DSes sold in the US since launch. 1.2 million in December 2004, over 3 million in 2005. PSP? 2.5 to 3 million, depending on who you ask. Added to the 5.2 million to 2.5 million lead in Japan (as of recently), and the DS is cleaning up the handheld race...
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6141751.html
Their total sales are somewhere around 12 million with Europe factored in.
3.6+ million in Europe, then?
3.6 million? I think your math is off a little bit.
4 million + 5.4 million + 2.6 million = 12 million
Yeah, right... not quite as good there then. Still, that's an incredibly successful console...
Nintendo lost on the console front, but is thankfully still king of the handhelds. As it should be. :D
That isn't true if you say handhelds are consoles! :)
Nintendo is doing so well with their DS and so many thought it would flop. It makes me wonder if the Revolution can mirror its success?
What really surprises me is how many million sellers Nintendo has achieved on their DS in such a short time. Has the PSP got even one million seller?
If you count up worldwide sales of Grand Theft Auto you might come up with one million, but I don't think it has a million-seller in any one region.
Why anyone would want to compete with Nintendo in the handheld market I will never understand, everything always fails. The closest thing in the market that was able to compete with the GB was the Game Gear and that's only because Nintendo didn't have a death grip on the market yet like they do now. The best any company can hope for in Nintendo's arena is to do what Nintendo's doing in the console arena, offer something different that will create its own catagory.
Sony should have sucked it up and released their first and second party stuff on Nintendo's handhelds just like MS does with Rare's games and others. It just makes more sense: Less work, less cost, larger demographic, higher returns. This is what happens when ego gets in the way of business.
I remember a few years ago when a MS rep was asked "Has Microsoft considered entering the handheld market? Can we expect an 'X-Pocket'?" and the rep replied, "Why on Earth would we do that?"
Genius.
Quote:Sony should have sucked it up and released their first and second party stuff on Nintendo's handhelds just like MS does with Rare's games and others.
The PSP may not being doing as well as the DS but it's still doing well. Several million units is nothing to scoff at. When and if the PSP ever drops in price then it will make its way into the mass market. It's just too expensive right now, as are the games.
The handheld market has alot of potential to grow but in order to do that there must be some different devices. The Gameboy and DS have found their respective audiences, and now the PSP with it's media functions is finding its own, too. Sony is a hardware company so it makes sense they would want a device of their own on the market.
Sony, though, is really pushing their UMD movies, and I'll bet they make more money off those movies than they do off games for the PSP. For Sony even if the game aspect of the PSP isn't a success as long as they keep selling movies in their UMD format they'll stay in the "race." For any other company there really isn't much incentive to try and enter the portable market.
I think the big question is once the PS3 and Revolution hit will developers, and more importantly Sony, be able to continue to support the PSP at a high enough level to make sure it can compete with the DS? Next-generation games are going to be expensive to make and PSP games already relatively expensive to make, while on the other hand, DS games are relatively inexpensive to make.
Isn't that already an issue? I mean, I know I've already heard that the upcoming PSP lineup isn't that great... Sony made this system, but their first-party (or Sony-funded) software support is somewhat lacking, and that doesn't look like it's changing. So Sony tries to come up with the excuse that 'it's a multimedia device', and push movies... but how will that help it as what it actually is, a game console? People will buy PSP because it's Sony and because it has great graphics and stuff, but Sony isn't exactly doing a great job supporting it... but yes, it is tough when you have to split your resources. The GBA has always been much cheaper to develop for, so you can get away with small teams and little money, and the DS still has far lower costs than major consoles, but PSP... yeah...
Notice how many classic game remakes are coming out on the thing? :) (I know DS has a few, but not as many...)
There are some good PSP games coming up next year, but it'll definitely be interesting to see what happens after the PS3 launch.
A lot of those games are almost exactly the same as games we've already played before on the PS2 or PSX. I'm not against that but when almost all of you're big games are home consoles ports/sequels/remakes, there's a problem. We're seeing this with the DS too, of course, but we're also getting a lot of new series as well.
You make it sound like the movie and music playback was just tacked on, ABF. The PSP has been a multimedia device since it was announced. What other reason is there for UMD's? Why else is there a slick little interface for managing all your media, or the support for memory sticks? Web browsing? It's all there. It certainly qualifies as more than a simple game handheld.
Sony makes money off those UMD and memory stick sales, or did you forget that they make that stuff?
But it's a game system! Sony wants to pretend that it is more (the "Playstation 2 Computer Entertainment System"?), but at its core, it's a videogame system. It's not doing a good enough job of that.
Quote:A lot of those games are almost exactly the same as games we've already played before on the PS2 or PSX. I'm not against that but when almost all of you're big games are home consoles ports/sequels/remakes, there's a problem. We're seeing this with the DS too, of course, but we're also getting a lot of new series as well.
Yes, Sony doesn't understand that people want different kinds of games on handhelds... the whole system design shows that, and the games on it are consistent with the theme. Handhelds are different kinds of consoles that work best with somewhat different games... ones generally designed to be played for shorter amounts of time, really... Nintendo understands the handheld market. Sony doesn't really.