Editorial - D00M3D Part 3: The PSP will Pwnz0r the handheld market!!!! Nintendo is teh D00M3D!!!!!
An editorial by
Sam Altersitz published on 8.19.2004
This is the newest part of the continuing series of editorials discussing the "Nintendo is teh D00M3D!!!!" articles. This one is slightly different, however, as instead of looking at one particular article, I am looking at the PSP and it's attempt to enter (and in some people's minds, dominate) the handheld market. To do so, I show off some of the problems the PSP currently faces in its entrance to the handheld market.
This article is in response not just to the newsgroup or message board posts all accross the Internet that proclaim the PSP as the clear winner in the handheld market, despite the fact that it is not even released yet; but also to the multiude of game sites and magazines proclaiming the PSP as not only handheld of show at E3, but also proclaiming how much it will pwnz0r in the handheld market. Despite the fact that they were unable to play any games at E3, since there were none to play.
So, enjoy the editorial, and remember to send any correspondence to our Mailbag, or discuss it on our forums.
Also, don't forget to check out the previous articles in this series, if you haven't already. Since I'm such a nice guy, I've convieniently put the links here for you.
Introduction
Article 1: Time Magazine
While Nintendo has seen a drastic lowering of market share in the console market since the release of the PlayStation by Sony, Nintendo’s handheld market share has remained as close to 100% as you can get without actually being 100%. And the only reason that Nintendo doesn’t own 100% of the handheld market is because there is some slight market share given to the WonderSwan Color/Crystal over in Japan.
Enter Sony, again. Now the multinational electronics conglomerate is planning on entering the handheld gaming market with it’s aptly named PSP, or PlayStation Portable.
Since the announcement of the PSP, people have speculated; conjuring thoughts of Sony dominating the handheld market like they were able to come and do in the console market. Thoughts that the PSP will be the final nail in the coffin for Nintendo, according to PlayStation fanbois. Thoughts that the PSP will be some major innovation in handheld gaming. Thoughts that the PSP will be the best thing since sliced bread in the handheld market.
To these thoughts, I ask, where’s the proof? What puts Sony in the same position that they were in when they entered the console market?
Has Sony worked with Nintendo and had Nintendo pull out on a handheld machine, like what happened with the PSOne? No. Is Sony entering a market where there are two large players, one of which has seen some floundering (Sega) recently? No. Is Sony coming in to a market where they can seem to make gaming ‘cool’ and not just for ‘geeks’ or ‘dweebs’, like before? No. Is Sony able to market a game that used to be exclusive to Nintendo consoles and publish it themselves (
FF VII)? No.
So, let’s see. We’ve already removed the four main reasons Sony was able to take over the console market: working with Nintendo and having Nintendo pull out (thus using Nintendo’s knowledge of the console market against them); entering the market and being up against two players each with around 50% market share and one making major mistakes (and it can be argued that Nintendo sticking with carts for the N64 was also a major mistake, but that happened after the PSOne was released); and able to market gaming as being cool, when most people wouldn’t admit to gaming outside of their closest friends; and the getting of
Final Fantasy VII as exclusive and publishing it themselves for Square.
When it comes to the PSP, Sony has none of the deciding factors that helped them achieve dominance in the console market. None. Zero. Zilch. The only concrete thing, at this point, that Sony has, is brand recognition with the PlayStation name.
I’ve seen some things written after E3 this year, where the authors proclaim the PSP as the next great handheld. In fact, just about the only other multi platform place I’ve seen so far, that didn’t proclaim the PSP handheld of show (over both the GBA and the Nintendo DS, as well as obviously over the N-Gage and N-Gage QD), was G4TechTV’s X-Play. Pretty much every other place I have checked for E3 awards from different sites, mags, etc., has proclaimed the PSP as the handheld to get.
I gotta ask these people who gave the awards: So, how exactly can they proclaim this for the PSP when there wasn’t a single playable game on the thing at E3? Was there some magical crystal ball in which they were able to see into the future and play games that will eventually be released on it? Was there some way to gauge battery life; being as all of the PSP mock up units were running off of AC power? Have they seen into the future and know the price of the PSP and its games? I know I didn’t get to see any of these things while I was at E3... maybe I just wasn’t in the right place at the right time.
You know, I just am unsure, at the present time, how Sony will surely take over the handheld market at this point, like many are predicting. Let’s look at some major issues surrounding the PSP at the moment, and then I’ll let you make your own decisions.
Price
The most important factor in any gaming system, next to games, is the price of the unit and its games.
While Kurtaragi talked a lot about the PSP, and showed a lot of snippets of videos taken from PC workstations for PSP games, a
Spider-Man 2 movie trailer, and a part of the Incubus video for the song “Megalomaniac” at Sony’s E3 press conference... he sort of ran off stage without a single syllable uttered about the price of the PSP. No mention at all.
Not surprising, though, since the last Japanese price that I saw listed equated to around $425.00 US. The 48,000 Yen price that has been quoted for the Japanese market for the PSP, when converted to US Dollars this morning (08/18/04) is $438.57. That’s almost three PlayStation 2 consoles you could buy for the price of one PSP. Also, there was no mention of the price of PSP disks, either. So we don’t know how much for music, movie, or game disks when the unit finally does launch.
Now, it could be argued that Sony simply didn’t want to speculate on price just to have to raise or lower it at a later date from incorrect information given out at this year’s E3. Or it could also be argued that Sony didn’t want to kill the PSP hype early by announcing a possible price of $300 or more.
Let’s face it. Not many people would spend a lot of money on a handheld, no matter who makes it. Not Nintendo, not Sony, not Microsoft. Nokia saw this firsthand with the release of the N-Gage at $300 and it’s lackluster sales. Granted, we don’t know what price Sony will release the PSP at, but it is already going to be competing with a $100 GBA SP and the most likely $180-$200 Nintendo DS.
We also have to remember that Sony has stated they want to break even or make a profit off of the hardware sales of the PSP, which dims the hopes of a low price point. P.J. McNealy, an analyst with American Technology Research stated "I think it's going to be in the $299-$349 range. Keep in mind that [Sony Computer Entertainment president and CEO Ken] Kutaragi has maintained that they want to break even on the hardware."
It’s hard to imagine the multifunction PSP coming out below $200, though, and $300 or more isn’t a far fetch for all the functions the PSP is currently offering. When this is compunded with Sony not wanting to make the PSP a loss leader in the handheld market, the hope of a lower price fades even further.
And this doesn't even include the price of Sony's Memory Sticks (discussed further down).
Battery Life
Another important issue to look at in handhelds is battery life. After all, who wants to have a handheld that they can’t take anywhere because it dies 10 minutes after powering up? No one I know.
Now, when it came to battery life for the PSP, we were given a pretty vague amount of time. In fact, we were given three different times that corresponded to the types of modes that the PSP can do. These modes would be movies, music and game playing. The times given were ‘comparable to other handheld systems’ for playing games-- or about 8-10 hours if Sony can make the battery last that long; around 4 hours for listening to music disks; and around 2 and a half hours when playing movies.
Differing times aside, this question on the battery life is going to be a major hurdle for Sony when entering the handheld market. It also shows the difficulties of having a moving media (mini-DVD type) and keeping battery life high. Games don’t always need the disks to move, hence the potentially longer battery life (unless the game requires the disk to spin constantly for streaming features). Music presumably won’t use the screen that much, but will spin the disk pretty much all the time, hence the reduced battery life. And, finally, the spinning of the disk at all times plus the use of the screen helps explain why the battery life is so craptacular for playing movies.
The GBA/SP already has a battery life of between 8-12 hours (depending on the use of the light), so the PSP is going to have to compete with that, let alone if Nintendo can get the DS to have the same battery life as the GBA/SP (Nintendo has been quoted saying they are trying to get the DS’ battery life as close to, if not equal with the battery life of the GBA/SP). Frankly, I can’t see the PSP doing well if it’s battery life is crap. After all, a handheld you can’t take with you for a good amount of time, or need to have plugged in all the time to play, isn’t much of a portable gaming system.
Battery life has always been a strong point when it comes to Nintendo handhelds. Every handheld that has gone up against Nintendo handhelds have always had better tech specs, but the battery life has been crap compared to the GameBoy line, and that has helped to lead to their demise in the handheld market. If Sony falls into the same trap with battery life as the other competitors of the GameBoy line have, don’t expect the PSP to do well beyond Sony fanbois.
Durability
Let’s face it, handhelds are designed for use on the go. As a passenger on a long car/bus ride; on a plane; on the subway; out at a family gathering you’d rather not be at; etc. While it can be argued that the original GBA might have had problems with the screen in terms of scratching, and such, the SP version fixed that with the clamshell design that protects the screen and the D-pad and face buttons.
And let’s admit it, the PSP has got one very nice screen on it. The visuals are sharp, and clear, and brightly colored; and the size of the screen means the 3D graphics come through in beautiful detail. Unfortunately, there’s no protection for the screen on the PSP that we know of. The models at E3 had no covers for the screen, and we do not know if there will be a removable cover on the PSP at this time. Without some sort of protection, that beautiful screen of the PSP’s is going to get mangled with scratches, or worse yet, broken, pretty quickly. And for those that might think the following pictures you may have seen shows a screen cover, it is, in fact, the back of the unit (click for larger pics).
A broken screen on the PSP is going to be something of a bit of a disaster. As would, most likely, the possible breakage of the analog nub on the lower left side of the unit. Again, there is no sort of protection (that we know of) for this, either. Like the screen, there is a chance this could break due to moving around in a backpack, being thrown into a pocket that can hold it with other things in it (if it will fit, it is larger than the original GBA), and being subjected to stress.
The main D-pad and buttons should be safe,though, just like the original GBA. They seem durable enough and they shouldn't be affected too much by any sort of unintentional roughhousing the PSP may experience during transports.
There is also the concern that falls and impacts may damage the moving media drive and/or the laser for the UMDs the PSP will use. Frankly, this is a concern mainly because of all the problems the PlayStation 2 has had with the “Disc Read Errors” over the years, and from units that haven’t been dropped, and just sit there next to TVs.
Honestly, I’ve noticed a sharp decline in Sony’s hardware quality over the past decade or so. My Sony 5 disk changer from 15 years ago still works great, and has no problems at all. But, my PSOne (before they called it the PSOne) ended up needing to be upside down after only six months of owning, or it wouldn’t read disks. My PS2 died about a year ago, after only a year and a half of not even what would be considered higher than normal use. I’ve had Sony Discmans die on me within a year or two as well.
I can’t say I have high hopes that Sony’s quality assurance will go up drastically for the PSP.
The GBA/SP, by comparison, is built to withstand impacts, and can actually withstand somewhat hard impacts with no damage to the unit or screen. The original GBA might have a problem with the screen scratching/breaking, but I haven’t heard too many complaints about that since it was released. But the GBA/SP’s clamshell design definitely protects the screen when shut, as well.
Which brings us to the next part...
Size
Click for larger pics.
I’ve decided to show some of the pics I took of the PSP at E3 again, so that you can have some idea of the size of the PSP. It’s not small, in fact, it’s larger than the original GBA by a few centimeters. This is related to the durability in the fact that the size of the PSP might make it hard to carry around in your pocket. This means you can’t really throw it in your pocket too often, unless you have cargo pants on a lot. To fix this problem you could carry a back pack or a fanny pack around, or you could carry your PSP around on one of these...
Click for larger pic.
A rather large, and quite unflattering lanyard made of hard plastic that allows you to carry your PSP on your neck, and depending on your height, it could fall to your mid section or your crotch where you’ll kick it around with every step. It also won't help your image, especially with members of the opposite sex, to be walking around with a PSP hanging down at your stomach as you walk.
Click for larger pic.
Now, you might be thinking that the people in that pic look all hip and cool carrying their PSPs around on the lanyards... but remember, folks, this is a publicity photo. These are models, not your average everyday gamer. And, honestly, do you think that the guy on the right
really looks cool with his powder blue PSP and lanyard? Yeah, right. The only reason he’d be able to meet and/or pick up people (hey, we’ll not assume he’s straight, it’s discriminatory) while wearing a PSP like that would be because he is a male model. And I think we all know that 99.999999999% of us gamers don’t fall into the male/female model appearance category.
Also notice the female model on the left is wearing pants with big pockets, she wouldn’t need a lanyard as much. But with regular types of pants, with normal jeans, or khakis and such, you’ll either need a bag or the lanyard to carry the PSP around, unless you want to carry it in your hand the entire time.
By contrast, the current GBA/SP easily fits in normal pockets thanks to it’s compact design. The DS might be a little big for normal pockets, but we haven’t seen a final model up close yet to tell. The model at E3 looked like it would fit easily enough in a pocket, and maybe just be a little thick in your pocket, but the new design looks slimmer, if not slightly wider than the E3 prototype models.
The Coolness Factor
We all know that with the PSOne, Sony brought gaming out of the niche, ‘geek’ market that it was in until that point, and brought it to the mainstream; and the PS2 continued this.
However, the PSP really doesn’t have the same ability, really. Nintendo has sold over 21 million GBA and GBA/SPs (combined, not each) in the US alone, since its launch. And, at the rate of sales up until E3, Nintendo expects to have 25 million units sold in the US alone, if not more, by the time the PSP launches in North America next year.
To put it mildly, with sales like that in the US alone-- and even greater worldwide-- handheld gaming has already come to the mainstream.
Sony is attempting to capture the 18-25 market with the PSP, though. But, at least 1/3 of all GBA owners in the US alone are over the age of 18. That’s over 7 million people in the US alone. Add in the rest of the world, and the number just goes up.
Remember, Nokia tried to target the same market with the N-Gage... but that has all but flopped in the market. Simply trying to aim for one demographic hasn’t worked for Nokia, and it is unlikely it will work for Sony with the PSP. Trying to target one age group doesn’t seem to work in the same way in the handheld market as it can in the console market.
Handheld gamers are of all ages, and just trying to get the late teen to early twenties market with sports and racing games and games with M ratings is simply not enough to get a foothold in the handheld market. Handheld gaming is an entirely different beast than the console market.
There are times handheld gamers want quick fixes, as is evident by how well
WarioWare, Inc.: Mega MicroGame$! has done. It’s quick pick up and play for a few minutes style appeals to some handheld gamers, in a big way. Other handheld gamers want long, involved games, like
Fire Emblem,
Golden Sun, or
Advance Wars. These games eschew time and strategy to play through and beat.
And let’s not forget how well
Tetris has done over the years on the GameBoy, either.
In some ways, the handheld market is much more of a casual gamer’s market, and in some ways it can be much more of a hardcore gamer’s market. There’s no set demographic that comes out to the forefront when it comes to handheld gamers.
The GameBoy Advance has all sorts of games, spanning all genres and all ratings as well. Trying to focus on one or two ratings or too few genres is simply not the way to go in the handheld market that we currently have. A good mix of genres and ratings is what is needed to have a successful handheld.
Saving games?
The PSP is going to use a new optical disk format, based off of the Digital Versatile Disk (DVD) format, which Sony is calling Universal Media Disks, or UMDs for short. As we know with the current and past disk based systems, there is no way to save your games directly onto the media. Thus we have memory cards and/or hard disks to save our games to on our consoles.
The optical disk format for the PSP means that owners will also need to buy memory for their PSP in order to save games. That, or every game will need to rely on passwords for save games (huge hassle, not worth it). Being as Sony has already announced that the PSP will be Memory Stick compatible, it looks like there’s some extra cost involved in storage for saved games, as is shown in the picture below with a 32 MB Sony Memory Stick, PSP, and a UMD disk (click for larger picture).
Sony Memory Sticks were initially available in units as small as 4 MB, but I do not know if they are still sold in that small of a size. 32 MB seems to be the smallest I have found for sale, and range in price between US $30-$40 (depending on retailer and sale prices), with prices going up from there for larger Memory Stick capacities. Depending on the price of the games for the PSP, owners could be spending as much or more than the price of a game for the Memory Stick size they want for saving games (if the PSP supports the large size Memory Sticks, that is, we do not have information that says it does or does not, so we are assuming that it will support larger capacity Memory Sticks than the pictured 32 MB).
Of course, the advantage of having this Memory Stick compatibility comes in the ability to use those to store music (presumably) that owners wish to play on your PSP; which should, theoretically, allow for a longer battery life if using the PSP for a music player.
GameBoy (GB, GBC, GBA, GBA/SP) games, however, have two modes of saving/continuing. Some use a password system for continuing games (which, is a hassle), but more use an internal battery and RAM to save games within the game itself. This cuts down on costs to end users in that they do not need to buy another medium for storing game saves. We currently do not know how the Nintendo DS will save games. It may have part of the Flash cart the games are on writable for save games, it may rely on passwords, or you may need a memory card-type add on as well (although I find this last one unlikely); we simply don't have enough information yet to know.
The Next Big Handheld?
As I stated, a multitude of gaming sites and/or magazines (not counting Sony specific ones) proclaimed the PSP the next big handheld after E3. Magazines like EGM held a vote among editors and had the PSP win out over the Nintendo DS as the next big handheld. and a multitude of other sites proclaimed the PSP the ‘winner’ over the Nintendo DS as well.
Not counting the points I made in this article so far (price, battery life, durability, size, carrying it around, bringing handheld gaming to the masses, and money for memory to save games), I seriously have to wonder how the editors of the sites and magazines could give the PSP the nod over the Nintendo DS, or especially the GameBoy Advance. And I wonder because of one major thing:
there were NO playable games on the PSP at E3, while there were playable games on both the Nintendo DS and the GameBoy Advance.
The only interactive demos on the PSP at E3 were in
Metal Gear Acid (moving the camera...WOO HOO! such a playable experience!) and a role-playing game which I forget the name of where you could run around a small town and talk to a few of the residents (man, such exciting game play!), no dungeon crawling or monster fighting at all. Hell, you couldn’t even pause, rewind, or fast forward through the movie trailers or Incubus video on the units showing them that you could touch; the buttons were all disabled on those units.
Conversely, the GameBoy Advance had tons of playable game demos. And the Nintendo DS, even though it was using tech demos for its presentation, at least they were PLAYABLE tech demos.
Metroid Prime: Hunters was playable, and there were 4 machines playing it over the wireless LAN; a
Pokemon/Pikachu game was playable; a
Gundam game was playable; a
Sonic game was playable; a
Wario game was playable;
Mario 64x4 was playable; and a
Pac Man game was playable. Even the
PictoChat app, which may or may not be something people use, was interactive; with four units able to chat to each other.
So, even to an outsider, I should think it would seem that being able to play games on something should be better than not being able to play games on something.
Compare running around and fragging friends or people you don’t know on
Metroid Prime: Hunters to moving the camera around in
Metal Gear Acid and tell me which sounds like it would be better. Tell me if playing a bunch of
Wario mini games sounds more fun than talking to a few people in a village with nothing else to do. Tell me if making
Sonic run a race is more fun than not being able to manipulate anything happening in a movie trailer or music video. Does playing music for or drawing Pikachu sound more fun than... oh, wait, you couldn’t do anything else with the PSP at E3; and there were all the other playable demos on the Nintendo DS as well.
So how do these multi platform sites and magazines do their deciding? If it has Sony as the manufacturer and the PlayStation name on it, it automatically rules; even if you can’t do squat on the hardware that is anywhere near fun? That seems to be how it looks to me. Without the base knowledge of price, battery life, and durability, as well as the other points I brought up, the mere fact that nothing was playable should have disqualified the PSP from the running; especially since Nintendo had 2 handhelds playable, and Nokia’s N-Gage QD was playable as well as TapWave’s Zodiac.
In fact, after looking through some of the award articles, I seem to have found the reason so many chose the PSP as handheld of show: it looks sleek and sexy. Way to go, guys. Judging a book by its cover much? Good thing we got to play so much on it, eh? Since, ya know, looks mean everything and games take a back seat to what the handheld looks like. And we wonder why there are so many graphics and spec whores as gamers? Good job perpetuating the cycle. Remember the reason you chose the PSP over every other handheld the next time you mention it’s all about the games, so you can look hypocrisy in the face.
With all the other playable handhelds at the show, it really does appear that having the words ‘Sony’ and ‘PlayStation’ on it, it must R0xx0r and will pwnz0r the handheld market. That’s what almost everyone else seems to use as their logic. I guess mine must be faulty. In my logic, sleek and sexy plus PlayStation name plus Sony name plus no playable games does not equal best handheld of show. It equates to a good looking piece of hardware from Sony that I couldn't really do anything on at the show to judge it for its games.
Anyone who thinks I’m saying the PSP is going to utterly fail has the wrong idea. I don’t think that the PSP will be a failure, and it could do quite well for itself in the handheld market. However, I do think that those who think the PSP will simply come in and dominate are living in a fantasy world. As of right now, there are simply too many unanswered questions about the PSP at the present moment, and still a long time until it comes out, in either Japan or North America.
The price, for both the PSP itself and its games, could be a huge factor; and it still is one of the largest unanswered questions. Battery life is as well. And these are questions Sony is not willing to answer at the present time. These factors, along with the games released for the PSP, will be a major force in deciding how well the PSP will do in the handheld market.
As we’ve seen in the past, technical specs mean little in the handheld market. The domination of the GameBoy line of handhelds has been fought in spite of 9 competitors, all with better technical specs. So given the fact that the PSP is actually slightly more powerful than the PS2 (the core CPU is 33 MHz faster than the PS2), this doesn’t automatically give the PSP the advantage in the handheld market, like some seem to think. Nor does the Sony name or the PlayStation name give the PSP an automatic advantage in the handheld market.
In the end, until we know the answers to these questions, the only clear winner in the handheld market is the GameBoy Advance, right now. Not the Nintendo DS, not the PSP. The GBA. The GBA has the track record, the games, and the known value as a handheld device. Both the DS and the PSP have to work at getting consumer trust. The DS might have an easier time, though, being backwards compatible with the GBA.
We’ll have to wait and see.
