Shinigami357 said:
people know what they want, let them be. if it's sony, microsoft, nintendo, or (gasp!) apple, so be it.
Lots of people also don't know what they want; lots want 'safe' purchases that don't turn to junk quickly or become unsupported, though.
If a unit can do more than just games, then there's a chance it can be used for other entertainment even if games don't work out for it, so that's a safety net for 'multimedia devices'. Of course the hardware must be reliable. Lots of people buying these things are average people who have no clue what they want except to shut up the kids or 'have some fun' for themselves and that's it. That's the majority of the market, in fact. If there is some hype about brain training or touch or iPod Touch or iPhone or 3D or something else, all the better; those types of things are a great sales tool for the companies involved and help do huge numbers.
My point here is
most of the market don't know what they want; they have to be offered it first or get the hype. I consider myself the same in most discretionary purchases.
To me it's also not about one company being better than another, rather one company offering unique products over another. Both Nintendo and Sony and whoever else offer unique things to the market and I like both their portables and hopefully some of my wordage below will tell you why I think the Sony is a bit under-appreciated here (while still loving Nintendo).
meh. this is getting stupid. if they had the internet back then, people would prob be arguing whether the gameboy can kill off the gamegear or lynx or some other handheld.
School kids talked. No different. Nothing killed the original game boy despite our amazement at some of the technical wizardry (colour!!) of the competition.
so, anyway, they decide, like with their home consoles, they'd try the handheld market as well. wrong move.
I don't see it that way at all. We got a great unit that is totally under-appreciated by nearly everyone here,
all because it came second.
It still offers many unique things the Nintendo unit(s) do not, namely:
1) excellent sound in games (anyone play with headphones here?)
2) better visuals
3) great non-gaming features (I still wouldn't want to watch a video or play music on any DS)
4) audio quality that equals any Walkman and surpasses any iPod thanks to excellent noise-free hardware circuits (great hardware and not just software or high-bitrate files I'm talking here)
Sony was pushing the envelope (just like they did with the PS3). In my opinion they made Nintendo look expensive given the hardware they are selling.
When they released the PSP in late 2004 (along with the DS at about the same time), they took the technical lead in most areas (MIC and TOUCH notwithstanding). There were hardly any devices for the common man out there with:
1) such an expansive screen at that resolution (now they are common)
2) flash storage was still ultra expensive (and now it has grown into a superb multimedia player on cheap memory cards;
Scene Search still blows my socks off with its buttery smoothness on such cheap and great hardware)
Basically I think the portable gaming (and phone!) market has benefited tremendously from Sony's innovations in pushing what is possible in a portable. Not to say that other competitors did not do their part, of course they all did.
Let's not forget Sony's technical competence with optical discs which allowed them to create UMD. I am still amazed that it doesn't get enough love for allowing CHEAP mass production of high-quality sound and visuals while Nintendo's approach forces them and their developers to squeeze things in the smallest size possible so they can mass produce them more cheaply (they never tried a different approach here). It took Sony to do that and to push the quality boundaries.
Sony's approach has been the right move for the portable gaming market, in my opinion. So different to the main competitor that nobody could call it copying and opening the unit up to so many other uses and markets beyond gaming, all the while offering a relatively cheap and ergonomic piece of hardware years before anyone was doing anything similar at those prices. Nintendo, of course, can be credited with giving TOUCH to the masses and that has been a really big strength for them, among other more minor things.
some people here say "no competition means higher price point" i beg to differ. was the GBA overpriced when there was no other handheld? did nintendo overprice the DS?
Both Sony PSP and DS were developed for years before release and first released at about the same time in late 2004 (most of us saw it first in 2005, though). DS had PSP to compete with at its release. Pricing would be critical. It's fair to say DS hardware was priced well below PSP prices to explain some of that discrepancy. If anything, I think Sony offered far more value (ie. less profit margin on hardware for them) considering what it cost them to make that thing.
When you compare prices of units, can we really say either way that Nintendo had no competition? Nintendo - during Game Boy era, actually had lots of competitors ready to bite it in its butt if they made one false move, both color and monochrome. These competitors made Nintendo fight long and hard. So they couldn't really afford to say they had no competition keeping them and their prices in check. Some of their competition had very strong hardware/software interests.
SNK, Bandai, Sega, Atari and others were all making portable hardware, with varying advantages and disadvantages. But beyond hardware and games, whether a device succeeds or not is simply how much margin retailers can make selling your products and how much you can push your hardware with advertising. The reasons why and how are long since history but in my opinion it's always so
easy to forget there was competition keeping them in check and again there was PSP competition when the DS was released, too. Nintendo management had every reason to lose sleep fearing Sony, a company with increasingly larger piece of the entertainment business and excellent reputation for electronics (despite the unjustified hate here).
But the real point in all of this lost in your argument is not hardware sales at all, it's the
price of games and the royalty each company makes on each game. The hardware is merely the initial purchase to get you into the system. The software is the real pot of gold for Nintendo (much like it is for Apple and Sony). It's fair to say that game prices are lower the more competition there is, and both Sony and Nintendo - despite competing amongst themselves - have a new bunch of competitors to worry about eating away at their customers:
download sales. They have fought tooth-and-nail to win the support of retailers over the years and now must fight to build their online business too, all without decimating their (important) retail channels.
Interesting times ahead.
Some thoughts on 'social' as a sales tool
Nintendo's 3DS 3D camera is a buzz-creator.
Taking photos of people who can see themselves in 3D will be a MASSIVE word-of-mouth thing for them. Massive. It will get so many new customers for them, that feature alone. They know this and have mentioned this. They want people taking the 3DS out of their pockets and talking about it with their friends. That's why I suggest that Sony
has to make their next PSP with an integrated camera as a minimum, or another equally 'social' feature. It needs to be taken out more and be more social and get people talking and sharing. That needs to be part of their sales strategy.
If I were in Sony management, I'd be trying to think of new and innovative ways to get people talking about my product. Nintendo have very, very powerful ammunition with their 3D feature. It will be interesting to see how Sony will continue to differentiate themselves from the bomb Nintendo are about to drop with this.
Of course, that won't mean Sony will give up this very lucrative and growing market, they'll just try harder. If we can look at their strengths, some of them are integration with their PS3 and their do-it-all approach with their hardware. But the next PSP has to be far more social, I think. A really excellent browser and strong emphasis on easy sharing in a connected world will help sell units.
A unique buzz feature is really needed to compete with the 3DS, though. I love the fact it's not just for gamers and the polish, interface and everything is of a very high standard (even though not enough know about it)
but it needs to be more now.