It's well documented that Square Enix heavily supported handhelds in 2008, but it's also well documented that Square Enix are supporting the DS much more than they are the PSP.

Earlier in the year we wrote an article which revealed that 45% of Square Enix's titles that are currently in development, or have been released this generation, are on the Nintendo DS, where as this number was about 17% for the PSP. It's obvious to see why Square Enix would do this, since the userbase for the DS is so much higher than the PSP, but is it really a wise decision when the numbers are actually crunched?

For the purpose of this article, we will look purely at the original Final Fantasy titles which have been released on each of the handheld consoles. Titles such as the Final Fantasy Anniversary Edition have been excluded as they're just a port, whereas titles such as Final Fantasy III have been included as they were a complete remake. Taking this into consideration, we end up with 2 titles released for the PSP, and 6 titles released for the DS. The will look at the total number of units sold in the first week, and the total number of units sold in the game's lifetime. Since Dissidia has only been released in Japan, this analysis will only be based on Japanese data.


As you can see from the above graph, on average PSP titles sell more in their opening week, and also sell more overall in the game's lifecycle. However, while DS games don't come close for initial sales, they do sell more over time. It's interesting to note though, that the most successful DS title is better than the most successful PSP title. Even though Dissidia beat Crisis Core with its first week sales Final Fantasy III still managed to top that when it was released in August 2006.

To do a direct comparison of the two consoles, we can look at Final Fantasy Tactics. In 2007, Square Enix released two Final Fantasy Tactics titles, one on each console. The title on the PSP was a near direct port of Final Fantasy Tactics on the original Playstation, while the DS title was a new title. Up until now, they have both sold the same amount of units despite the DS having more than double the amount of consoles sold in Japan.

The big question is, if these DS games were released on the PSP, would they have done better? It's quite difficult to say, but compared to the two Dragon Quest remakes on the DS, apart from Final Fantasy III no other DS releases have even come anywhere near matching them in terms of sales, not even the Final Fantasy IV Remake. Dissidia on the other hand didn't fall short of their initial sales and it could get close in the long-term despite having nowhere near the same amount of consoles in the hands of users.

It will certainly be interesting to see how Final Fantasy Agito XIII performs when it is released this year for the PSP.

http://www.finalfantasyunion.com/news/final-fantasy-titles-do-better-on-psp-than-ds--94.html

yes?

No I dont think so, but they do perform very well in japan atleast.

FFXIII Agito is a numbered Final Fantasy title (Square Enix refuse to call it a spin-off) that's also a Monster Hunter Portable clone. It's going to sell a ton in Japan, may even outsell the FFXIII itself.

I'm more interested in Kingdom Hearts PSP vs. DS discussion - which will sell more?

not sure,

but on a personal level i'm more interested by KH:BBS because it deals with events that have barely been covered or touched on. Whereas with 358/2 and it's focus on Roxas and Org. XIII, I'm not as intrigued.

EDIT:I wonder if the period of release will have an effect though. The DS game is slated for the Spring and the PSP game is set to hit in the Summer.

Yeah, BBS is definitely more interesting to me as well. Speaking of 358/2, I wonder what's the reason behind the delay, Square Enix rarely delay when they give a firm date.

You can't compare those games just because they are all called Final Fantasy. If remakes of a game would have been released on both handhelds, such a comparison would be fair, but like this, you can't do it since the games are totally different.

On the other hand the DS titles are simple affairs, often simple remakes. PSP titles may be more successful because they cater to the strengths of Square-Enix (awesome presentation) but they are much more costly to produce, so the 45% vs. 17% number is meaningless. The number of people working on them would be far more interesting.

Also, a sample of 2 versus a sample of 6. Not very strong for statistical analysis.

Not hard to believe, i mean the PSP is getting new FF titles like Dissidia and Crisis Core meanwhile the DS got two remakes of previous titles. True, there in 3d but how many ports of Final Fantasy 4 are there? Not quite a fair comparison IMO.

"Up until now, they have both sold the same amount of units despite the DS having more than double the amount of consoles sold in Japan."

Attach rate is not valid, or else the Gamecube sold games better than the PS2.