Quote:While it is cartridge-based, it will definitely not be like current GBA cartridges. It's a thin card which presumbably slips into the unit somehow.

Quote:Nintendo's got game for newest challenge
Longtime market leader responds as its competitors develop multifunction hand-held devices that also play music or movies

By Steven L. Kent
Special to the Tribune
Published January 31, 2004

Nintendo's Game Boy may have finally met its match.

After 15 years and more than 150 million of the hand-held gaming systems sold worldwide, a new challenge is coming from a company that knows the portable game market better than anybody--Nintendo.


Japan's Nintendo Co. said this month that it will introduce a new hand-held game system--temporarily known as the Nintendo DS, short for "double screen"--this year.

The new product, which will not replace the popular Game Boy, is seen as a counterattack by Nintendo to protect its core market as other companies, including archrival Sony Corp., try to break into the field.

"A lot of people are throwing their hats in the ring," said John Taylor, a video game industry analyst with Arcadia Investment Corp. Like most industry watchers, he views Sony's PSP, a mini-DVD-based system that executives say will play movies and music, as the rival system to watch.

"Sony has slowly been building the infrastructure in the sense of getting the game community up and going," he said.

Unlike Game Boy, but similar to the multifunctionality of the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS also will play movies.

The Sony PSP--short for PlayStation Portable--is expected to be released this year. Sony's PlayStation 2 is the leading console-based gaming system.

Sony is not the only challenger eager to topple Nintendo from the top of the hand-held gaming market.

Also due this year is a multimedia-rich hand-held gaming device called Gametrac from Jacksonville-Fla.-based Tiger Telematics Inc.

Activity in the hand-held category accelerated last year when Finland's Nokia released the N-Gage, a combination cell phone, MP3 player and game system. Also, California electronics firm Tapwave Inc. released Zodiac, a personal digital assistant and game system.

Why all the excitement about hand-held games?

According to the NPD Group, which tracks retail sales, Nintendo has sold more than 20 million Game Boy Advance systems in the North American market since releasing it in 2001.

That means that three times as many Americans own the newest Game Boy than either Nintendo's GameCube or Microsoft's Xbox consoles.

The PlayStation 2 market is larger but not by much. According to the most recent numbers, Sony has sold about 22.5 million PlayStation 2 consoles in North America.

Another reason for entry: The risks of making portable games are shrinking.

Game publishers like THQ, Capcom and Atari, which typically spend $5 million to $10 million to create a console game, can create a Game Boy title for less than $1 million.

They also can release stripped-down versions of console hits for portable systems. Activision, for instance, has released its popular "Tony Hawk's Pro Skater" game for Game Boy Advance, N-Gage and Zodiac.

With PlayStation 2 dominating the console market, and Microsoft and Nintendo battling for second place, Nintendo's unchallenged hold on the hand-held market is tempting.

But shaking Nintendo's grip on hand-helds is easier said than done.

Several companies--including Atari, SNK, NEC, Sega and Tiger Electronics--have failed to carve out a niche for a game device.

Even Nokia, the worldwide leader in cell phone sales, hasn't made much headway. Nokia has sold about 25,000 N-Gage systems, according to one source, a number that looks miniscule when compared with 8.1 million Game Boy Advance systems sold in the last year.

For Sony, which has a keen track record for introducing new gaming devices, the PSP launch may not be so smooth.

"There have been some recent news reports that either because of the complexity of the PSP or because of costs or because of their desire to do a global launch, that it's going to happen later in 2004 than we had hoped," said Taylor.

"There's also been some press coverage that the opening price point is going to be considerably higher than what we thought," which could be about $350, he said.

Sony Corp. has not announced pricing nor a launch date for the PSP. A company spokesperson declined to comment further.

When N-Gage and Zodiac rolled out at $299, some analysts said they priced themselves out of the market. By comparison, Game Boy Advance retails for $69, and Game Boy Advance SP, with a front-lighted screen, sells for $99.

But the additional processing power and memory needed to make these new devices multifunctional, including telephony and PDA capabilities, cost money.

Executives at Tiger Telematics see Gametrac, which should retail for about $200, as a compromise: It will offer more power than a Game Boy and is less expensive than the N-Gage.

Along with playing video games, Gametrac, which uses the Windows CE operating system, can function as a global positioning system device, play MP3 files and handle text messaging. And like N-Gage, Gametrac can download games from the Web and play games stored on memory cards.

"There is not a lot of competition that is multifunctional," said Mike Carrender, chief executive of Tiger Telematics. And "we can enter the market sooner and establish our product before PSP comes out."

In the race to win video game consumers, however, being first to offer new wrinkles does not guarantee success. Just ask executives at Atari, Sega, and SNK, all of which beat Nintendo to market with color game systems.

- - -

A litany of the fallen

Here are some of the hand-held game systems released to compete with Game Boy between 1989 and 1999.

Neo Geo Pocket Color

Manufacturer: SNK

Released: 1999

Strengths: Small size; good brand recognition among gamers; decent library

Weaknesses: Little to differentiate it against Game Boy, which had a huge library of games

Game.com

Manufacturer: Tiger Electronics

Released: 1997

Strengths: Multifunctional device offered games and some PDA functionality; Tiger released a modem but didn't support it

Weaknesses: Slow processor; lackluster library of games

Virtual Boy

Manufacturer: Nintendo

Released: 1995

Strengths: Showed games in vivid 3-D

Weaknesses: Clumsy visor that required user to sit at a table; tiny library of mostly bad games

Nomad

Manufacturer: Sega

Released: 1995

Strengths: A portable Sega Genesis that could play Genesis cartridges and could be used on its own or hooked up to a television

Weaknesses: Pillaged power at the rate of six AA batteries every 45 to 120 minutes

Game Gear

Manufacturer: Sega

Released: 1990

Strengths: Color graphics (Game Boy was monochrome then); backlighted screen; Sega name

Weaknesses: Pillaged batteries; limited library of games

TurboExpress

Manufacturer: NEC

Released: 1990

Strengths: Color graphics; backlighted screen; played TurboGrafx console games

Weaknesses: Pillaged batteries; games were dying in the market

Lynx

Manufacturer: Atari

Released: 1989

Strengths: Wonderfully clear, backlighted color screen

Weaknesses: Cost twice as much as Nintendo's "new" Game Boy; pillaged batteries; limited library of games; very little retailer and publisher support

-- Steven L. Kent

A Black Falcon Wrote:It is absolutely true though, so no more is needed...

Quote:The PSP isn't just a game device of course - it's designed as a portable media system, and Sony will be pushing for music and movies to also be released in UMD format. Movies on UMD will retail at a price "less than a DVD", which is just as well when you consider that UMD discs will almost certainly not be able to store video of the same quality as DVDs. Music may also be released on UMD at prices lower than normal CD prices.

In a move obviously designed to help get the movie studios on board, the device will support region coding for movies, but there's no word as yet on whether this will also apply to games. Deering specifically mentioned movies when talking about region codes, and went out of his way to point out that there would be no differences between devices in PAL and NTSC regions, so it may be that region coding is being dropped entirely for games on the system.