PSP Vs. DS One Year Later

1up has a feature revisiting the ongoing struggle for supremacy in the handheld market. The PSP and the DS have had many ups and downs in the past year, and the column lays out the successes and failures for both systems. From the article: "And then there were two. The DS is cleaning up in Japan -- the sheer demand for the console there has siphoned every single unit from the marketplace, while PSPs sit unloved on store shelves. But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race. And, since the PSP launched one year ago on March 24th, 2005, we thought it'd be an excellent time to revisit the past year and gauge the situation as it stands today."

The DS, of course

[AKAImBatman]

But here in the U.S., it's a neck-and-neck race.

A lot of people purchased the PSP because it was new and cool, and for its multimedia features. Now that the PSP isn't so new anymore and the UMD format is falling out of favor, I fully expect that the DS will begin to pull ahead of the PSP in sales. The reason is that DS sales are driven by the titles themselves (e.g. Nintendogs, Metroid Prime, Mario Kart DS, Tetris DS, etc.) rather than the hype of the hardware. As a result, the Nintendo DS is likely to gain momentum as long as Nintendo keeps producing blockbuster titles for it.

In addition, the Nintendo DS targets a far larger market (adult men, teenage men, children, and women) than the PSP (young adult men with disposable cash) and competes heavily at a lower price point. Customizations like "pink" hardware help push it with the alternative markets.

Basically, Nintendo has a winner on their hands, and will do well as long as they don't screw it up. Sony has a first attempt on their hands that did exceptionally well. We'll see if they follow it up with a more focused device.

DS VS PSP

[Turn-X Alphonse]

I haven't read the article, I try to avoid things like this because of the insane fanboyism but..

In the community it seems the PSP is mostly being used for emulation and the DS is being bought for DS games. The PSP might be a good jack of all trades machine, but the DS is for games and in the gaming community it's wiping the floor with the PSP.

To quote a message I saw once "I love my PSP, but it's collecting dust while I play my DS". This seems to be the general feeling around the two handhelds. One is worth playing and the others great, but it's not being used as a handheld, more as a portable PS2. Which is not what people want.

"Mature Games" And Other Oxymorons

[American AC in Paris]

From TFA:

It's difficult to ignore, though, that the PSP seems like the most attractive prospect right now for Western developers making "mature" games.

[...]

But in the U.S., the DS is seen as more like the successor to the Game Boy. Far from the brief flirtation with adult games like Sprung, Western devs are looking at the DS and thinking, "kids."

I still don't buy the "maturity myth"--or rather, I'm increasingly convinced that the "mature game" demographic is rapidly shrinking as a percentage of the overall gaming population. I genuinely don't think that either system's success or failure hinges primarily on the availability of "mature" games.

I wish the author had provided some support for his assertions--for example, which Western developers are shunning the DS because they think it is for kids? What makes the PSP inherently more attractive to the makers of "mature" games?

I think that Sony not releasing US sales figures is telling--if they were outselling the DS, don't you think they'd be shouting that fact from the rooftops? Of interest, too, is the slow-death of UMD movies. The DS is flying off the shelves--is the same true for the PSP?

Doesn't Hold Muster

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? I know plenty of people who have a DS but no PSP, but everyone I know with a PSP has a DS. Something to do with the utter lack of quality games for the PSP.

I would say that in the US,

[Clockwurk]

The PSP has done well because of its overwhelming advantage in the war of shelf-space. At the local Circuit City, the DS shares a shelf with the GBA, while the PSP has its own special stand devoted to it and accessories. The demo DSs always are heavily scratched and look like shit, next to the PSPs superior (and unscratched) screen. Adding insult to injury is the terrible selection of DS games that most retailers (wal-mart, target, etc.) stock. The games that really utilize the system and show off what it can do aren't even on the shelf, instead you get the EA shit, Disney shit, and crappy ports from other consoles (King Kong). If Nintendo America was really aggressive in marketing the DS over here, I think they'd have a lot more success. DS has been out a year or so and the only ad I've ever seen on TV is the new one for Tetris; the PSP ads (its portable cheese? a nut you can play with outside? wtf?) are on all the time.

Re:The DS, of course

[toleraen]

I guess I don't really see how the UMD format falling out will affect PSP sales at all. People obviously weren't buying them in the first place, which shows that they weren't really part of the selling point. I didn't buy my PSP for UMD movies...I never would even think about paying 125% for a UMD movie over a DVD. The few people I know that own one got it for the games, homebrew applications, as well as a portable media player. It's web-browser feature is also extremely handy in a pinch.

Then there were "two?"

[terrisus]

So, what, does the GBA not count anymore?
Last I checked, that was beating both of them by a fairly sizable amount.

As a DS owner...

[Hamster Lover]

The article, scant as it was, is remarkably balanced.

I have a DS, but through a friend I had a chance to test the PSP over the weekend. It's hard not to love the PSP -- the screen is amazing, the graphics are superb and the ability to play MP3s and custom video on a memory card is a huge bonus. That said, the PSP has three weaknesses that the DS does not have namely, in-game battery life is a short four hours (which drops like a rock to two hours if playing a WIFI game. Straight MP3 play time is a respectable ten hours, though), the screen is extremely easy to scratch or mar with fingerprints and game load time is excessively long on occasion.

The DS doesn't really have these drawbacks as the battery life is a phenomenal nine hours (in fact, I haven't charged mine in over a month of on and off use. The DS Lite is expected to have a theoretical battery life of 15 hours), the screens seem impervious to scratches and smudges to a large degree and game load time is negligible. That's not to say the DS doesn't have its flaws as I feel the design is clunkly, the built in speakers offer tinny sound and the 3D graphics capabilities are underwhelming.

On the whole, I'd have to say the PSP is ideal for the type of 3D single player game you're used to on a PS3, but the DS is perfectly suited for multiplayer WIFI games like Metroid Prime and Advance Wars DS (duh, considering there doesn't seem to be a PSP analog to either game).

Developers! Developers Developers!

[displaced80]

I bought myself a PSP a few weeks ago. I was attracted by the homebrew scene, and thought it just looked like an interesting piece of kit.

Then, I noticed the problems in the PSP gaming community, and felt a little buyer's remorse. But I think things are looking up.

The PSP was done no favours by the Playstation development community. Games seemed to be ports of PS(not P) games. Porting an existing franchise is a safe bet when a new platform's released. The Nintendo world did better out of this: Nintendo have a legacy of great games targeted at portable play. Developers saw the PSP's pretty damn awesome abilities and gave in to the porting temptation. But not straight ports from regular console games rarely survive 100% intact after the move to a portable. Even if the portable's got all the tech to make it an almost seamless port, many games just don't feel right on a portable. The controls are odd. The 'style' of play feels wrong. _Splinter Cell_ is a great example of this: the original was great, the PSP version's technically gorgeous.... but it's a bastard to play.

I think Playstation development world needed a taste of failure to make them take a step back and actually develop _for_ the PSP. Continuing along the 'Splinter Cell' vein, Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror is what SC on the PSP should've been. The 'stealth-combat' genre reworked for the portable format... and it's fantastic. Nintendo already knew how to make great portable games, and the DS has some brilliant titles. Looking at some upcoming PSP games, I'm a bit more happy with my purchase. It's taken a while, but I think the PSP's on its way towards getting out of the shadow of the PS. I hope we'll see some games that are both great to play on a portable, and make full use of the PSP's abilities.

Mature games..

[JMZero]

That's an excellent comment.

When I think of truly mature games, I think of the games that adult visitors would be willing to play in a group setting (hint, not DOA volleyball). My games that currently fall into this "mature" category are:

1. Mario Kart DD
2. Donkey Konga
3. Super Monkey Ball

I own other good games like Resident Evil 4 (or now Oblivion on the PC) that feature more non-child-appropriate content that's appropriate for the type of game. I suppose there's a teen demographic that specifically looks for violent or sexual content - but that content is hardly "adult" or "mature", it's adolescent and often detrimental to a game. It certainly dissuades me from buying it, as it makes it much less likely to ever be played multiplayer. It's not that my friends are prudes, it's just that very few females I know are interested in playing a zombie game. They find it distasteful - and when the content is not attractive they assume the gameplay will not be as well (although they'll overcome their distaste if they do like the gameplay - Typing of the Dead is a favorite with many visitors who don't like other games).

I don't hunger for more "adult" content on my Gamecube or DS - in fact I wish more games were cast in less threatening settings, as it increases the number of people who can enjoy playing.

PSP Is a GREAT development platform

[TouchOfRed]

I will acknowledge that the general public are not developers or hobbiest's before my post. That being said, I take the PSP hands down any day over the DS due to how easy of a device it is to code for. Once you get the psp-sdk(modified gcc for embedded hardware) from www.pspdev.org compiled and running, you can easily start developing games and applications for the psp, without any expensive hardware mods.

With the sdk, comes tonnes of samples which outline how to use the features inside the psp, such as audio,gu,wifi,umd, controller, usb etc.
The PSP development communities also have some amazing tools out, such as PSP-LINK which lets you control your psp via a shell over a wifi connection, and lets you attach gdb debuggers to debug your games. Homebrew is possible on the DS, just not feasible. The PSP on the other hand has got to be my favorite handheld system EVER, mainly for the fact that i have an nes/snes/genesis as well as upcoming n64 and psx emulators, movies, tv episodes etc... right in my hand at 480x272 resolution on a sweet screen. The main driving force in my purchase though was definatly the development options.