Comment Re:Why the DS has already won... (Score 0) 520
Actually, for all practical purposes, the PSP has already won.
Media create weekly sales in Japan for Jan. 24-30 show PSP at 71k, DS at 42k.
This makes the 3rd straight week PSP has outsold the DS in Japan, and the margin keeps growing. People in Japan say it's still very difficult to find a PSP, so if the supply was there, who knows how bad they would be outselling DS. More or less, it's fairly unlikely the DS will ever outsell the PSP in Japan, or any competitive market, ever again. March 24 will be the last week the DS is the top selling handheld in the USA.
The fact DS is being outsold in Japan within 4 weeks of PSP's release is pretty stunning. Most people knew the PSP would crush the DS, but I dont think anybody expected it to be this fast.
Nintendo is already back to the drawing board, with rumours of a portable gamecube swirling. The DS should be discontinued for all practical purposes within a year. However, personally I feel this will be too little, and far too late. The essential problem is Nintendo is not willing to lose money on hardware, and therefore simply cannot compete. Lets say they do make a portable Gamecube, well, it may be a little more powerful than PSP, since one would assume the Gamecube is, but can they put a high qaulity screen on it like PSP? What about Cube disc streaming, which will kill battery life? By that time, PSP will really be hitting stride, and if they wanted, with a year of mass production done, Sony could drop the PSP to $99 probably. At that point the thing would be so mainstream Nintendo would have little chance.
Media create weekly sales in Japan for Jan. 24-30 show PSP at 71k, DS at 42k.
This makes the 3rd straight week PSP has outsold the DS in Japan, and the margin keeps growing. People in Japan say it's still very difficult to find a PSP, so if the supply was there, who knows how bad they would be outselling DS. More or less, it's fairly unlikely the DS will ever outsell the PSP in Japan, or any competitive market, ever again. March 24 will be the last week the DS is the top selling handheld in the USA.
The fact DS is being outsold in Japan within 4 weeks of PSP's release is pretty stunning. Most people knew the PSP would crush the DS, but I dont think anybody expected it to be this fast.
Nintendo is already back to the drawing board, with rumours of a portable gamecube swirling. The DS should be discontinued for all practical purposes within a year. However, personally I feel this will be too little, and far too late. The essential problem is Nintendo is not willing to lose money on hardware, and therefore simply cannot compete. Lets say they do make a portable Gamecube, well, it may be a little more powerful than PSP, since one would assume the Gamecube is, but can they put a high qaulity screen on it like PSP? What about Cube disc streaming, which will kill battery life? By that time, PSP will really be hitting stride, and if they wanted, with a year of mass production done, Sony could drop the PSP to $99 probably. At that point the thing would be so mainstream Nintendo would have little chance.
