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Originally posted by: PaleZer0
Now to defend the fanatical people. There are some out there that are intelligently fanatical and thats who i'm speaking for. Sony entering the handheld market is a touchy subject for Nintendo fans. We don't want to see our favorite company run into financial difficulty. One of the main reason why, no matter how poor the gamecube did or would do we could always say that Nintendo was still making enough money in the handheld market to overcome any hiccups and keep us, the loyal fanbase, happy. We all know that the PSP has potential to be a good unit and it makes us happy when we see mistakes from Sony's end. Yes, it is still just about the games... whether or not we're gonna keep getting our games in the future or are we going to be forcefed overly hyped pop culture trash?
I wouldn't worry about Nintendo going away anytime soon -
if ever. Their fanbase is large enough - and fanatical enough - to keep the company going for a long time. (I'd say the fanaticism of hardcore N-fans is second only to that of the hardcore Apple fans.)
Nobody's ever knocked Nintendo from the top stop in the portable market, and I don't think Sony's going to do it either. But I do believe there is room for two handhelds to succeed. If there can be three home consoles doing well at the same time, why not two portables? Both systems are great, and they're different enough to appeal to different segments of the gaming market.
They both play games, but they do them in fairly different fashions. The DS, with its touchscreen and dual screens is giving developers a place to do stuff they'd never been able to do before. The PSP is offering never-before-seen (in a portable system) levels of horsepower. But to try and reduce the whole debate about the two systems to "innovation vs. graphics" ignores the games, which are what really matters.
For instance, one of the best launch titles on the PSP is also the simplest in terms of graphics. Lumines is an exceptional music/puzzle game - and it should be, given that it's from Tetsuya Mizuguchi, the guy who did Rez. He's also behind Meteos on the DS, which looks to be great as well. Bandai's taking the right approach (at least, with their "qb" studio) in finding what works well on each system and tailoring games to the hardware.
From
1up.com:
The purpose of the new label, according to Bandai's announcement today, is to reach an untapped fanbase through new hardware like Sony and Nintendo's next-generation handhelds. Games like Lumines and Meteos are meant to be easy to play "even if you don't read the instructions."I only hope more developers can be this smart.