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Originally posted by: Ian Sane
Portable and console systems are different because they don't really compete with each other. The GBA is unaffected by the success of the PS2 and vice versa. When someone buys a PS2 there's a very good chance that they won't buy an Xbox or Cube. However they may still buy a GBA because it provides a completely different experience and they want to be able to play games on the go.
I couldn't disagree more. The money is still coming out of the same limited gaming budget for the vast majority of people, and there are a large number of people who own a GBA who don't own a PS2, Xbox, or Cube... the largest selling system is almost always the #2 system of choice for people with multiple systems who don't own it yet... that doesn't mean its an entirely seperate market.
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Plus it's inconsistent to count the GBA and declare Nintendo the winner because Sony treats the PS1 as an active system so thus you have to count ALL of the PSX/PS1 unit sales as part of Sony's total. You're probably thinking that we should still count N64s, etc. for Nintendo's side but those are no longer supported formats. You probably could argue the GBC as a current format but once you start counting ANY of these older systems it just gets f*cking ridiculous.
But the GBA is not "an older system" that's just marginally supported... it gets hundreds of titles every year. It gets more titles in a given year than the Cube, so if we're only going to count one or the other as the main system that is being supported, it should be the GBA.
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The bottom line is this: when deciding what console to support no third party considers the GBA or PS2 as competing consoles. Microsoft even has games released on the GBA (with THQ publishing) and they wouldn't if the GBA competed with the Xbox.
That doesn't mean they don't compete. When a third party plans on making a game that requires more horsepower than a PS2 can provide they only consider the Cube and the Xbox, that doesn't mean the PS2 doesn't compete with them.