Topic: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market

[NWR_Lindy]

What's funny about the PSP is that Sony's goal was to replicate the console experience on a handheld.  While that sounds good in theory, in practice it makes no sense because the handheld games don't offer anything different from the console games.  In other words, instead of PSP games being regarded as a neat handheld interpretation of a console game, they instead come across as a slightly inferior version of the console game.

Sony was always thinking "How can we make PSP games more like PS2 games?", but they instead should have been thinking "How can we make PSP games different and unique from PS2 games?"

[Yoshidious]

Count me among the Yoshi Touch & Go lovers, and not just because it starred my favourite little dino. It became compulsive playing for me after a while, reawakening my love of high score challenge games which paid off in the future with Metroid Prime Pinball and Geometry Wars Galaxies, amongst others. I fully appreciate why it was regarded as very insubstantial, even little more than a tech demo (and I didn't end up paying full price for it, for the record), but with all the hours of enjoyment I ended up getting out of advancing my high scores, it would have been worth me paying above full price for it to be honest.

I still believe that the last 7 months of 2005 for the DS is the best stretch of any software line-up that I've ever seen. We had Kirby Canvas Curse, Meteos, Advance Wars DS, Nintendogs, Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, Metroid Prime Pinball, Sonic Rush, Mario + Luigi: Partners in Time, and probably quite a few other notable games that I didn't have the time/money to play at that time. Truly a stellar list that even the DS itself has been unable to match in the years hence.

[GoldenPhoenix]

What's funny about the PSP is that Sony's goal was to replicate the console experience on a handheld.  While that sounds good in theory, in practice it makes no sense because the handheld games don't offer anything different from the console games.  In other words, instead of PSP games being regarded as a neat handheld interpretation of a console game, they instead come across as a slightly inferior version of the console game.

Sony was always thinking "How can we make PSP games more like PS2 games?", but they instead should have been thinking "How can we make PSP games different and unique from PS2 games?"

I think this is a very fair analysis, and I ::gasp:: agree. Back when GB came out the novelty of having a portable system was enough to justify it, but now it needs a bit more in gaming to get people to think "This is a great addition to my gaming library", especially since handheld systems and consoles in general are no longer prodomently played by kids.

[Ian Sane]

Good Lord how did the PS2 or PS1 ever survive their initial years of nothingness?

Where did this myth come from?  YEARS?  The PS2 I'll admit struggled for the first six, seven months (I was making fun of it at the time).  But by the time the console was a year old Gran Turismo 3, Metal Gear Solid 2, Devil May Cry, ICO and, oh yeah, GRAND THEFT AUTO 3 all came out and in time to compete with the launching Xbox and Gamecube.  To be fair they had more time to get a good lineup rolling by the time the competition launched than Nintendo did with the DS.

But the PS1?  Tekken, Ridge Racer and Twisted Metal were launch games and though they were later overshadowed by their sequels those were big games.  And then Resident Evil came out six months later.

In comparison the big DS game for like 8 months was a port of an N64 game like EVERYONE already had but now with worse controls.  I agree with everyone who says that the DS didn't start rolling until Advance Wars DS.  Meanwhile the GBA had Castlevania: Circle of the Moon at launch plus F-Zero, Super Dodge Ball, Fire Pro Wrestling (personal favourite I'll admit) with Advance Wars and Mario Kart on the doorstep.  Nintendo themselves had done way better and I think it was fair to expect something comparable.  The GBA probably LAUNCHED with more titles than the DS had when the PSP came out.

In retrospect I figure they had a later target date in mind but rushed to beat the PSP to the market.  Everything worked in the end so I guess it was a good gamble.  Would Nintendo intentionally launch with a port as their one only launch title?

[NWR_insanolord]

They would if they were as incompetent as you keep insisting they are.

[GoldenPhoenix]

That Nintendo sure knows how to gamble, they must have a magic lucky rabbits foot to give them all this luck on systems that should have been disastors.

[Deguello]

Where did this myth come from?  YEARS?  The PS2 I'll admit struggled for the first six, seven months (I was making fun of it at the time).

The unfortunate tragedy for your post, Ian, was I meant "inital years" of both the PS1 and PS2.  As in, the first years of both, 1994 and 2000.  I certainly didn't mean initial "Years," plural for either.  The PS1 had a pretty rotten launch lineup.  Go look it up.  Seriously, you'll cringe.  And the first year was basically meh.  PS2 was even worse, with games that looked worse and played worse than the already more formidable Dreamcast.  IT wasn't until GTA III that anybody gave two craps about the PS2.

And the DS actually had a very great first year.  SM64 was the only decent launch game, yeah (thanks, third parties) but the system had a very competent lineup from November 21, 2004 to November 21, 2005:

Super Mario 64
Daigasso Band Brothers
Kirby Canvas Curse
WarioWare Touched
Advance Wars: DS
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (lol This DS meme)
Trauma Center
Sonic Rush
Meteos (a godly puzzler)
Lost in Blue (I like it, at least)

and the harbingers of Nintendo's repeated success:
Nintendogs and Mario Kart DS

As well as Nintendo's effortless little money mill from Japan:
Brain Age

Yeah January through April might have been a little rough, but the system certainly wasn't a "joke" to own for an entire year.  I didn't really wanna play listwarz but this myth, which is a common trope (you know, "Zomg nothing for first year!"), basically dies when light is shined upon it.

and now that I saw Yoshidious post the same thing I feel a little sheepish, so I'll talk about why the big game media and fansite's berating of the DS in the early years is important.  Lindy said that Sony should have focused on games that were different from PS2.  But that's not what most people said in 2004.  they said the PSP should easily coast to victory because of Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, some FFVII spinoff, and Metal Gear, and actually wanted them to make as many games like the PS2 as possible.  No wonder the PSP's flagship game in it's first year was GTA: LCS, which is almost a straight port of GTA III.

It didn't matter that the PSP basically ruined the very strict physical rules of what a portable console should be:

1. Quick (loading times are out)
2. Functional (remember that Square button fiasco, where the misaligned the square buttons connector just to be more "stylish")
3. Game-focused (Just the IDEA that there were more UMDs than games at one time should be repulsive to any gamer)
4. Durable (clamshell design is standard)
5. Relatively inexpensive ($250 was just too much, and $40-$50 a game was just a bad idea.  No wonder the $150 DS and the $20-$30-$40 range of games is the reason the DS has a healthy tie ratio and the PSP's is in the pits)

The PSP thumbed it's nose at all of this, and most of the websites applauded them as they did it.  So why would they want to change when they thought their victory was "assured?"  They thought they won already.

Meanwhile, the DS was called "gimmicky" and "The next Virtual Boy" and Nintendogs was a "non-game for girls" and all that crap.  This is the real revisionist history.

[KDR_11k]

Was LCS actually a flagship title? I recall it being a hope title (a game that people cling to while chanting "this game will surely save our console!") but it seemed to disappear after release. The PS3's hope titles seem to fare similarily. It's always "wait until game X, surely then the unenlightened heathens will see our way!".

[IceCold]

Enjoy your revisionist history, guys.  Believe me, I'm one of the DS' biggest fans and had one day one.  But I'm not going to sugar-coat the fact that it sat on my shelf until Christmas 2005.  After that, it was amazing and continues to be amongst my all-time favorite systems.

Christmas 2005? Let's see what I bought that year before Christmas rolled around.

WarioWare Touched
Kirby Canvas Curse
Meteos
Advanced Wars: Dual Strike
Trace Memory
Trauma Centre
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney
Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow

I'd qualify Animal Crossing, Mario Kart, Mario&Luigi, Metroid Pinball and Sonic Rush as Christmas releases. The rest were all pre-October. And all of them are incredible games.


EDIT: Beaten by a number of people.