad in a smart phone, my bet would be that the games that
Playstation Phone (Score:3)
The only thing dead on arrival is this speculative article.
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No the PSP Phone has another name, the PSP2 is a dedicated gaming device.
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The PSP2 and the Playstaion Phone are different products.
Counterpoints (Score:5, Insightful)
Regardless, I own a Motorola DROID and until they release games like "Zelda: Spirit Tracks" for my phone, I'll need my DS.
I would speculate that this is growth of the gaming market and not replacement like the summary seems to imply. I can't argue with the numbers but my gut would say that people who game on their phones do so on both devices. And nobody's going around buying a phone just to play games on so the DS & PSP still fill that market exclusively from cellphones.
a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).
I'm not saying this quote is wrong but I am awfully suspect of that figure. They claim an online sample size of 9,000 [interpretllc.com] but they don't say how many of those actually own both a gaming phone and PSP/DS. I would be interested in the hard numbers.
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Spirit Tracks would suck on your phone compared to the DS - unless they sold it with a stylus that worked with your phone.
And if my DS goes dead and there is no charger around - no big deal. With my phone? Not so much. And not much else kills my phone battery like playing games.
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Let's not forget that the 3DS will come out in March next year, the DS launched in the US just over 6 years ago.
As for the PSP... it never caught on. I have one, but with ~5 years of experience with it, I probably wouldn't have bought it given the choice again.
I have a DS, but it's more involved. It's so easy to pull out my iPhone for a few moments. The iPhone is also far more powerful at this point. The only thing I wish it had was a few physical buttons somewhere. The images of the PSP phone with the sl
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62.5 Million is "never caught on"??? You have some high standards.
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As of earlier this year, the PSP had sold a total of 17 million units in the US. At the same time (March) the DS had sold 46 million. That's nearly 3x as many.
At the same time, I've seen DSes all over the place. My little sister, all her friends, some of their parents, and many other people have DSes. On the other hand, it's relatively rare I see a PSP out in public. It was more common closer to launch.
Let's put it this way. In the last two years, Sony sold 7 million PSPs. Nintendo sold 24 million DSes. M
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It's starting to show it's age though, and hopefully that's something the psp2 can fix for them. Still, to move 62 million units with massive anti-psp fud since day one, against an entrenched giant like the gameboy is one hell of an accomplishment.
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Although SMB in 3D might be kind of interesting, with the various of scenery being on their own layer.
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a full 27.2% of consumers who indicate that they play games on their phones only (and not on the DS/PSP) actually own a DS or PSP, but do not actively use the device(s).
I'm not saying this quote is wrong but I am awfully suspect of that figure. They claim an online sample size of 9,000 [interpretllc.com] but they don't say how many of those actually own both a gaming phone and PSP/DS. I would be interested in the hard numbers.
I'm more suspicious of how they've ran their implications. At first glance it makes you think "So a quarter of people who own both a phone and a DS don't use their DS" - but thats not what its saying at all.
It means of the people who play games on their phones only - which is probably not as big a number as you think it would be - have claimed that they have a DS or PSP but only play games on their phones and not their handheld system, at the current moment. This isn't to say that they don't enjoy DS or PSP
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I'm actually in this group. I own a PSP, and have an old GBA I used to use for long trips. The GBA is still nice for when kids come over and I don't want them to break my PSP, but then again... I hardly play the darned thing these days. Every time I look through the store for new games for the PSP there's just nothing there that's interesting (this includes the PSN).
If I have a need for mobile gaming I just fire up my android phone... lots of games on there which are either free, or really cheap. And I alre
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So would you agree that the problem is that there aren't any titles for the PSP that grab your attention?
If they were to announce a sequel to one of your favourite PSP titles, would you possibly start using it again?
The point we're trying to argue is that its more about games than it is about phones. I haven't played my Xbox in a long time simply because there isn't anything new that I find worth picking up.
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Yes, I probably would. If there were some good games out for the PSP I would fire it up more often. The problem is that right now, in terms of value, I'm much further ahead playing free (or very cheap) games on the phone. The games on the phone are probably much cheaper to make too! An indie developer could crank one out much faster than it would take to get a full fledged game out on to the PSP or the DS.
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Agreed as well. I've been hoping for Liberty City Stories for 5 years now, but I doubt it'll ever be released.
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I've got the iPod Touch (1st gen) a DSi (my daughter has one too) and a PSP. The PSP is hands down the most capable of the three for one single killer app; GT4. The analog stick, the huge number of cars, lots of tracks, great gameplay, great graphics, it kicks Mario Kart so hard in the ass. Next is the DSi, good combo input methods, although no analog input (other then touch screen) and no GT4, nice GTA:Chinatown Wars though, but also available on the PSP, and some good titles here and there. The DS dow
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Given the DS has sold out consistently for years after its relase date in Japan, I would expect that there is maybe 10 per capita or something by now. PSP sales may simply be there after salse of the DS line dropped off since so many have sold that there are probably buildings where the DS is used as bricks.
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I've long thought that an Apple/Nintendo partnership would be... interesting.
They both have great user-centric systems, platform lock in, 'fans', etc, and don't often directly compete.
I think Nintendo using their IP and writing games for iPlatforms could work out well; strict hardware control, family friendly, etc.
However, they are probably both to Not-Invented-Here to work well with -anyone-.
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They are but the PSP has been outselling it consistently for a while now (I'd say since about last year, give or take a few weeks where big Nintendo games like Pokémon or Mario come out).
Phones have a bigger market (Score:2, Informative)
Phones just have a much larger market right out of the door. PSP/DS are toys. They're for gamers, and seen by many as for children. But everyone has a phone, and it's not seen as childish to play games on them if you've got some time to kill. Phone games also have a lot more casual games than PSP/DS.
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Devkit cost; family plan (Score:2)
phones take a lot more work to develop -real- games for
How so? The devkit for an iPod touch costs $1,000: $600 for a Mac mini on which to run Xcode, $300 for an iPod touch, and $100 for your first year of the iPhone developer program. Android is cheaper to buy the PC but more expensive to buy the device because the platform has no direct counterpart to the iPod touch [pineight.com]; the flagship Nexus One developer handset is an unlocked telephone, not a PDA or MP3 player. The devkit for a DS is far more expensive: first you have to have an office, and then you have to have a
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you can share the effort to develop the game rules and then use the model-view-controller paradigm to abstract the UI
Sure, but games
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Cost != work.
Teachers drilled into me that time is money. What do I misunderstand?
B) you have to port it over to several platforms for less marketshare than just porting it to the DS or PSP.
The meager market share from porting a game to Android 2.1+ phones alone is greater than the zero market share (due to rejection) that one would get from trying to target the DS or PSP for a company's first title. Look at Bob's Game for example.
Nor would a button-heavy game translate well to the Wii.
Brawl? Mario Kart?
Yes, you can tell [your 8-year-old on your family plan] not to text that number that gives you """""free""""" ringtones, but they might do it anyways leaving you stuck with a hefty bill.
As I understand it, such family plans come with parental controls against premium-rate numbers.
Correction (Score:5, Insightful)
Correction: Some regular people (not gamers) are turning to their smartphones for gaming. Gamers are people that have a discerning taste for games. Smartphone game quality is lacking (as are controls) when compared to a dedicated mobile gaming device. I've tried several smartphone games, and they are little more than time wasters. You play them a few times, and probably forget about them in a week. There are several titles for PSP that I actually make time to play. There are NO mobile phone/smartphone games I will MAKE time to play.
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Correction: Some regular people (not gamers) are turning to their smartphones for gaming. Gamers are people that have a discerning taste for games.
Self-justifying definition of "gamers" that excludes "regular people" because it doesn't suit your pseudo-elitist (*) view, a la
the No True Scotsman fallacy [wikipedia.org].
(*) Pseudo-elitist because "elitist" itself would still imply acceptance of your self-defined, self-justifying hierarchy that implies those who share your style of gaming are somehow more serious and real gamers.
Tactile feedback (Score:2)
There's a world of difference between a dedicated gaming device and a touch-screen phone in terms of controls. Using a touchscreen for all input or shoehorning in the phone's buttons for gaming controls can't provide the level of control of a d-pad and ABXY buttons positioned exactly where they need to be. Of course the games market is apparently going more 'casual' so perhaps touchscreens are the way to go. Not that I even have a portable games console or a smart phone for that matter so it's all academ
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Dedicated systems are usually significantly less complex, but even my xBox 360 controller has 10 buttons 2 mini sticks and 1 D-pad. Which is a significant leap over what a touchscreen only phone has available.
Smartphones, Entertainment, and Battery Life (Score:2)
I'm wondering if my concerns are valid, and if so, when news reports start headlining car crash victims unable to dial for help due to o
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I play quite a lot of Pinball Dreams on a n900. With its keyboard, it's actually a better device for that game than a big computer. Sure, being an emulated DOS game it will drain the whole battery in less than three hours, but how often are you that far from home that you can't afford half of the battery's charge? (I never play that much in one go, too). You'll still have a day at standby left.
Makes sense (Score:2)
For non hardcore gamers who have phones this makes more and more sense. One device less, always with you.
Win.
Sure, dedicated is always dedicated, but good enough is good enough for most people. Most phones sold in Finland are smartphones by now. Most kids get a phone at 7 when starting school. (Too soon IMHO.)
The supply will go where there is a market to fill the demand.
Low battery! (Score:2)
One device less, always with you.
And only one device's worth of battery time.
Kids (Score:2)
Ah, statistics (Score:5, Insightful)
So the percentage of handheld gaming conducted on solely gaming device fell.
What this doesn't prove is that gamers are "abandoning" the DS and PSP.
It could just as likely mean that the pool of handheld devices that are game capable has exploded.
If you had 150M handheld gaming devices back when phones sucked for gaming, and now there's a billion total - with 200M being dedicated devices and 800M being smartphones that can game effectively, then yes - the percentage that's DS/PSP plummets, while the total number still climbs.
Without some actual numbers, I'm skeptical that it's wholesale abandonment. The growth of the pool is far more likely to me.
There is only one solution (Score:2)
The Nintendo DSphone.
You know you want one. You crave it. You'd sell out your own family for one.
Oops, that last bit was supposed to be [subliminal].
Not gamers... casual people... (Score:2)
Sorry but the PSP kicks the ass out of any cellphone for control. The DS as well.
That became clear to me (Score:3)
a few months ago when I was visiting an electronics store, and I saw a load of kiddies around the ipad displayed playing games, while the ordinary nintendo ds section and also the PSP sections were abandoned mostly. Ok it also has something to do with the device actually been usable while the others merely had the usual console displayed but it was blatantly clear where the train is heading.
Add to that that the average handheld game on the ds and psp is around 45-50 euros here while the handheld games are dirt cheap and a no brainer to buy. In the end you spend
more on smartphone games than you would on the average console.
Classical example of low prices sellls more cashwise than the average console game.
What I would say is this is a real thread for Nintendo which always had its stronghold in the handheld gaming sektor from where it could start its console experiments. That stronghold is seriously under attack. And in the usual Nintendo manner they probably will realise it two years after they are stone dead in the market.
Re:That became clear to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Both myself and my son are gamers, so yes i'm biased. However, saying that the kids are all crowded around a demo ipad playing games means nothing. Its new, they most likely don't have one at home and excited because its the latest and greatest toy. When my son goes to the games store he stuck on whatever Wii title they are demo'ing... Half the time we have the damn thing at home and he doesn't touch it.
I brought an ipad home from work for 2 weeks. Both my kids (gamer son, daughter) constantly used it the first few days. 2 weeks later I was the only one using it regularly and not for games. My son quickly reverted back to the DS, PSP, XBOX or PS3 to play games. Up until I brought an ipad home my daughter had a fund saving up for one. I think she spent it on clothes since then.. I haven't heard a peep.
There are a few games that perfectly suit an ipad. I have a few puzzle games, line tracing games, etc. but other than that, any serious gamer is going to have a portable gaming device or a console. Can't wait to play me some Black Ops on an iPad, not....
I have an iPhone and yes I play games on it but they are timewasters. I've tried the ones with the virtual keyboard/buttons and quite honestly it sucks. You end up missing because there is no tactile feed back, your finger blocks the screen because you pulled the joystick to far, end up dying, etc.
These people playing games on their smartphone probably would probably never buy a portable gaming device.
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The plural (singular?) of anecdote is not data. Luckily, we have data showing iPad use increases over time
I abandoned my PSP and DS (Score:2)
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DS:
Sonic Rush / Adventure / Colors
Zelda Phantom Hourglass / Spirit Tracks
Professor Layton [insert subtitle here]
Phoenix Wright / Apollo Justice / Miles Edgeworth - Ace Attorney [Investigations]
Picross and Picross 3D
Mega Man ZX / ZX Advent / Zero Collection
All of those are high-scoring (in terms of popular review sites) games that deserve to be played at least once, Picross/3D in particular; both of those games have so many challenging puzzles that I still haven't beaten both of them since I got them! If you
Android (Score:2)
Nintendo should have made a phone (Score:2)
The writing has been on the wall for the DS for quite a while. I'm amazed it lasted this long. Back when I modded my Nintendo DS and started writing apps for it, I had friends writing apps for their iPhones. The main difference: the iPhone was 10 times as expensive as a Nintendo DS. That made the DS a better machine for school kids who could not afford a smartphone and a contract. But only a few years later, a cell phone is just part of the cost of middle-class living along with cable TV and internet.
D'uh! (Score:2)
DS/PSP is expensive and the games are expensive. Phones are as powerful or more powerful than DS/PSP, can be used for "other things" and the games are cheaper! What's the downside?
Eventually, we will see more and more new premium titles on phones... especially android phones. Soon we will see more of those bluetooth gamepad cradles for phones and viola!
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It's only a matter of time before the games appear on phones. They were able to make Tombraider run on Symbian devices almost 10 years ago. They can certainly do as much on today's hardware and systems. You are seeing things as they are, not where they are capable of going.
Besides, handheld games can never be as engaging as a console or PC game. These games are most often played while travelling or commuting. That's not to say they can't have more advanced titles and certainly that they won't because t
It's their loss (Score:2)
Not really abandoning, the market is growing (Score:2)
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Actually, phone games are getting pretty good nowadays, and some of them are pretty darn innovative when it comes to gameplay. Sure, they tend to be a lot more casual than the dedicated handheld consoles, but I think that's a bit of the appeal - to be able to pick up a game on a lunchbreak, play for 20 minutes and then text or browse the web or whatever.
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I'm saying yes, and no. :) Just because I'm a prick! Seriously, many cool innovations are made possible by the new multi-touch input devices and gyros/accelerometers. HOWEVER (a big however), some game genres suffer greatly at the expense of said new input methods and devices. I can name one; driving games suck balls on the iPhone. The touch screen can't make a decent "virtual steering wheel" (slow and blocks the already tiny view) and the accelerometer-based input makes the screen tilt so much it ruins
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See, that's exactly what I mean. The smartphone games and the dedicated console games serve different markets. Smartphone games are much more casual than MGS, Or Little Big Planet, or Gran Turismo. Since I only have the iPhone, I'll just mention a few games that I know:
1) Angry Birds - a really addictive little physics game where you launch birds out of a slingshot at structures to destroy green pigs. I've sank quite a few hours into this game.
2) Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor - a really interesting game
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3) Labyrinth - a game that lets you control a ball through mazes with the accelerometer - can't do that on a PSP.
But we have been doing it on the Wii for a couple years now. Although obviously not on our lunchbreaks at work.
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I thought we're talking about portable handheld consoles, unless that's a Wii in your pocket...
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I thought we're talking about portable handheld consoles
Super Monkey Ball has been out for a long time on DS, though it is based on rubbing rather than tilting the system.
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Add to that NOVA, Dungeon Master, the load of 3d racing games all of them gyroscope controlled, Hero of Sparta etc...
There is enough hardcore stuff available. Heck also a load of point and click adventure games (the genre shines on the iPad)
While the number of hardcore games especially in iOS is not that high yet you can find them, and the publishers have smelled the blood they are coming over, even Capcom and Sega already have ported some of their stuff.
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I'm actually liking the multiplayer smartphone games...
Sketch Online : pictionary (though occasionally marred by penis)
Zombie, Run! : take your GPS and run away from the random hordes of advancing zombie icons on your map. It will be really neat once someone does a Layar augmented reality version of this... maybe with weapon drops so you can actually shoot back once in a while.
{chess checkers othello etc.} online
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I'm actually looking forward to the Android port of X-Plane coming out:
http://x-plane.com/index_mobile.html [x-plane.com]
But yeah, that's more of a sim than a game, but that's the kind of game I tend to like ;-)
I wasn't that impressed by the DS... my son has one, but is always begging to play Angry Birds or something on my HTC Slide instead.
Never touched a PSP tho, and not many recent consoles for that matter. I tend to prefer doing the "serious" games on my PC.
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No sh1t a smartphone is limited! But no one wants to lug around a phone, a PC, a camera, mp3 player, a pager, kindle and a PS3!! Hello! Thats why its practical to buy a $300 phone in lieu of a nice phone/camera/etc. Im honestly bewildered that this concept is such a surprise or if all the dissenters have Sony stock.
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But no one wants to lug around a phone, a PC, a camera, mp3 player, a pager, kindle and a PS3!!
No one would lug around all those devices at once, of course, but I could see someone bringing along at least two of those devices at any one time, depending on their interests. The issue at hand is mostly one of the tradeoffs in both functionality and form-factor when creating an all-in-one devices. For instance, fewer people want clunky game-type pushbuttons and a dpad on their phone, and many games absolutely require these for any sort of serious gameplay.
It's the same reason why I still prefer my Kindl
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I think you need a "mental health" day away from slashdot. Just saying...
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It exists, and companies that offer it call it "Earned Time Off".
BTW, what is the deal with both Safari and Chrome not performing cut-n-paste in slashdot?