Just had a thought. Considering what a huge success the DS has become for Nintendo we sometimes understate the impact of the psp as its competitor. My question is, what do you think the DS sales would be at the moment if the psp wasn't around to take away a bit of marketshare??

Please just give your thoughts about sales, not which console is better as they are both awesome!!

ps- Apologies if something similar has been posted recently but I haven't noticed it.

Although i think Sony kinda took the wrong direction with the PSP i'm glad it's here because a Nintendo monopoly or any monopoly for that matter isn't good for the industry. So without the PSP to drive DS developers to make innovative software, perhaps we would have been left playing the same games that were on the GBA and the DS would never have been as popular.

Don't think there would be any major difference then now actually.

Thank you for your thoughts, I think that both portables play a role in expanding the market and in a way compliment each other as they both have unique strengths.

The PSP was quite competitive when it first came out. If anything I think it forced Nintendo to develop more innovative software. I think the DS would have sold less if the PSP didn't exist.

Most? There are more than twice as many DS's sold than PSPs. If all 38 million PSP owners were also DS owners, there'd still be 43 million DS-only owners. And I'm pretty sure the percentage of people with multiple gaming systems is really small.  With consoles it's something like 3% or so.

If it wasn't for the PSP, the DS would've been at 90 or 100 million by now, and somehow have even more momentum than it does.

They both definitely expanded the handheld market though. How much did the GBA sell without competition?

Honestly, I think at least 50% of people bought a PSP solely because of the ease of playing downloaded games/music/ROMs. So that's 19 million that wouldn't buy a DS right there. Then there's probably at least 10 million of the remaining half that already own a DS, and there's bound to be some who won't buy a Nintendo product for whatever reason.

I'd say the DS would be 5 million ahead of where it is now, maximum, if there was no PSP.

Perhaps 10% higher... but not to the extent of the full PSP userbase.

I dont think that the DS would even exist if the PSP wouldent... Nintendo made the DS to be able to compete against Sony in a different way. Going head-to head wouldent have been a good decision, so they opted for something different, and it was a success. IMO if the PSP wouldent have been the market would be still ruled by a Game Boy ;)

The PSP has contributed at the high sales of DS for sure.