Sony: "No clear competitor to NGP" Nintendo 3DS an "updated DS

[rocketpig]

Mr Khan said:

rocketpig said:

IMU1808 said:

"it's too big to fit into your pocket."

We have a problem...

I thought I was the only one who noticed this.

Oh well, I predicted the NGP would crash and burn the day it was announced. My stance hasn't changed on the product. Handheld gaming is a market of diminishing returns. Smartphones are crowding in on game space and unless you offer something completely different that is heavily reliant on your own first party offerings, I don't see the handheld making it for long.

I don't even see Nintendo doing that well in the handheld space this generation.

We can't say it's a market of diminishing returns. DS and PSP between them have made a market bigger than the entire console market was last generation, and bigger than the entire console market is this generation (though that may change as the consoles have varying amounts of life left in them). While 3DS and Vita may not achieve that level, it's way too soon to make that call. All we're seeing on the Handheld v. Smartphones front currently is the coincidental drop-offs of two devices late in their lives and the slow start of one device in its infancy vs a market that's finally starting to hit its stride and is less cyclically designed.

I don't think it's too early to make that call at all. These devices are competing (and losing) both on price and consumer headspace. It's 2011 and the name of the game is convergence. While the 3DS and NGP will be better gaming machines, they will NOT be better browsers, movie screens, app devices, and music players than iOS/Android devices.

And considering they're going to be priced $250-350 apiece with $40 games and will be directly competing with $50 iPhones and $400 Android tablets that straight-up kick their asses at everything other than gaming, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that the handheld market better figure out a different way of going about its business or it's going to slowly die away because casuals just don't care anymore and diehards are too small a population to support the massive development budgets for these $40 games.

I bought a 4.3" Android phone four months ago for $99. It does everything I need it to do and then some. Sure, I'd like a few better games for the thing but what it has holds me over when I need some quick game time. Next up, I'm going to buy a 10" Android 3.0 tablet for reading, browsing, and other non-laptop tasks. When I get around to picking one up by the end of the year, it will probably be about the same price as the NGP.

I cannot think of a single reason to buy either the 3DS or NGP. There are better devices out there for roughly the same amount of money. Nintendo and Sony need to stop pretending it's still 2004 because consumers know better. Most of them already carry the future in their pocket and call it a phone.