DS Lite trumps PSP


Nintendo's kickin' Sony in sales 

Mark Wilson of Gizmodo recently gave his two cents on why Sony’s PSP will never beat Nintendo’s mighty DS. He points out that while the PSP Slim enjoys its latest achievement of selling 2 million units in its first two months, the DS Lite has been a consistent top seller since 2005 with shops selling it like pancakes internationally. Total head-to-head sales of both mobile consoles clearly show the dominance of the DS over the PSP with Nintendo’s 40 million as opposed to Sony’s 25 million.

But what most consumers fail to realize (or maybe not) is the fact that these two companies have different approaches to the gaming industry. Aside from the price difference between the consoles from the two opposing camps and games, they also approach console development in different ways. Sony tries to enhance the gaming experience with  astounding graphics. Nintendo, on the other hand, tries to provide consumers with a whole new way of playing games with such innovations as the Wii and the dual-screened DS. This, to me, is the biggest distinction between the PSP and DS Lite which translates into the discrepancy in their sales.

How about you guys, which one do you think is really the king of mobile gaming?

Information and Links

Join the fray by commenting, tracking what others have to say, or linking to it from your blog.

Information
December 7th, 2007
5 Responses
Feeds and Links
Comment Feed
From This Author
Del.icio.us
Digg
Technorati
Categories
Game Consoles

Other Posts
MWH Sale: Great Gadgets at Great Prices
Windows Mobile 6.1

 


Write a Comment

Take a moment to comment and tell us what you think. Some basic HTML is allowed for formatting.

Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
chefnes
Posted on:
12/8/2007 at 8:16 pm

Agreed.
The nintendo DS is better than a PSP. We play games to enjoy, to have fun. What’s with Sony’s goal to enhance the visual capability of their systems? So what if they can present games as realistic as they could? I’d rather play an enjoying game than a cookie cutter FPS or another run of the mill fighting game on a PSP.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
drawde
Posted on:
12/10/2007 at 7:31 am

Its like comparing apple and oranges. Both are good that why I have both. Not all games are published on both handheld. But i love the battery life of DS. Wish PSP can extend it. My 3 year old niece loves DS, older guys loves PSP.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Gadget One
Posted on:
12/13/2007 at 2:47 pm

The argument that the DS is better then the PSP because Nintendo designed it for fun while the PSP was designed for graphics is a horrible argument.

I like my DS and the PSP but I’m rather sick of all the people who say DS is better for the gamers because of the innovative control of the touch screen. So far the only game I’ve fully enjoyed with the touchscreen is ouendan(awesome)and the P. Wright series. The rest? Fire Embelm, Advance Wars, Zelda, Castelvania all games which are more “traditional” in nature but somehow that has become a negative aspect?

I like playing tekken 5 DR/MGS portable ops on my PSP and it isn’t a possible game for the DS to do and its more then just the issue of graphics. There also plenty of great games on the PSP and saying its not fun or cookie cutter hasn’t played the games available on it.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
ixzel
Posted on:
1/5/2008 at 8:22 pm

Well, Nintendo gave a new innovation for gaming. It is fun because it is highly interactive, you do not just push buttons, you can point, scribble, slash enemies, talk, blow and many many many more. This another start for a new gaming experience and innovation, that’s why not a lot of highly interactive games have shown up, but they increasing very rapidly nowadays. Be prepared. You might throw your PSP someday.

Try Mario Party DS or Ninja Gaiden.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
=LoZ=
Posted on:
4/16/2008 at 12:36 pm

I would be one of the first to admit that I am a Nintendo Fanboy.

However, I must agree with Gadget One that saying that NDS was made for fun and PSP was made for graphics.

Both are Portable Game Consoles, so obviously with the word “game” both are made for fun.

What I believe pulls the NDS away from PSP in terms of sale is the target audience. The PSP has fun games like Patapon (which I am personally addicted to), unfortunately, the PSP’s game library is appealing to the Mid-core to Hard-core gamer. Furthermore the additional features are attractive to techies, and media freaks (please excuse the term).

The NDS, on the other hand, has a library that appeals to the Casual gamer all the way to the Hard-core (although not as much). Additionally, if you check around the net, the NDS is not used only for gaming but for a wide Variety of purposes such as teaching aids, amusement park guides, midi sequencers, etc.

Innovation. Versatility. Flexibility. Uniqueness. That’s what makes the NDS different, not better, just different. Which is what I love about Nintendo.

In other words, PSP’s 25 million sales were from gamers. NDS reached 40 million sales because the gamers had help from a lot of differnet social types in pulling the sales up, people not into it just for the games, but for the innovation.

It’s all about preference really. For example, here in the Philippines, Sony dominates the gaming scene as there is a huge audience of Hard-core gamers here (proof of which are the multitudes of Lan shops squeezzed all over the place). But in Japan, Nintendo is king because those crazy-minded Japanese (let’s face it, no one can think like the Japanese) utilize the NDS for a lot of other things than just playing.

Nintendo isn’t better, just different.