Author Topic: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market  (Read 14427 times)

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Offline Bill Aurion

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #25 on: October 06, 2008, 12:02:47 AM »
I'm inclined to think there's a review bias as well. *sigh* Well, we're still a new medium. We'll figure out a way to compare games to each other in some sensible manner in a couple of decades I'm sure.

That's assuming that it's an objective bias, which it isn't...
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Offline King of Twitch

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #26 on: October 06, 2008, 12:51:33 AM »
PSP is great



for me to poop on
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Offline Infernal Monkey

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #27 on: October 06, 2008, 06:57:07 AM »
Aww, a DS love-fest! Count me in!

Someone should make a retrospective bump of threads when the PSP was announced.

Those are always fun to look back on. The launch was even better! Forums, gaming journalists (I still remember one of the big sites, 1UP maybe, rating Trace Memory down because its graphics weren't as good as Ridge Racer on PSP), everyone turned into rampaging trolls upon the PSP's launch. Precious hilarious memories. <3

Offline KDR_11k

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #28 on: October 06, 2008, 07:05:53 AM »
Meh, 1up is always retarded, no surprise there.

Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #29 on: October 06, 2008, 05:22:06 PM »
I have no idea if this contributes to why the DS sells better than the PSP but this a big reason why I own Nintendo portables but have no interest in any others.  I don't like portable gaming.  I don't like hunching over a tiny screen.  I can never find a consistently comfortable position to play in for any length of time.  Plus I tend to move controllers a bit when I play and when moving the controller involves moving the screen that's not exactly pleasant.  And multiplayer requires multiple systems or they don't bother to include it at all.  Meanwhile the big "grab" with handhelds, the feature that makes all that annoying crap I just mentioned acceptable, is the portability.  But the problem is I don't NEED portable gaming.  I don't spend tons of times on airplanes or riding the bus.  My life has little "on-the-go" downtime.  It just isn't something I have any need for.  My DS is a home system and I ceased using my GBA once the GB Player came out.

So why do I have a DS?  Because of the games.  The games are good enough that I need to own the system that plays them.  Historically portable games are usually sh!tty versions of console games.  Why get a PSP for GTA: Vice City Stories when the REAL Vice City is available on the PS2?  Without the need for portability there's no point in buying watered down console games.  I never owned an original Gameboy.  Part of that is because I was a kid and my Mom thought games were evil.  But I didn't really want one at the time either.  Tetris?  It's on the NES.  Super Mario Land?  Well that's like a scaled down Super Mario Bros.  However over time Nintendo would make Gameboy games that were good enough that they could have been made for a console.  Metroid II and Link's Awakening are REAL Metroid and Zelda games!  And of course there's Pokemon.  Those are major games on any platform, not just compromised portable Contra (aka Operation C).

The DS and GBA are pretty much 2D consoles existing in a world where 3D consoles are the norm.  So the DS has a purpose beyond portability.  Mario & Luigi 3 was just annouced.  If there wasn't a stigma about 2D console games that would be a Wii game.  And years ago it would be on the SNES and would be a GOTY candidate.  And it isn't like Mario & Luigi: Better Version is on the Wii.  If any company but Nintendo made the DS it would be getting scaled down junk like Super Mario Planet or Twilight Princess Gaiden.  Not that scaled down stuff isn't on the DS.  There isn't much difference between portable or console Mario Kart games and Ubisoft and EA pretty much just make scaled down junk.  But in genres where 2D gaming provides a different experience than 3D the DS has a real purpose beyond portability.

Though probably the easiest explanation for the DS dominance is "PSP is expensive and the DS is made by the established handheld market leader who has not f*cked up enough to lose their spot."  It isn't exactly odd that Nintendo has the top selling portable.  That's the status quo.

Offline Hostile Creation

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #30 on: October 13, 2008, 06:04:13 PM »
That picture actually makes me feel a little bit sorry for the PSP.
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Offline Deguello

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #31 on: October 17, 2008, 08:45:20 AM »
Aww, a DS love-fest! Count me in!

Someone should make a retrospective bump of threads when the PSP was announced.

Those are always fun to look back on. The launch was even better! Forums, gaming journalists (I still remember one of the big sites, 1UP maybe, rating Trace Memory down because its graphics weren't as good as Ridge Racer on PSP), everyone turned into rampaging trolls upon the PSP's launch. Precious hilarious memories. <3


Yeah it's pretty amazing to see the DS earn its spot as #1, despite having no support from any media sources (not even Nintendo fansites [or even US]).  It's even sold more and is on track to best the PS2 by the end of it, and this is with two years of constant berating by the major sites, harping on certain games, talking about how Nintendo targeted "non-gamers," how graphics were still important, how PSP owners had a higher tie-ratio than DS owners (ha!), the general down-rating of DS games in hopes or quashing it or making it "feel bad," some huffy gamers threatening to never buy another Nintendo product and their absence of revenue being "Nintendo's loss."

It's all so very familiar.  I feel as if this might happen again.
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #32 on: October 17, 2008, 07:12:04 PM »
The DS got slammed because it had one good game at launch, and no games for a year afterwards.  Compared to PSP, which had a good launch lineup and much prettier games, it looked like PSP should blow it away.  It was only after developers had a year to play around did the DS start gaining momentum.     
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #33 on: October 17, 2008, 07:36:14 PM »
The DS got slammed because it had one good game at launch, and no games for a year afterwards.  Compared to PSP, which had a good launch lineup and much prettier games, it looked like PSP should blow it away.  It was only after developers had a year to play around did the DS start gaining momentum.     

I don't recall the PSP having many good games at launch besides Twiisted Metal and some MGS card battle game. The rest were basically straight ports. All I know is that during that period I thought the bashers of DS were full of crap and that it was going to be competitive.
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Offline Ian Sane

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #34 on: October 17, 2008, 07:52:13 PM »
The PSP launched with more games than the DS had accumulated in total at that time.  To assume the DS was going to get creamed was a very logical conclusion at that time.  Had the trend continued it probably would have been creamed but it was like a game-a-month pace at the time.  It was really bad, embarassingly so.  I waited a year to get a DS and I don't regret it.  I know some people will crap on me for noting this, and they'll be the same people that back then crapped on me, but at that point the DS SUCKED.  It was an absolute joke of a system.  It has really turned itself around since then.

Offline GoldenPhoenix

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #35 on: October 17, 2008, 07:56:51 PM »
The PSP launched with more games than the DS had accumulated in total at that time.  To assume the DS was going to get creamed was a very logical conclusion at that time.  Had the trend continued it probably would have been creamed but it was like a game-a-month pace at the time.  It was really bad, embarassingly so.  I waited a year to get a DS and I don't regret it.  I know some people will crap on me for noting this, and they'll be the same people that back then crapped on me, but at that point the DS SUCKED.  It was an absolute joke of a system.  It has really turned itself around since then.

Ian we are so used to you hating things it is tough to determine what should be listened to. So you can't blame us. All I know I was a staunch defender of the DS and seen its potential long before the elitist gaming media turned around.
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #36 on: October 18, 2008, 04:04:52 AM »
The DS was a joke when all you had to choose from was Ping Pals and a bunch of other garbage.  Super Mario 64 was its best game for the longest time, and even worse, nothing was being released.  But then it started getting a TON of amazing games, and from that point on it was a juggernaut.
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Offline Mario

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #37 on: October 18, 2008, 06:32:24 AM »
**** off. Feel The Magic remains one of the best games this generation.

Offline Deguello

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #38 on: October 18, 2008, 06:44:29 AM »
Quote
The DS was a joke when all you had to choose from was Ping Pals and a bunch of other garbage.

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

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #39 on: October 18, 2008, 12:17:14 PM »
Ahaha, Silks is like Ian's little brother.
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #40 on: October 18, 2008, 04:00:41 PM »
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.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #41 on: October 18, 2008, 04:06:58 PM »
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.

It is funny I was the opposite, DS was my most played system that year!
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #42 on: October 18, 2008, 04:09:33 PM »
What games did you like?
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #43 on: October 18, 2008, 04:11:20 PM »
I was going to point out that there were several good games for it in early and mid 2005, but then I realized you probably just boycotted it until Christmas. Like GP I didn't play much besides the DS in 2005, but that was more because the GameCube was dead.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #44 on: October 18, 2008, 04:25:56 PM »
Well I did enjoy WarioWare Touched, SM64 DS kept me busy for quite awhile, Pac Attack (or whatever it was where you drew the pac man was lots of fun), Advance Wars DS, Nintendogs, Kirby Canvas curse (I think that was out during that period), Trace Memory and I know I'm forgetting a couple.

To put it into perspective, when I got a PSP at launch I played Twisted Metal (wasn't interested in a card game version of MGS) and when I was dcne with the game I sold it on ebay. The PSP had such a blah lineup of ports that there wasn't much else out there for it.
« Last Edit: October 18, 2008, 04:30:14 PM by GoldenPhoenix »
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #45 on: October 18, 2008, 04:31:54 PM »
Yup, looking back through the archives, things really began to pick up in late-August 2005 when Nintendo released Advance Wars: Dual Strike and Nintendogs.  Up until that point you had Meteos and Kirby Canvas Curse in June 2005, but things were pretty intermittent.  So for about the first seven months there was a pretty big drought of top-shelf titles (in terms of a Nintendo handheld).  Then in Q4 2005 things went bananas.
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Offline Urkel

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #46 on: October 18, 2008, 04:32:53 PM »
The people that complained the lineup was lacking during the first year never bothered me. It was the ones that wrote the system off completely and calling the touchscreen a "gimmick" that got under my skin. Rick Powers. Never forget.

And it's not like the PSP lineup at that time was anything to write home about. Many games were ports, and I distinctly remember software releases drying up a mere two or three months after PSP launch, where UMDs started to outnumber game releases and everything went downhill fast.
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Offline NWR_Lindy

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #47 on: October 18, 2008, 04:34:10 PM »
The PSP lineup only looked "better" because of the dearth of DS releases.
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Offline NWR_insanolord

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #48 on: October 18, 2008, 04:35:35 PM »
I absolutely loved Yoshi Touch & Go, though if it were coming out now it would be a DSware game.
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Offline GoldenPhoenix

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Re: Why the DS is Dominating the Portable Market
« Reply #49 on: October 18, 2008, 04:40:46 PM »
I think PSP's problem has always been that it was basically an extension of the PS2, there really was never anything that innovative besides a few select titles and even then you wondered "Why can't I play this on PS2 instead?". I think PSP is an example of why Nintendo was good to avoid a GC based handheld.
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