Hacking 3DS will spell the end of portable gaming for Sony

DiscostewSM · Aug 20, 2010

Portable gaming for Sony will end when Sony quits it, not when something else comes along.

foob · Aug 20, 2010

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.

Scorpin200 · Aug 20, 2010

Hmm didn't the wii and ds already do this?

FireGrey · Aug 20, 2010

I laugh at Sony for failing at handhelds.

Depravo · Aug 20, 2010

Any Sony handheld will sell as long as there are people like ProManUnitedFan around. All the 3DS will do is give Sony some new ideas for their next handheld.

Shinigami357 · Aug 20, 2010

Sincerely, some people. Wanna rip my post apart? Fine, but fair is fair. That's me in orange

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(foob @ Aug 20 2010, 03:10 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3057921"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Shinigami357 @ Aug 19 2010, 04:07 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=3055595"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'>people know what they want, let them be. if it's sony, microsoft, nintendo, or (gasp!) apple, so be it.</div>

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).

The market don't know what they want. Yep, all these years the DS has been out, they obviously didn't know they wanted to buy those millions of DS units. Which prob means they also don't know if they want a newer, better, 3-D enhanced DS. Right. While people don't usually know what they ARE buying, they have a pretty clear idea of what they want.

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 wasn't underappreciated because it came second. It came second because consumers bought WHAT THEY WANTED TO BUY, which, sadly, isn't the PSP. Basic economic model: what people want will sell.

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
Sony has a tech fetish. Works on digital cameras, TVs, etc. but it gives people the mistaken idea that hardware makes good games. I don't see why better hardware makes for better games. Eespecially not in a hand held format where you're playing for a few minutes or hours and not exactly wanting an eye surgery right after. Now nintendo is going right at them with technology. Seems they can't take that.
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)
Yeah... Because we are SO talking about multimedia devices here. NOT. By the way,wasn't the mutimedia just a reminder that Sony used to make this thing known as a walkman?

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.

Wow. Pushing the envelope how? They gave us the basic "High-end Graphics, High-end Audio, Multimedia whatever" stuff they do every time they make a playstation. And wait, they made nintendo look expensive. You're kidding, right? 2 screens, 1 touch-sensitive, running smoothly with Wi-fi, local wireless and even download multiplayer. Oh, yeah, and the battery didn't suck either.


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)
For the common man... Such great words from someone who lives in a mostly stable economy. I am aware that most people here are in better countries than I am, and I mostly don't mind. But a "common man" argument? A common man in many countries would never have enough to buy a PSP. Anyway... Screens? You do know that Sony produces those small notebooks call Vaio's? The technology for screens that small at prices a "common man" can afford was there for quite a while. And flash storage? Humor me, but didn't computers also have USB 2.0 enabled flash disks? Firewire? External harddrives? PSP didn't make any of those, and their storade is just as good, if not better.


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.

Yeah. Now if only UMDs were as portable, easy to clean, and capable of wear and tear. In case you also don't know, the point of handheld gaming devices is PORTABILITY. Which would explain why nintendo's handhelds are small. Oh, it also didn't help that Sony themselves basically abandoned the UMDs with the PSP Go.

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.

Yeah... Screen, Buttons on either side of said screen, Shoulder buttons, and the most-hated handheld input ever - the mighty analog nub. With the exception of the usual Sony spirit of tech-ing everything up, hey, doesn't it JUST resemble a modified GBA? Nintendo was behind the good old "buttons-screen-buttons" format. They reshaped their device, and PSP was left grasping straws for design ideas. Thus, the PSP Go was born.


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).

Wow. My example was the GBA era, where nary a handheld could be found (most of them went the way of the dinosaur already) in case you didn't read and just rushed to massacre my post. The GBA was the most successful era, great hardware, great games and you know what? Nintendo left that behind to change the way handhelds work. Why would you go away from the usual formula (for example a company having a tech fetish making a handheld with a tech fetish) if you are afraid? I think you do not understand what you are talking about. If Nintendo didn't give a damn about a market they dominated, why take a risk?

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.

You mean to tell me Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Pokemon, Advance Wars, Fire Emblem, Final Fantasy, GTA, Golden Sun, and all the others were not worth the cash gamers paid? Don't most people want physical copies of their game? I think you are losing arguments to throw out. Really? Your point being? Maybe you forget the PSP Go decided to screw it's customers over by being download content only, and basically abandoning your much beloved UMDs? Why on earth would you make a device that can't even do what another device OF THE SAME GENERATION can? Ask people if they were happy to have that hassle of either finding a way to get a digital copy of their current games or buying it in digital format. Nintendo didn't do that. It's been 7 or so years since they released the DS, and the current formats can still play what the DS Phats could.

Interesting times ahead.

</div>

FireGrey · Aug 20, 2010

I'm glad i'm with Nintendo.
Sony gamers seem to be less happy playing games...
Nintendo has different styles of gaming (eg. Motion, Touch, Camera, etc...)
But Sony have been doing the same thing since the Playstation 1

Guild McCommunist · Aug 20, 2010

FireGrey said:
I'm glad i'm with Nintendo.
Sony gamers seem to be less happy playing games...
Nintendo has different styles of gaming (eg. Motion, Touch, Camera, etc...)
But Sony have been doing the same thing since the Playstation 1

Sony gamers seem to be "less happy" playing games?

When you find a real reason to bash Sony come back to me.

And who gives a shit if they've been doing the "same thing" since the PSX? It's worked fine and we've gotten damn fine games because of it. I may as well say the same thing about Nintendo since the NES. Sure the graphics get better and the controllers change but they still went for the same audience and still had generally the same theme. Next gen consoles are meant to be significant upgrades of their predecessors. The Wii was barely an upgrade and suffers for it. Sure it gets motion controls and some nice games that work on it because of it, but even then it misses out on a huge library of PC/Xbox 360/PS3 multiconsole titles simply because Nintendo didn't bother giving it next gen specs. It's more powerful than the Gamecube but even games like Super Mario Galaxy aren't nearly as good looking as games like Red Dead Redemption. In fact, SMG looked so good because it lacked any sort of texture since Mario doesn't need it. They just added good lighting effects and made the models nice and round.

And Nintendo is innovative with the camera? It's not like Dreamcast and PS2 had camera peripherals at all! And it's not like cameras are being put on almost every single relatively popular mobile device (cellphones, smartphones, whatever) before the DSi just threw one on there.

Slyakin · Aug 20, 2010

Well, I don't know if the 3DS will kill Sony or not, but it WILL definitely hurt them.

monkat · Aug 20, 2010

Guild McCommunist said:
even games like Super Mario Galaxy aren't nearly as good looking as games like Red Dead Redemption.

Ew, you think so? I personally hate the realistic look - I think it looks very, well, ugly. Or at least not ready yet - even with the HD consoles. That's just me though

Guild McCommunist · Aug 20, 2010

monkat said:
Guild McCommunist said:

even games like Super Mario Galaxy aren't nearly as good looking as games like Red Dead Redemption.

Click to expand...

Ew, you think so? I personally hate the realistic look - I think it looks very, well, ugly. Or at least not ready yet - even with the HD consoles. That's just me though

When you're portraying the gritty and violent end of the Wild West you don't want people looking like cartoons. I like cartoony looks when it fits and realistic ones when it does as well. Or just go both ways and cell shade, that usually works on semi-serious games. Prince of Persia '09, Red Steel 2, XIII, etc.

FireGrey · Aug 20, 2010

monkat said:
Guild McCommunist said:

even games like Super Mario Galaxy aren't nearly as good looking as games like Red Dead Redemption.

Click to expand...

Ew, you think so? I personally hate the realistic look - I think it looks very, well, ugly. Or at least not ready yet - even with the HD consoles. That's just me though

You're not alone there

redact · Aug 20, 2010

i know, late reply but i just had to point out what bullshit jetkun is spewing

JetKun said:
I mean the 'Magic Wand' that looks like a dild* was a cheap direct ripoff of the Wii Remote - that failed miserably.
it's not released yet, how the fuck would you possibly know how it sold?

QUOTE(JetKun @ Jul 17 2010, 03:47 AM) The Go? That was disgusting. I bought one, and then sold it exactly 33 minutes and 34 seconds later on eBay. It went for exactly £40 less than I bought it for. This was directly after its launch.

bullshit, within a 33 minute time window you'd have done what any normal person would have and simply returned it for a full refund. and anybody that judges a product on 33 minutes' use is an idiot...

FireGrey · Aug 20, 2010

How psycho would a stylus with Motion and Gyro sensors be

Giga_Gaia · Aug 20, 2010

People says Apple is Nintendo's competition, well they are wrong. Nintendo has no competition in the portable business.

Trying to compete against Nintendo in portable business is like trying to compete against Microsoft in the OS business and making one that sell more than windows. It's a total waste of time.

Deleted User · Aug 20, 2010

Giga_Gaia said:
People says Apple is Nintendo's competition, well they are wrong. Nintendo has no competition in the portable business.

Trying to compete against Nintendo in portable business is like trying to compete against Microsoft in the OS business and making one that sell more than windows. It's a total waste of time.

I agree all the major companies will try to make decent handhelds, some do and have, but by far Nintendo are the kings of the handhelds.

EJames2100 · Aug 20, 2010

Got both DS and PSP.

Both have games that I love and can play constantly.

DS has the classics of Pokémon and fun Arcades with some good RPG's thrown in there which make me want to play them.

PSP has stunning graphics, has some great games as well, not many classics but since you can put a PS1 Emulator on there, it opens the door to many classics.

Many good qualities on both sides

It's such a shame when people can't see both sides or refuse to test out other stuff just because it's made by so and so.

naved.islam14 · Aug 21, 2010

I think PSP has a small chance because sony is releasing PSP phone which will run on andriod

FireGrey · Aug 21, 2010

How could people even compare the PSP to the Awesome DS
Tsk Tsk!

FlashX007 · Aug 21, 2010

You never had a PSP and DS at the same time then. I am a new PSP user and I can only say one word. I have not touched my DS/i for a while now. The PSP is great with gaming and graphics and overall story through every game. I enjoy almost everything I play and it offers more than any Nintendo portable system could offer. Unless 3DS has rivaling features then I have taken my vote to Sony. With their new PSP2 soon to be released they will be back on top. Sorry to say but I am a DS to PSP convert. The system is truly amazing.

Hacking 3DS will spell the end of portable gaming for Sony

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