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Real Talk By: J. Valdez
So a while ago, I think a week before E3, or maybe even during E3, Nintendo announced that it won the war against Sony in the handheld department. That from then on, it would focus on a new competitor, the iOS devices. Let me go back in time a bit and go through some history, it may be a little hazy, so forgive me if I’m not 100% accurate.
Sony and Nintendo have had a long war against each other in the handheld gaming department, with Nintendo clearly taking the lead. I don’t want to anger any Sony fan boys, but the numbers speak for themselves. I remember when both the PSP and the Nintendo DS were announced. At first I was 100% sure that Nintendo’s hold on the handheld game market was coming to an end. The PSP looked amazing, it did, as the ads say now, everything. From music to movies, gaming to web browsing etc…The DS did not look appealing at all, it could only play games and offered wireless trading, it was a shame I had stopped playing Pokemon by then. (This next part is my opinion, Sony fanboys read with caution)
The PSP for me turned out to be overhyped and overpriced. The original DS was also a disappointment for me as it was very bulky, not something I wanted to carry around while…anywhere really. The original PSP was also bulky, but it was a little easier to store in my pocket, I mostly ended up using it for music more than anything else, turned out that I’m not really into many of Sony’s games, at least the ones that were available on the PSP. I ended up selling my PSP right after I graduated from high school, and pretty much dropped the whole handheld gaming.
After a while though Nintendo redesigned the DS and Sony had done the same with its PSP. I ended up buying a black DS Lite and special edition silver PSP slim (the Jak and Daxter one). The PSP had more games that I was willing to play, like burnout and ratchet and clank, I also played Final Fantasy Crisis Core for a really long time, but surprisingly I found myself playing the DS more. Little by little the PSP started losing its appeal and was demoted to music player once again.
That’s around the time when the iPhone 3G came into play; I bought my 3G in January ’09 and really didn’t use it for gaming as much. Still played a lot on the DS, and since the iPhone was also an iPod, the PSP was left on a corner of my desk and started collecting dust. For a while it was DS gaming, iPhone music/internet/movies/texting my grandma. I had downloaded a few games from the app store, but nothing to entertaining to switch it to my game device of choice, but that started changing after a while. Not only were more and more apps being submitted all the time, but a lot of the causal games I enjoyed were becoming available on the app store. I had always wanted to buy bookworm and bejeweled, but the $20 price tag kept me away from them because it didn’t seem worth it. Both games were $2.99 in the app store. Soon after that I found myself buying even more games, Gameloft had the racing game Asphalt 4, which I had played on my previous phone (Samsung Blackjack II), aside from that there were other great games being added all the time.
How much did you say this game was again?
In the ad that Sony released, they boasted the “great games” showed were only $9.99. I didn’t really see anything appealing in those games, I don’t play golf, and I’m definitely not paying $9.99 for a golf game on a PSP when the iPhone has one by Gameloft for $4.99. Out of the 3 games showed in that commercial, maybe the first one looked interesting to me, maybe. Now does that mean I’m not the hardcore gamer I once was? No, in fact I see golf, and the second game they had (sorry don’t know the name) as casual games, not the hardcore Sony is always aiming to be. At $9.99 they seemed overpriced to me, especially since I can find cheaper versions in the app store.
Now I don’t want to say that I can find a clone or something better of every PSP game in the app store, because I would be lying to myself and to you. I’m obviously not going to find a Final Fantasy Crisis Core, or a little big planet like game, but, Square Enix does have a few games in the app store, one of them being Chaos Rings which I downloaded the other day, and so far it’s very promising. The app store caters to a mostly casual crowd, but if you look hard enough you can find something for the hardcore gamer. I’m not talking about the very popular Angry birds or Plants Vs. Zombies games. For RPG gamers Square Enix has a lot of games available to download. Including Final Fantasy 1&2 (both for $6.99 right now on sale) which go for $17.99 used at gamestop. That’s just a couple of the many RPG games available, Zenonia would be another game, at $2.99 it’s a steal. If you like FPS games, N.O.V.A. and Archetype are two great FPS games that allow you to play online for free over 3G. If you like street fighter, the iPhone has street fighter for $9.99. I could keep going with all the games available but I think I got the primary games that would appeal to the hardcore base.
Now you can get your ass whooped anywhere
With more developers like EA, Ubisoft, Capcom, and Sega (to name a few) porting the games they have onto the iPhone, it seems to me that Sony’s big boy campaign is more of a cover up for its worries that it will lose its small hold on the handheld gaming market. I’m not going to say that the iPhone or iDevices will completely take over mobile gaming, but it is stepping up, even if it wasn’t intentionally, they are getting into that market (especially with the explosion of the causal demographic in the past few years). Nintendo has already noticed, and Sony is starting to realize it. Nintendo in my opinion has nothing to worry about, but Sony hasn’t been that strong in sales for its mobile department, and for a company that boasts “it simply does everything”, the iPhone does movies, music, internet, gaming, social and business…there’s an app for everything…
(On another note, isn’t Sony making a gaming phone with Android?)
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The PSP/DS are game systems. Phones SUCK as dedicated gaming devices but they’re always in your pocket if you’re an adult. So, most people will pick up some for their phone even if they are not a gamer.
So, with these modern super phones you have to be either a very dedicated adult gamer or a KID without a phone to carry a dedicated gaming platform in your pocket.
This explains the entire situation completely, there’s no mystery here… The DS owns the kids and is on solid ground, it may suffer a little bit but really does not have much competition in the kiddie space… the PSP is definitely getting squeezed by the phones because it is a higher end adult/hardcore/multimedia device which phones are starting to encroach on. So,Sony should consider merging phone/3G/4G/LTE functionality into its next iteration to keep it compelling. The DS should stay cheap and gimmicky (3D) for the young’uns.
And seriously, if you, as an adult gamer, let your PSP collect dust in favor of the DS you’re a moron or were not plugged in to what was available on the system.
I can’t imagine how many IQ points someone would have to drop to be more interested in the DS shovelware library than the quality titles that have been consistently pumped out for the PSP over its lifespan.
You are right about a couple of things, but your blatant fanboyism really takes down the validity of your argument.
The PSP and DS are dedicated game consoles, but just because phones aren’t specifically built for gaming, does not mean they suck at it. The fact that people always have their phones on them is what makes it an easier mobile system to have for games, especially when one device starts doing what multiple devices can, even if I was still a dedicated PSP player, I wouldn’t carry it around everywhere when I have a smaller device that does games and more.
Now, this may be here in the states, but the DS is not bought by, or for, kids only. In Japan, it’s just as many, if not more, adults that play with the DS because of the amount of RPG’s the system has. Over there RPG’s are like rice or noodles to them.
You are also right that the PSP is a higher end gaming system than the DS. That really doesn’t mean shit though. Theres no value in higher end if you can’t really make the higher end games that the system is capable of. That is the reason that the PSP has always been having trouble, before smartphones (not super phones), not because the DS turned out to be an unexpected big hit, but because people weren’t really ready for the technology, and its price. It is only now, with GoW Chains of Olympus, that people were able to see the potential. Just like the PS3 with Uncharted 2. Sadly, even though I greatly enjoyed GoW 3 on the PS3, I don’t care enough for the series to buy a PSP and play that game.
As for cheap and gimmicky. Nintendo has always wanted to make 3D games, it started badly with the virtual boy, and they’ve been working on it for a long time. Coincidentally a movie came out last year that threw everyone a pair of glasses and said, hey look at this. That sparked a frenzy across the nation where every movie now had to be 3D. Not only that, but one of the biggest companies in the world started to back this gimmick. They sell TV’s, Blu Ray Players, and even a popular gaming system, in fact, along with the version 2 of the wiimote, this company also started making cheap 3D gimmicky games for its system, except that they still used an old technology that requires glasses. So tell me now, who is the one really pushing gimmicks right now?
Now, the PSP has had its great moments with many very good games available. I did play many great games before it started collecting dust. I played FF:CC, Rachet and Clank: Size Matters, Burnout Dominator and Legends, along with a couple of other games for a really long time. Mostly though, I’m an RPG fan, and the DS has more RPG’s than the PSP. I’m also a big mario fan, it was the first game I every played, and the series has stuck with me. To this day, I can turn on my SNES and play Super Mario World endlessly. It’s a bit of nostalgia mixed with everything I loved about my childhood. I’m a Hardcore gamer, and having a high end system is not what makes me a Hardcore gamer. It’s the love I have for games that makes me one.
Choosing the DS and my iPhone over the PSP does not make me a moron, and it doesn’t mean I’ve dropped IQ points. I was plugged into everything that was available, not just blinded to one system, I follow EVERYTHING. Ever since I could buy my own subscriptions to magazines, I would follow GameInformer. I also get the Official Playstation and Offcial Xbox magazines, I even read Famitsu (a gaming magazine from Japan). When I got cable I found G4, when I got on the internet, I found IGN, Gamespot, Kotaku, Etc…
For me, being an RPG fan, I am more inclined to play on the DS than the PSP because theres more of what I want to play. Does that mean I didn’t enjoy games on the PSP? No, like I said, I played many of the quality games, but in the end, it didn’t cater to me. That doesn’t make me stupid in any way. I have the brains for RPG’s and puzzle games with the trigger fingers for shooters.
Talk about not being plugged in, Sony is in the works of making a gaming “modern super phone” with android.