Soundwave said:
The 3DS is going to come nowhere close to DS' life time sales. The 3DS is doing great in only one market -- Japan, and that's because in Japan the gaming handheld has replaced the home console market basically. But that doesn't apply to anywhere else in the world. The guy who wants to play Call of Duty has a 50-inch screen and a PS3/XBox waiting for him at home to do that with, he's not going to spend $250 + $20-$80 for a memory card + $50 for a watered down CoD so he can carry a device the size of a brick around in his pocket all day. This is just stupid. Sony basically has created a device that primarily appeals to 12-14-year-old males (read: the Marcus demographic) who are going through their rebellious phase where they're "too cool" for a DS/Game Boy but not old enough to have a driver's license and go out party/hang out when they please. If Sony had any freaking vision left as an electronics pioneer they would look at today's cell phone and tablet experience and realize rather quickly that there's money to be made by engineering something that can discreetly do everything modern cell phones/tablets do but can also play a wide variety of "real games" sold at a reasonable price (the Xperia Play has no games, no marketing so that's a no-go to begin with). |
That's a fair argument. I certainly wouldn't object to the concept of a tablet that had great games and real controls. Although, I think the Vita's very similar to that already--it has the touchscreen and all of its games are downloadable (in addition to most PSP games). The only difference is that you have the option of buying the games at retail, and that the downloadable games are more expensive than apps, which is just a pricing issue.
Also, we agree that people don't want to buy a $250 handheld plus $50 game plus proprietary memory card. There is no reason for it not to have built-in storage and for the cartridge-based games not to come with space to save, and no handheld system in history has been very successful at that price. Regarding the actual games, things like Call of Duty are designed with consoles in mind. The reason people flock to Nintendo's handhelds is that they are centred around 'portable' games. It takes five minutes or less to run through a course in Mario, you can quickly catch one guy or beat one trainer in Pokemon. Sure the 3DS has meatier titles like Resident Evil and Kingdom Hearts, but even those are smaller in scale than their console counterparts, and designed with quick sessions in mind.
If Sony made the Vita cheaper and started giving it more games designed with 'pick up and play' in mind, I'm sure it would do much better.
