ookaze on 23 February 2007
Some PSP games are truly great. The technology is quite impressive as well (albeit somewhat fragile) and touch/dual screen aside, the PSP smokes the DS in the horsepower department. But, how does the rest of the world that don't name their offspring after videogame characters view the PSP? Versus the DS? They both are portable consoles, why the almost 2:1 difference?
I think that sums up the problem pretty well, that and this too :
Not everyone is "hardcore" - frequently, even people who buy technology (LCD TVs, PCs, and so on) are blissfully ignorant of what the hell they are buying. They aren't well-versed in jargon such as HDMI, 1080p/1080i/720p/480p/480i, don't know how to turn on their computers let alone troubleshoot them, and frankly, couldn't care less
Don't see the problem ? That's because you and most if not all "hardcore" gamers, have a mind locked in a bubble, thinking you know more and better than anybody else, and don't understand why people don't flock to what you see as being better.
So I must be "'hardcore" by your second definition. I know pretty well what technology I buy, I know of most of HDTV and how it works. Same for computers.
Heck, I made all my PC from components myself, I have my own Linux OS entirely made and compiled by myself from scratch, on every one of these PC, even my media center with MythTV. And yet, I don't own a HDTV yet. And I don't own one precisely because I'm "hardcore" and know pretty well that would be a waste of money.
I'm actually hardcore to the point that I don't understand people saying a console is good because it has power. I can't understand that, that makes no sense, as a console in itself is nothing interesting.
Actually, I think like japanese designers, that westerners (which I am) just lack "picture culture". Japanese people, by way of their written "letters" (kanji), have a very impressive "picture culture". Fortunately for me, I always understood that "picture culture" too. But most westerners can't. For example, if you say to a westerner that "live" animation (movies as you know them) are a subset of animation and the poorer one at that, they will look at you with a bland stare (it's less visible nowadays, as it's mixed more and more with computer generated animations, which allow much much more creative things).
Graphics whore are a manifestation of this fact.
And all this talk of horsepower is the same too. Basically, and that must be a pretty american thing, power means it should be better to them.
As such, I knew perfectly well why lots and lots of people said the PSP would crush the DS. This stupid trend of power (and everything 3D) started with the PS1.
They think 1080p itself should make better games than 480p. They just forgot that games are not the same as pictures. What is true about a photograph is not true for a game. I always used 1600x1200 resolution with a 21" monitor on my main PC, and yet, I could at the same time go play Ogre Battle on the SNES without even thinking about the image quality, thanks to this image/picture culture. The specs of the SNES weren't even remotely on my mind when playing it.
But when I hear some people talk, it seems like they could never do that without having a fit. First time I heard that kind of thinking, was at the time of 3DFX, with Tomb Raider. Someone told me that Tomb Raider was FAR better on the PC than on the PS1. It was my turn to look at him with a bland stare, especially when he showed to me what was better (textures, AA, ...) while he was playing it with his keyboard. I just couldn't understand this nonsense, and if you don't see what's wrong in what I just described, you're pretty burned too.
BTW, that's the same reason DS is outselling the PSP 2 to 1. Because when your wife or your less tech savvy friends see you playing the DS games, they're not scared away, they're attracted. And then you see people that were scared by consoles (especially after their scary experience with Windows), that go buy one.
These people never heard of "PSP = PS2". They don't even know what PS2 is precisely. You'd better tell them it's a console. Anyway, these kind of talks (PSP = PS2) don't reach their ears.
I'm 30+ and I don't own a PSP, but already have one DS and one DSL in the house, and I'm not the one playing them the most. And that's the case, not because I don't know the PSP is more powerful. But actually because I don't care AT ALL if the PSP is more powerful and has a bigger screen. What I want is the games.
Several things must be understood to get out of the bubble :
More power is always better when everything else is equal only.
Consoles are nothing, the games are what counts.
Value is not directly related to the power or price put on something.
