| nitekrawler1285 said: People are probably gonna think I'm crazy but I see the handheld market as being a tie dispite the 3DS 9 months to a year head start. I see the NGP releasing at 249 to 279 for the WiFi only version and 329 to 349 for the 3g enabled version. I know many think that I'm lowballing on the price but if you look at what it costs to manufacture smartphones it isn't all that big. There just seem to be huge markups. I think at 249 model may incur a miniscule loss at worst. If we have revisions like the PSP I see the manufacturing costs dropping swiftly. The PSP has major support from Japan. Given that no 3DS games seem to be lighting up the charts I don't forsee anything taking that support away(Even Zelda which is the closest thing to a killer app announced has a small release run in Japan). Western support for the NGP will be great. The system sits in a place powerwise that is great because it can be a third pillar to the PS360 multiplatforming strategy that 3rd parties do so love before Project Cafe comes along. This might prevent Project Cafe and PS4 from being relevant in Japan in much the way DS and PSP make Wii and PS3 mostly irrelevant in Japan already. Most importantly NGP will get Angry Birds and other iOS titles. Given that mobile software is maturing quickly and has quite a few surprise hits (Angry Birds, Tiny Wings, SB Sword and Sorcery. Cut the rope etc) this will be a great boon to NGP as well. These cheap and sometimes impressive ventures will add much value. These three things combine to give NGP really varied software choices. From console style $40 games to cheap $1-5 games and everything in between. Sony having so many studios will also help and many games that didn't pan out well on the PSP due to the lack of a second analog stick might be quite enjoyable now so those titles from the B teams mean more than they did on the PSP because they are now well controlled good experiences and not gimped experiences. The 3DS has a difficult battle ahead of it. It's current pricepoint is going to make even sure fire sellers like Nintendogs, Brain Training, and Animal Crossing slow down in the same manner PS3's high price seemed to cut off sales of R&C, SingStar etc. I dont see the people that payed $180 for a DS lite to play Nintendogs paying $290 for a 3DS to play Nintendogs plus cats. I see the handheld market being 160-240 million split 50/50 just about. Maybe even in Sony's favor if they can capitalize on having a just about never ending stream of content. |
Agree 100%. Especially about the 2nd analog being great for gaming. I hated how in Syphon Filter they mapped the aiming controls to the 4 face buttons. It was annoying how it worked and how took away the functionality of 4 buttons. The NGP should be pretty enjoyable to game on.
