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Soundwave on 04 October 2015
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Nem said:
Soundwave said:

What game was better for the PSP launch? That had a great launch in 2004 (sold actually better than the DS out of the gates). You wanna know why? No one had a freaking smartphone that could surf the internet, had a HD display, take/edit/post photos and video, had Facebook/Instagram/Twitter, could play games, play music, and do 50 other things in their pocket. 

In 2004/5, the extent of "entertainment" on a cell phone for most people was similar to this:

Maybe if you were real lucky your phone had some shitty version of one-handed Tetris on it. 

People forget now, but I remember even in 2004/5 when the first phones started to get a camera on them ... a crap 1.2 megapixel camera, how amazed people were at that idea. Or that pre-iPhone "iTunes" Motorola phone that could play like 15 songs, lol. People used to be amazed at that. 


I think no one is disputing the fact that casuals moved away, but the fact that Sony was incapable of tapping the gamer segment. The same segment that still buys 50m 3DS'.


I don't think it's just "casuals" that moved away. 14-30 year old males aren't "casual" gamers, but they are likely to be caught dead before buying a Vita.

I'm in that age group, all my friends had either a DS or a PSP last gen. I'm talking a good 12-13 friends of mine. This gen, not a single one has either. 

Why bother? A smartphone does 50 things and still plays OK games on top of it, a Vita/3DS can't compete with that and no one wants to carry around a fat second device just to play "hardcore" game experiences on. Especially not in the age of skinny jeans. 

3DS was better insulated to still maintain some marketshare because they can appeal to the traditional kids handheld market, but even that is now under siege from budget tablets, but at least early on the 3DS weathered that OK because a smartphone is a contract device and that's out of range for many kids and at least for a couple of years, tablets were expensive luxury electronics items. And in Japan, a lot of people basically use the handheld as their main "console", so Nintendo benefitted from that. 

In other words, if smartphones were a tsunami, then Sony was the guy who got stuck outside with no shelter, Nintendo at least was inside a shack. I'd rather be the guy inside the shack when that storm hits. You don't want to be either of them, but Nintendo was in the better position to weather the storm (some what).