Sony's plan to usurp 3DS with their PSP2 revealed

[MaxwellGT2000]

thismeintiel said:

I think some people are highly overating the power of Nintendo franchises.  No amount of Mario or Link or Pokemon could save the fate of the N64 or the Gamecube, even if those games were good.  Nintendo has been able to dominate in the handheld business because not only have the games appealed to people, but because the HW did, too.  Before the DS was released,  Nintendo had dominated 2 handheld gens.  The closest anyone had came to them was Sega's Game Gear with 11 mil units shipped.  Now compare that with what Sony has pulled off, even with the hugely popular DS, 68 mil units shipped to date.  And when all is said and done, the PSP should sell at least as well as Nintendo's own GBA, ~80 mil.  That's pretty incredible for a company's first foray into handheld gaming against handheld gaming giant. 

Now, we have the NGP releasing this year.  Sony has carved out a good install base to sell potentially sell its new handheld to.  And if message boards are anything to go by, many are excited about the device and its capabilities.  Developers seem to be really excited about it, as well.  In other words, seeing as how people are excited by both the HW and SW of both devices, and NGP releasing around the holiday season, I think Nintendo is going to find that this time around it isn't going to be such an easy win.

 

NGP is releasing in Japan this year, not in America or Europe.  Message boards aren't the best indicator, since game sites, boards, and the like hyped up PSP for it to be outsold 3 to 1 by the DS after launch, and that was with the PSP having a shit ton of launch games and DS lacking.  

Also the GBAs life was cut short because of PSP, if Sony didn't go on the offensive with the PSP, the GBA would have probably lived for a couple more years when Nintendo felt it was time to go to the DS, GBA started it's life in 2001 in little over 3 years later the successor puts out it's flame, the PSP on the other hand has been out for 6 and given plenty of room to grow and finally getting to the point GBA is at? You know the console that was cut short and the shortest generation for any Nintendo handheld?  You're overestimating things me thinks.

NGP isn't doing anything really special the 3DS isn't doing literally the only things I can list is 3G (not on every model) and a backpanel touchpad.  The graphics aren't a quantum leap ahead of the 3DS (just the parts going into the NGP seem fairly pricey) and I read those NGP slides from GDC it said the cards for NGP would go up to 4GB... when the 3DS goes up to 8gb... limited space was one thing that killed a lot of PSP games, I really hope Sony isn't making the same mistake again there and that's just launch sizes.

In short I'm saying don't go all in just yet, PSP rode on the coattails of the PS2 with so many PS2 game ports (typically poor ports mind you), and NGP is Sony doing more of the same "hey know those home console games? Well play em on the go!" instead of being like handheld developers and saying "hey know those home console games? Forget them and play something that's fun for 5 minutes while you're on the subway going to school or work!" You have to design your portable with the portable mentality from games to handheld design.  Just being a home console just on the go isn't going to cut it, going for too much power and sacrificing battery isn't going to cut it, not having games that appeal to many audiences isn't going to cut it, and now the NGP isn't even got the backing the PSP had at the start.