By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Nintendo Discussion - What happened to "portable games for portable a console"

Tagged games:

Some of the indie titles coming out are what I would traditionally describe as a "portable" experience, as well as some of Square's more experimental/stylized RPGs. Switch can be home to both, and people see the potential for that. That's driving sales.

Doesn't hurt having around ten "Nintendo exclusives" in the first nine months of its life, two of which being mainline Mario and Zelda games.



Retro Tech Select - My Youtube channel. Covers throwback consumer electronics with a focus on "vid'ya games."

Latest Video: Top 12: Best Games on the N64 - Special Features, Episode 7

Around the Network
Turkish said:

It should be noted that the PSP sold more than the 3DS ever will. And yeah piracy killed it (and Sony never really being committed, saving PS3 was bigger priority). For a few years PSP was very competitive against the DS, even outselling it iirc, but then came the CFW.

PSP was a revolutionary device back in 2004. A widescreen LCD, PS2 like graphics, joystick, movie/mp3 player, internet browser, the XMB. Coming from a purple non-backlit gba it was crazy.

Bolded is not a fact.

PSP sold 81MM units.
3DS around 65MM and still has at least 2 more years of availability on the market. (including 2DS).
They still sell at $199 for XL versions. Nintendo has tons of margin and profit.

Sure, I expect 3DS support from Nintendo to dry up on 2018 as focus is 100% on Switch. But, that doesn't mean it won't continue to be markted and recieve various other games through 2019. Then you have the price drop off over those years which will continue to make it a good seller.

3DS can very easily match/exceed PSP lifetime.



superchunk said:
Turkish said:

It should be noted that the PSP sold more than the 3DS ever will. And yeah piracy killed it (and Sony never really being committed, saving PS3 was bigger priority). For a few years PSP was very competitive against the DS, even outselling it iirc, but then came the CFW.

PSP was a revolutionary device back in 2004. A widescreen LCD, PS2 like graphics, joystick, movie/mp3 player, internet browser, the XMB. Coming from a purple non-backlit gba it was crazy.

Bolded is not a fact.

PSP sold 81MM units.
3DS around 65MM and still has at least 2 more years of availability on the market. (including 2DS).
They still sell at $199 for XL versions. Nintendo has tons of margin and profit.

Sure, I expect 3DS support from Nintendo to dry up on 2018 as focus is 100% on Switch. But, that doesn't mean it won't continue to be markted and recieve various other games through 2019. Then you have the price drop off over those years which will continue to make it a good seller.

3DS can very easily match/exceed PSP lifetime.

A lot of 3rd party devs won't drop 3DS support for years. It's the last truly AA system, that costs under $10 million to develop a full fledged title for. 



This thread has taken a turn and I'm always cool with that. I want to ask a question:

Why is sales the barometer for success? I know profit margin information is harder to come by than raw sales figures but wouldn't a better gauge be how much a company spends on hardware, how much they make per unit sold, and how much they earn on software?

Take the PS3, for example. Looking at the sales, it would look like an indisputable success. However, (last I heard), I actually wound up costing Sony money. When comparing the 3DS and PSP (two consoles I absolutely LOVE, btw) which one made their parent company more money?

If you could choose there profits made from one or the other, which would you choose?



Agente42 said:
Turkish said:

It should be noted that the PSP sold more than the 3DS ever will. And yeah piracy killed it (and Sony never really being committed, saving PS3 was bigger priority). For a few years PSP was very competitive against the DS, even outselling it iirc, but then came the CFW.

PSP was a revolutionary device back in 2004. A widescreen LCD, PS2 like graphics, joystick, movie/mp3 player, internet browser, the XMB. Coming from a purple non-backlit gba it was crazy.

 

Piracy was present in DS as well, no problem. And Nintendo had the Wii to take care of too. It's an excuse. Ds crushes PSP on its merits. It's not Sony's fault entirely, competition was crucial. The DS was a better gaming device than the PSP, which reflects on long-term sales. Selling double and much more software, even suffering with a piracy equal or worse than the PSP suffered.

The only people I know/knew personally that had an original PSP used it for piracy. I have never known anyone who bought an NDS without using it as intended initially.



Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda Muda!!!!


Around the Network
Arminillo said:
Agente42 said:

 

Piracy was present in DS as well, no problem. And Nintendo had the Wii to take care of too. It's an excuse. Ds crushes PSP on its merits. It's not Sony's fault entirely, competition was crucial. The DS was a better gaming device than the PSP, which reflects on long-term sales. Selling double and much more software, even suffering with a piracy equal or worse than the PSP suffered.

The only people I know/knew personally that had an original PSP used it for piracy. I have never known anyone who bought an NDS without using it as intended initially.

Knowing is not statist term. 

This report is better than that.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=393317

 



StarDoor said:
Turkish said:

Hardware wise PSP was better, a generation better. And when it had Western support it was selling as good and even outselling the DS. There was nothing wrong with the hardware, it just lacked the games, both from Sony and 3rd party. DS piracy wasn't nearly as big an issue as on the PSP, getting pirated games on the DS was many times harder than on PSP, not to mention it came much later. Nintendo didn't have a console like PS3 and Bluray to save so I dunno why you brought up the Wii. Nintendo had the fortune to attract millions of non-gamers (which they lost a generation later), they were comfortable. Perhaps too comfortable as they ran into trouble later. The PSP did amazing considering it outsold or sold as much as any other Nintendo handheld, even the original Gameboy, if you dissect its total sales around 40 to 50 million of it is from the GBC.

PSP was a better handheld, and it had the better games in my opinion.

Bolded 1: Okay, what the hell are you talking about? PSP was never outselling DS. The closest it got was right after launch in 2005 when it sold 9.61 million versus the DS selling 10.99 million. But then the next year the DS started crushing it with 20.78 million versus the PSP at 9.49 million. PSP was never outselling DS. It was almost selling as well as DS at the very beginning of their lives, but that lasted less than a year.

Bolded 2: Yeah, and I guess DS Lite is the best selling video game console ever, once you dissect the 70 million PS2 Slims. Actually, that probably means that Wii sold more than PS2 as well, since the original Wii model sold around 90 million on its own before Wii mini came out.

Ah, mah bad, then I rememba vronk. But neither the PS2 nor the DS Lite are a console of its own like the Gameboy color, according to this list there are 100s of GBC only games https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_Boy_Color_games

So yeah GBC is a console of its own, and the top comment here explains that about 48M of GB sales are from the GBC https://www.reddit.com/r/nintendo/comments/54pivd/gameboy_color_sales/

superchunk said:
Turkish said:

It should be noted that the PSP sold more than the 3DS ever will. And yeah piracy killed it (and Sony never really being committed, saving PS3 was bigger priority). For a few years PSP was very competitive against the DS, even outselling it iirc, but then came the CFW.

PSP was a revolutionary device back in 2004. A widescreen LCD, PS2 like graphics, joystick, movie/mp3 player, internet browser, the XMB. Coming from a purple non-backlit gba it was crazy.

Bolded is not a fact.

PSP sold 81MM units.
3DS around 65MM and still has at least 2 more years of availability on the market. (including 2DS).
They still sell at $199 for XL versions. Nintendo has tons of margin and profit.

Sure, I expect 3DS support from Nintendo to dry up on 2018 as focus is 100% on Switch. But, that doesn't mean it won't continue to be markted and recieve various other games through 2019. Then you have the price drop off over those years which will continue to make it a good seller.

3DS can very easily match/exceed PSP lifetime.

After this year the 3DS will drop like a rock, I expect 3-4M at most next year, and then discontinued in 2019, except maybe Japan.

Also those PSP sales are horribly outdated me thinks, like 6 years outdated.



Cerebralbore101 said:
Does anybody remember what DS games originally sold for? I could have sworn they cost $30 back in the day, and not $40 like 3DS games. Also the DS was $129.00 back in 2005. That's $161.00 in today's money.

 

As I recall, the price ranged from $30 to $40. $30 for third party games, $35 for most first party titles, and $40 for the occasional high-capacity game. If I'm remembering correctly, $40 games weren't very common, and really only popped up later in the DS's life. So, not so dissimilar from 3DS's early software pricing, before bigger games on it became more common.



twintail said:
this reminds me of a guy who was adamant that he never wanted console experiences on his DS/ 3DS, and now has a switch and cant believe he can have console experiences on the go.

my impression is that there are enough nintendo fans who just flip flop a lot just because Nintendo decides to do something.

Oh I think I know that guy!

Was he the same guy who blasted Xbox for paid online and then paid Sony for the privilege? And the same dude that insisted 960p on Xbox One made no difference and then celebrated Xbox One X for being the most powerful console on the market? Man, that guy is everywhere!



twintail said:
this reminds me of a guy who was adamant that he never wanted console experiences on his DS/ 3DS, and now has a switch and cant believe he can have console experiences on the go.

my impression is that there are enough nintendo fans who just flip flop a lot just because Nintendo decides to do something.

I don't know who is that guy (if ever existed) but maybe that guy didn't wanted homeconsole experiences on his DS/3DS because those are not exactly great machines for that kind of experince in particular.