Topic: DS vs PSP: An intelligent comparison

[Ness_the_Mess]

Allright. Let's look at the facts.

Nintendo DS
- Over 100 developers
- over 120 games in development
- Two screens; each can correspond with one of the two processors; one screen is always 3d (128 bit, meaning much better than N64), other is 2d (that is, either screen can be 3d, but not both at the same time due to the two different processors; Arm 9 and Arm 7)
-Touch screen
- Battery life of 6-10 hours
- Comes with rechargable battery
- Games played over internet through WiFi, played locally through wireless LAN
- Costs $150 US
- Comes out late november
- Nintendo is making 20 games in-house
- Convenient 'clamshell' design, protecting screens
- Media: 'game cards' - like cartridges. First generation can hold 128 MB (1 Gigabit [Gb, not GB]). Nintendo is known to increase holding capacity throughout system's life.  Each game card is required to have room left for save files - no more password saves.

SONY PSP
- Exactly 99 developers
- Over 100 games in development
- One, wider screen with suberp resolution
- Graffics are almost just as good as PS2
- Battery life 2 hours for movie playback, 10 hours for music - no comment was made on gameplay
- Games played over internet through WiFi, played locally through wireless LAN
- Plays specially made movies
- Plays music
- According to a manufacturer for SONY, the PSP may not be released for another 8 months (Halfway into 2005) due to overheating, and batteries only lasting 90 minutes
- EXPECTED release: end of 2004 in Japan, Q1 in North America
- High-profile ports from PS2
- Price announced in yen; almost exactly $300 american
- Media is UMD, which can hold 1.5 GB (Gigabytes) of data
-Requires memory cards/sticks

There you have it. I think that's everything we know right now, in a dumbed-down list version. Personally I'm going for the DS; I really want portable animal crossing, but I'm also VERY attracted at the price difference. DS is $200 canadian; I would approximate PSP to be $400 canadian. I also like nintendo; However, I am not a fanboy.

What are you getting?  PSP? DS? Neither? Both?  Why?

Please don't let this turn into a fanboy thread, a flaming thread, or another thread that mentions Warp Pipe.  

[BlackNMild2k1]

When and where did they announce the price of PSP?

I saw no press release.  Can you provide a link?

PS. The UMD is suppossed to hold >= 1 GB  

[Flames_of_chaos]

You missed out on somethings or I came to clarify knowing by available released data

1. The DS has 6 - 10 hrs. battery. 2. Both screens can handle 3D and 2D. 3. Nintendo is calling the media type "Game Cards" with Save RAM in it no battery save which is a wise move. 4. The design is called clamshell type not laptop. 5. And there are alot of devs and game in dev respectively so those numbers can be false by now. 6. DS has no moving parts.

On to the PSP
1. A UMD which stands for Universal Media Disc holds approx. 1.5GB  2. Game saves and music requires a memory stick since UMDs obviously cant be written on and its rumored retail is in the neighborhood of 29.99USD? 3. The Graphics are slightly weaker than the PS2(as  I have heard). 4. Battery life hasnt been finialized but those looks realistic enough but Sony might release a peripheral to increase the life rumored to be a wrist battery pack. 5. And like as I said about the DS there can be more devs and more games in dev. 6. Well its kind of obvious that the PSP will have moving parts. 7. Its price release and launch is still under speculation so feel free to throw darts at price points until sony releases their official launch info and pricing bla bla bla in 05.

My self Im getting a DS because Im interested it and its a cool looking product with alot of unique game potential.  Also the speculated price points on the PSP is keeping me away from that systems and I NEVER would buy a handheld requiring memory cards/sticks.

[Ness_the_Mess]

The price was announced in yen by the head of Sony Germany.  It was 33,000 Yen.  Sorry, right now I don't have a link.

Yes, each SCREEN can handle 2d and 3d, but not both PROCESSERS.  Only one screen at a time can have 3d - but it can be either the touch or non-touch screen.

The 'laptop' term was merely my own comparison.  Clamshell basically says the same thing, but I will change it, since that is the official term.  Thanks.

I said ALMOST as good as PS2, just like you .

I thought it was self-explainitory that the carts could save data?  Maybe not.

The battery life numbers of 2 hours for movies and 10 hours for music HAVE been finalized.  No gameplay number has been named.

[Pale]

I will definately be getting the DS, due to the unbelievalbe potential.  If it lives up to it, it will probably become my primary game system...  As for the PSP, i will not be getting unless two things happen...

1. I get a really nice job so I can afford it.
2. We see some games that are more than just PS2 ports or engines.  I can play PS2 games on my PS2...no need for portability.

[MaleficentOgre]

The gameplay battery life for PSP will depend on whether you're playing disgea or final fantasy MCIX.  I'm guessing between 2 and 6, which might be reasonable if you consider how much is going on inside the system, and the monstrously large screen with the backlight on.  I wonder if those times are with or without the backlight.  I'm surprised that no third parties have worked on any screen coveres for PSP seeing as how its a target for abuse.  

The DS's battery is good seeing as how it has two backlit screens.  I'm also wondering if the battery times are for backlighting.  The clamshell design doesn't completly protect the screens, but it helps out majorly.  The real big thing for me is the amount of third party peripherals coming out for DS.  All the different cases and screen protectors and other hoopla coming out means that there is a chance for different gameplay perripherals.

[Munky]

I'm probably not going to get either right away, but I do want a PSP more than a DS. There's really nothing about the DS that just sticks out and interests me to where I must have a DS. The dual screen is a waste IMO, and I haven't read much about the games. Overall I like the look of the PSP a lot more than the DS.

[ruby_onix]

Screen Info:

With an ordinary NTSC television, the screen resolution is 480 pixels high (but without progressive scan, apparently only 1/2 of that is actually intended to be used), and the width... is a bit too complicated for me to try and figure out right now. However, the screen itself is laid out in a 4:3 ratio. That means that (however big the screen is) for every 4 "units" wide, it should be 3 units high.

"Widescreen" TV's use a 16:9 ratio, which basically means that they're almost twice as wide as they are tall. AFAIK, they have the same height resolution as a regular TV (480 pixels), but they have more width.

With the GameBoy Advance, Nintendo (not feeling bound by TV standards) put forward a "semi-widescreen" style that has a 3:2 ratio. The screen measures 61.2mm by 40.8mm. Measured diagonally, this is also called a "3 inch" screen. It's basically wider than a 4:3 TV, but not as wide as 16:9 widescreen. The screen resolution is 240 by 160 pixels. That height is 1/3 of the resolution of a TV, which (after compensating for the lack of progressive scan) is why the GameBoy Player games look perfectly fine on a TV when they're only using 2/3 of it's height.

With the Nintendo DS, Nintendo is sticking with the 3-inch 3:2 screens, but has bumped up the resolution to 256x192, and put in two of them, with one of them even being a touch screen. If one of these screens had been in the GBA, the GameBoy Player would have just about maxed out the width of the TV screen, without any need for zooming in.

For the PSP, Sony will be using the standard widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio. I've seen the screen called a "4.5-inch" (measured diagonally), but with a different ratio, it tough to say exactly how much bigger it is than the GBA's screen, physically speaking. If you're bored, algebra could tell you. Or you could just Google until you find the info online. The resolution is 480x272, which would mean that if you turned it 90 degrees, it would have more resolution (in either direction) than both DS screens (if they were stacked and combined).


Edit: While I'm at it, I should probably mention that the GBA SP was "front lit", meaning that (although the light itself was inside the unit) the lighting was in front of the liquid crystal display, and bounced off it, towards you, to make things visible. With both the DS and the PSP, we're moving into "back lit" screens, where the screen's pixels are like the little light-bulb pixels of your TV, and they generate their own colored light.

[Jdub03]

 Thats a hell of a lot of calculations ruby.  

[Nile Boogie]

I'm in the market for both because I truly belive they're 2 different systems. The PsP seems to be the logical evolution of the HandHeld Gaming Sytem. Does it bother me that it doesn't come from Nintendo, no not really, competiton is good for gamers. On the other hand The Ds is new and takes things in another direction. I belive this feature was left out of madden05. Vocie Audibles: call a play, look @ the shift in motion, hold the L Button and say "Shift Left Jet" and watch the D shift to a run stop.  Of course you could do this with button combos but voice activation tends to put you more into the game. Add that to "TwoView" and the "TouchView"( I got those from and upcoming FPS) and the possibilities and grand. You can't compare Graphics, whether the Ds is a super64 or a sloppy DreamCast, it can't compete with the PsP but I for one don't need it to. Sometimes we have to look under the surface to find true beauty. "The Ds is truly beautiful"!  

[Jdub03]

Are you excluding the use of full motion video(would that be considered using the 3d processor capability?).  It was just revealed that Metroid hunters has cutscenes that utilize both screens.  Also each has a different camera perspective.  

[Truthliesn1seyes]

I'm getting the DS for the same reason as many others, for the new experience.  The PSP I'll only buy if its released at 150 or less and if the battery life is reasonable, beyond that I wont touch it till I find it used or its discontinued.  There's really nothing that excites me about the PSP.  The DS has got my mind working in overtime of the possibilies that lie ahead that normal games just dont make as much as impact anymore ( on handhelds )  I see the DS becoming FPS, strategy, and RPG lovers dream machine.  FPS and RPGs are goin to get the most out of the system.  I cant wait

[mantidor]

not only FPS and RPGs, RTS will really be great since we have a touchscreen now.

Im planning to buy the DS simply because its most likely to be cheaper, even if the PSP reatails at $150, you still have to buy a memory card, and besides Im a devoted Nintendo fanboy ^_^

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Quote
Originally posted by: BlackNMild2k1
When and where did they announce the price of PSP?

I saw no press release.  Can you provide a link?

PS. The UMD is suppossed to hold >= 1 GB

At the recent Tokyo Game Show.  gc.advancedmn.com - they had full TGS coverage there, even with Nintendo's absence.

And as for munky, don't be surprised if you see a shadowy figure leaning over you tonight with a baseball bat.  It's just another one of those 50000th homer dreams, nothing more.

[animex]

DIE PS***P

[kirby_killer_dedede]

Quote
Originally posted by: animex
DIE PS***P

Partially Saturated Poop and Predominantly Sh*t 2 are brothers

TOUCH! Dingo Sh*t

[animex]

Quote
Originally posted by: kirby_killer_dedede

Quote
Originally posted by: animex
DIE PS***P

Partially Saturated Poop and Predominantly Sh*t 2 are brothers

TOUCH! Dingo Sh*t

U, DIE!

[kirby_killer_dedede]

lol I love the DS, don't get me wrong...

[animex]

k then <3

[Bloodworth]

I don't know where are the talk about only having 3D on one screen came from.  Pac n Roll had two screens displaying 3D, and this Spider Man game seems to do it too.

[Flames_of_chaos]

Well Bloodworth I think he was thinking 1 3D screen and 1 2D screen at a time because on how the demos where presented and how it was mostly 1 map screen/status screen which normally was in 2d and then you have your 3d game on the other screen.

[Gamefreak]

That's because the developers are lazy or haven't worked on a game long enough yet. There are plenty of games shown already with 3D on both screens (Spidey and Metroid, to name a few).

Not only that, but the DS section of nintendo.com specifically says each screen can render in 3D. Perhaps nintendo's wording isn't clear enough because most people seem to have taken that sentence to mean that while either screen can render in 3D only 1 can do it at any time. However if you know anything at all you'd know that is just really ludicrous. The screens have nothing to do with the 3D capabilities of a system. It's just a screen. It just shows what the CPU processes. Now the thing that matters are the CPU's, the ARM9 and ARM7. As you know the ARM7 is GBA and ARM9 is a new CPU. Now many people seem to think each have to be assigned to a screen but that's not how dual processors work. Why do you think some people put dual-CPU's in their PC's? Because they have two monitors running and need a CPU and GPU for each? Of course not. They just want more power. You can allocate processor power in any way you want.  

[Jdub03]

Nice clarification gamefreak.  It seems people are making up their own specifications as to what the ds can do intead of actually stating the facts.

[Ness_the_Mess]

Ok, on the record about the 3d thing; when I say that only one processer can do 3d, I'm right.  When you say there's 3d on both screens, you're right.  Since only ONE processer is doing the work for BOTH screens, we are BOTH right.  However, there cannot be two entirely different things happening on the two different screens in 3d at the same time.  


EDIT:

16:9    -    256+81 = 337  â€¦. Hypotenuse = root 337 = 18.35, approximately.

If the diagonal of the PSP is 4.5 inches, then the ratio of the PSP sizes in comparison to 16:9 is 4.5/18.35.

So the screen is 3.92 by 2.21 inches.

[ruby_onix]

Here's just a bit more info about the screens, that might make more sense to people than what I wrote earlier.

Apparently the maximum resolution that an NES could put out was 256x240. From what I've read, the SNES could put out double that amount, and was capable of 512x480, but supposedly "the vast majority" of SNES games only used 256x240.

So, with the DS's screens being able to display 256x192, it's just wide enough to match a basic TV. But since it's "semi-widescreen", it would still crop the top and bottom a little.

With the PSP's display of 480x272, it has more than enough height resolution to match a basic TV, and it's widescreen to boot. But, it's still not a match for the "high-res" capabilities of even something like a SNES.


Edit: About the CPU's of the DS.

There are two CPU's in the DS. One is an "ARM9", and is apparently the main muscle of the DS, and the other is an "ARM7", like what the GBA had, except that it's processor speed has supposedly been doubled.

If the DS is running seperate programs on each of it's two screens (some games might use the two screens together as one giant display), the logical (and likely to be the most common) setup would be to have one screen showing the results of the ARM9's program, and the other showing the results of the ARM7's program.

In that way, one screen will be showing the roughly N64-level graphics of the ARM9, while the other would be limited to graphics "twice as powerful as the GBA" (assuming that people get around to using the second screen for something other than a map or items screen).

However, it also seems possible that the DS could use the "twin CPU" setup combined (like most notoriously hard-to-work-on consoles) as one big CPU for even more impressive results, but their effects would likely be seen on only one screen (or one double-sized combined screen). Unless somone still wanted two programs to be running seperately on the two screens, at which point the "twin CPU" could multitask between the two, with currently-unknown performance results.