There's a lot of developers that are upset with working on the iPhone because there's so many other games out there. How do you make your game stand out in a field of 50,000? Also not to mention that many games are sold at such a small price that some developers are finding it hard to really make a profit on many of them. Even if they want to price the game high due to higher development costs, they can't, because with so many cheap/free games out there they'd generate few sales. I'm not saying the iPhone isn't a competitor with the DS and PSP (I think it is, though right now in a more indirect sense), but there is a certain appeal to having one of the traditional handhelds and developing for one of the traditional handhelds, as well. The future will be interesting, however.

Yeah there aren't any killer apps on the iPhone OS it seems. I have a prepaid cellphone and I pay about $7/month and it's more than enough than I need for air time (I mainly use a landline telephone). So asking me to pay a fortune for a iPhone subscription plan is way out of the question. And the iPhone library isn't good enough to convince me to cough up at least $200 for a iPod Touch (and that's the entry-level version. 2nd Gen 8 GB with no voice control and no mic and remote on the earbuds).

Hypothetically if I had to choose between $200 for a iPod Touch and $170 for a PSP-3000, I would go for the PSP without question. The iPhone OS mostly has these small bite-sized casual games. It has a fully fledged Square-Enix jrpg coming out: Chaos Rings (made by Wild Arms devs) and that is awesome. But the DS and PSP have like how many jrpgs again? And the DS and PSP beat the iPhone OS in pretty much every other genre imaginable. One Square-Enix jrpg + a bunch of casual games does not justify a $200 iPod Touch purchase. What does the iPhone OS do game-wise that the PSP don't? (aside from touch controls? I already own a DS, that did touch control first!) You can sell an iPhone OS to heavy cell phone users who also want fun things to do on the side and you can sell an iPod Touch to people who want a swiss army knife of portable entertainment (music, audiobooks, tv episodes, movies, music videos, pda functions, games, whatever). But you can't sell an iPod Touch on the games alone.

That said the PSP is pretty respectable for non-gaming functions as well. The PSP and iPod Touch both have their benefits, it just depends on taste. If you are a gamer, the PSP is the surefire pick. If you only want to play casual games and care more about the non-gaming features, iPod Touch is better. The PSP can sell itself on its gaming. But the iPod Touch can't.

Maybe Apple should consider giving store fronts to developers. Help them stand out and have all of their hopefully quality product in one easy to browse area. Beyond that I doubt many of these small developers really understand the importance of advertising. That's probably whats hurting them more than anything.

I think I was kind of pissed off at something yesterday when I wrote that. the iPhone does have good games (I think I played Hero of Sparta and it was okay) its just so hard to play games with no physical buttons. You can only do so much with a touch screen.

I tried soem games on the Ipad at the Apple store in Wakiki, and it wasn't bad, but you're talking about $699 for the 32GB (of course $499 for 8GB isn't much better), and that's a waste. Also, the controls for the shooter I tried were really quirky as heck,and the racing game was kinda weird as well.

The iPod Touch is a media player first, App Store outlet second. There's still a broader market among general consumers for video and music media which is not likely to ever change. Having a player that is also a software platform (not just games) only adds to the value of the device in terms of it being something a consumer would be likely to keep on their person as opposed to a dedicated game player.

The DS is simply a game player with hacks that can be used to view sketchy quality media, but to the general consumer, it's just a game player; they're not going to research how they can get a non-supported feature to work on it.

The PSP really was marketed as a media player (considering SCE actively pushed a proprietary format that included published movies despite the format only being playable on a single device within the market) that happened to be a game platform as well although based on soft sales, quite a few consumers may have simply been using them as media players. I don't really buy that most PSP owners pirate games via Pandora hack despite acknowledging that ease of piracy has resulted in significant losses in soft sales for the platform.

But even if I used the PSP as a media player, I still wouldn't bring it with me anywhere, mainly due to the UMD format (meaning I have one UMD in the device since I'm not carrying a wallet full of disks like it's 1999) and because if I only have one device in my pocket, it's obviously going to be my phone. And as a device that is primarily a game player, the PSP would only be something for playing games for most people in the same situation.

Yes, it's a game platform and it does have its share of exclusive titles that aren't available on any other platform, but a handful of games still comes second to the amount of use most will get out of their iPhone. There's simply a bigger market for a phone/media player that is also a game device.

I honestly have to say I don't know anyone who carries a PSP with them all the time, but I do see a shit ton of people with iPhones.

Of course you do, it's a phone..

Lol...I read this and had to laugh.  I think it's a great point.

The issue here is quality versus quantity like darth already stated. Most teen age/ young adult people intested can tell the difference between blasterball on a touch screen and NSMB, MKDS, or PSP games. The people who would fall for number bending like this (Parents buying games for kids) are not going to buy a IPhone(or Touch) for there 3-10 year old.

I own an Iphone, the only games like on it are Blasterball, checkers, chess, bejeweled, and Suduko.

And this is why smartphones will win in the end...

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/28094/ComScore_US_Mobile_Gamer_Base_Declines_Smartphones_To_Pick_Up_Slack.php