RE: Could the PSP ever beat DS??
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Jul 13, 2005 10:32
The DS is just better. Any way you see it.
The DS is just easier to manufacture than the PSP. Which to many of you doesn' t really make a difference. But if you look at the facts: Nintendo spends about 100 dollars on every DS made, and Sony spends about 300 dollars on every PSP made, you see how Nintendo will have a quantity advantage. And not only is Nintendo making a basic profit on hardware without depending on games, the DS is better built. Sony spends so much money on each PSP, and it' s even shoddy hardware. And since Sony isn' t making a profit off the hardware (spending 300, selling for 250 and 190 dollars), you know they are in trouble. Is PSP a better product than DS? I don' t think so.
Also, I look at announcements lately, and it seems it is unanimous that developers love DS. It' s developer friendly, basically cheap to develop for, and innovative. Making a game for the PSP costs about six times as much as a GBA game, and about three times as much as a DS game. Is PSP a better product than DS? Doesn' t seem so.
The DS will expand the handheld audience. It will attract anybody. My grandmother loves my DS, and plays it all the time. Anybody with a soul would check out Nintendogs. It' s pure genius. It' s one of those winning formulas only compatible with DS. Also, there are plenty of games for DS that are, dare I say it, educational. In Japan, there are DS Training for Adults, and Gentle Brain Excersises. Coming out soon are Advance Wars, which believe it or not, parents think it helps their kids strategize. Pheonix Wright Ace Attorney and Trauma Center and honorable mentions. I can' t wait for Trauma Center, because it is just so realistic and is, again, one of those games that would only work, or work best, on DS. Is PSP a better product than DS? Methinks not.
Now, enough of games and finance. Now, it is about the system itself. The DS is easy to pick up and play, because all you do is press the power button, and touch the screen, and you get the easy to use main menu, instead of holding a PSP power button, wait forty seconds, and pick through a jungle maze of menu choices. The DS has little to no load times, while many PSP owners, myself being one of them, admit it takes a while for a Ridge Racers track to load. Another complaint with PSP is that the thing gets immensely hot after hours of play, and the disc drive is very noisy. Plus, memory cards for the PSP are costly, especially when you need to store MP3 files and such. Other complaints are as follows. First, the PSP is a thumbprint magnet. The Screen, though huge, gets easily scratched. And overall, the lack of cover for the screen is disappointing. Is PSP a better product than DS? Doesn' t look it.
Nintendo seems to be putting more of an effort in their handheld than Sony. Nintendo is shipping twenty million DS this fiscal year, while Sony is only shipping twelve mil, which can be blamed on the cost effectiveness. Nintendo is marketing in Japan and the States more than Sony, and is making alot more promotions. Also, in the last couple of months in the U.S, and overall in Japan really, there have been more Nintendo DS releases than PSP, and at a small timeframe than PSP. Is the PSP a better product than DS? Nope.
Sony is trying to set an image for PSP, which is that it is supposed to be a multimedia device. Yet the multimedia, sadly, is manure. Why would someone pay twenty dollars for the movie Hellboy that has no bonus material and special features, when you can get a version that is rich with bonus material for five dollars less? Why? Is it because they want to see their movie on a four inch screen instead of a fifty-two inch one? And the MP3 feature isn' t a charm either. It is nightmarishly hard, I know, to download one song on your Memory Card. Eventually, you need more memory cards, which sell for about twenty buckaroos each, and, well, you know where I' m going. Is PSP a better product than DS? Hell no.
The PSP has too many problems, and abandons the Playstation philosophy
(Cheap, easy to develop games for), which is unforgiveable, especially when Sony is trying to compete with the King of the Hill, Nintendo, the company offering innovation, originality, fun-factor, and affordability instead of just a brand-name that' s expected to sell. Is DS a better product than PSP? Hell Yes!
" Nintendo' s an innovator,
Sony' s an imitator."
Yet, for some reason, it' s Sony that gets all the credit.