lol, Sony is afraid

[Eraser]

Words of Phil Harisson, executive vice-president for Sony:

"the idea of a handheld rivalry with Nintendo is an irrelevance. Those formats don’t appear in our planning. It's not a fair comparison; not fair on them, I should stress. That sounds arrogant, maybe, but it's the truth."

"Nintendo knows its target audience, because it has really narrowed that down; and it's pretty much defined by a boy or girl's ability to admire Pokémon."

Yeah, that's why the DS out-sells the PSP all over the world

I also never knew I liked pokemon. Glad this person pointed this out to me

[o'dium]

Heh, Sony trying to say the DS is all about Pkemon, when the only DS pkemon game available is Pokemon Rush, a RACING GAME.

The GBA/DS outsell the PSP because its just fun to play. The PSP is kinda like an "inbetween" console. Its graphics are better than the SP and DS, but the frame rate in most in really poor and the games, only a couple are REALLY good. The other are either shite, or "could of been better" (I'm pointing at you, MG:A)

The only good thing about the PSP is that yo ucan play homebrew stuff on it, but even THATS not good enough for sony and they are stopping you doing that now with 2.0...

I dunno, I own both, because i'm a geek, and i have to have the latest shit. But the truth is that i like the DS more than the PSP. Meh...

Plsu i think nintendo have said many many times now that the DS isn't going "against" the PSP, because its touch screen its a "gimmick". So in a sense, the GBA is still going against the PSP, thats its direct rival.

Lets wait and see what the GBA2 does. If nintendo have LISTENED to what we want, it will be a mini gamecube. Its not like they cost a lot to begin with :P

[Foo]

Yeah. There's no way the PSP and the DS aren't direct competitors. You only have to check a few online forums or chat to a few friends to see that people are trying to decide which one to go for.

Regardless of company belief, that's them directly competing for people's investment.

[MKJ]

way to overinterpret though

[Eraser]

Well I dunno anything about the PSP (other than that it's three quarters of a year late in europe and waaaay too expensive) but I find it rather silly that someone from Sony feels the need to be such an arrogant prick when

A - Nintendo outsells Sony in the handheld market. This makes Sony look like crybabies. Maybe Sony aren't, but this guy is Sony's executive vice-president.

B - Nintendo has been the least arrogant company of the triangle. They have been fair about most things. They don't come with rediculous claims like how their next-gen hardware will be a 100 times faster. I might be known as a Nintendo fanboy, but this generation's console war starts to look more and more like Sony and Microsoft beating each other with lead pipes on the head, fighting over that top dog position, while Nintendo walks by, whistling and doing actually far more interesting things than either other company has ever done. They might not be just as succesful as the other two companies, but at least they're actually thinking about things.

[o'dium]

Its a sad sad shame ninty doesn't do more for nintendo products in euro land...

Xbox and ps2 have walls of games, Cube gets like half a wall of all its stuff, if its lucky...

[Eraser]

Regardless of company belief, that's them directly competing for people's investment.

Yeah that's very true. I'm just worrying that eventually it will only backfire. Would people really want to stick to the company that's simply most arrogant? Microsoft succeeds with this in the PC business simply because there isn't a direct competitor. In the console market, I doubt a big mouth will be enough to survive.

The amount and type of absurd comments both companies have made about each other or their own products are dreadful and sometimes make me wish for the old times when games were like magic again and not everyone was on top of the latest recycled EA garbage.

Maybe it's exactly that feeling inside of me that makes me think so fondly of Nintendo. Not only do they have an impressive history that many people will think back of in a positive manner, but they also tap into that nostalgia feeling to this very day.

[o'dium]

Oh and heres something you may not know. Every christmas so far since the xbox ps2 and cube were released, Sony has "PAID" GAME to "ONLY" have PS2 bundles in the window. Hopefully this year it will change, but some stores like ours dont care and will put xbox in there as well.

[Eraser]

Its a sad sad shame ninty doesn't do more for nintendo products in euro land...

Xbox and ps2 have walls of games, Cube gets like half a wall of all its stuff, if its lucky...

It's upright disgusting how shitty Nintendo treats the European market. The number of commercials and the quality of those is horrible. I do have to admit though that the past year I've seen a lot more Nintendo commercials than before. The Metroid Prime 2 commercial was actually pretty cool.

I do think that Nintendo is going to be doing more and more effective marketing in the future. If they don't, then they're going down the gutter (so to speak, they still have a gazillion dollars in reserves so no problem there)

[Don Carlos]

Yeah, that's why the DS out-sells the PSP all over the world

Thats a lie actually...

[Eraser]

Yeah, that's why the DS out-sells the PSP all over the world

Thats a lie actually...

Certainly not in Japan it is not:

Nintendo DS = 80,945 units (50.61%)
Playstation 2 = 33,292 (20.82%)
PSP = 23,923 (14.96%)
GBA = (10.97%)
Gamecube = (2.48%)
XBox = (0.16%)

source

And I know for a fact the DS is outselling all other consoles in Europe as well, although at this moment, I do not have the figures to back it up.

edit:
and I have to admit that sales numbers don't mean a lot at this point. I mean, the Gamecube sold more than any other console ever before in the first week or so as well and look how it's doing against the PS2 now.

The only thing these figures prove is that statements about Nintendo not surviving the next generation are nonsense.

[saturn]

i dunno what's more funny, the Sony comment, or Eraser's anger

[Eraser]

i dunno what's more funny, the Sony comment, or Eraser's anger

I'm not angry, I'm just not sure that these kinds of statements do this business good. If I were to look seriously at that statement, it would only make me feel good, considering the DS sells more than the PS2 and PSP combined.

[saturn]

sony sold all its 500.000 PSP units the first month in japan, so hmm

[Eraser]

sony sold all its 500.000 PSP units the first month in japan, so hmm

Like I put in the edit of my post with the sales numbers, the gamecube outsold the PS2 and XBox in the first week of it's release as well, compared to the first-week-sales-figures of the PS2 and XBox. The Gamecube is far from the best selling console right now.

Sony may have sold a large number PSP's in Japan at the beginning, they certainly don't sell as many anymore at this point. Whether that's due to shortages or simply no interest from the consumer is irrelevant.

But if you wish to stick to numbers, then the 87,000 DS units were sold in the UK during the first two days after it's release. No other console, not even the PSP, managed to get such numbers.

[o'dium]

Pssstt, Eraser, thats because the PSP isn't out in the UK until Thursday...

[saturn]

honestly, I also think that the DS is a gimmick.

There's a PSP production shortage yeah, that's why they're pushing the release date in Europe.

[Geebs]

Pssstt, Eraser, thats because the PSP isn't out in the UK until Thursday...

It's in my local HMV right now.

[Foo]

I dont think the PSP will sell so well in the UK.

They've left it too late.

[Geebs]

A - Nintendo outsells Sony in the handheld market. This makes Sony look like crybabies. Maybe Sony aren't, but this guy is Sony's executive vice-president.

Amusingly, you could replace "sony" with "napster" and "nintendo" with "Apple" and you'd have, almost word-for-word, much of napster's whining about how the iTMS is completely blowing them away

[Geebs]

I dont think the PSP will sell so well in the UK.

They've left it too late.

I get the feeling that honestly, they're trying to market it with the wrong sorts of games. fps/immersion-style games, you really need a couch to support your festering corpse while you're playing

[Eraser]

honestly, I also think that the DS is a gimmick.

I think the number of straight-forward non-stylus using games available on the DS prove that it's not a gimmick.

Add to that the sheer brilliance of the stylus as an input device and you can be sure the touchscreen is no longer a gimmick. It's a solid replacement for the analogue stick and opens up a whole range of new possiblities. Look at a game like Yoshi Touch & Go or Meteos and you'll see how those games could never happen without a touch screen.

Two screens might be a bit of a gimmick, but considering one is a touch screen, I can see why they've done it. One large touch screen is a lot more expensive and, to be honest, doesn't allow for folding up (allowing the DS to fit easily in your coat pocket and protecting the screens). There's also a number of valid uses for two seperate screens.

There's a PSP production shortage yeah, that's why they're pushing the release date in Europe.

Shortage means they're not shifting units, which is going to hurt them in the long run. As the PSP's novelty wears off it doesn't get any closer to Europe than ordering them from importers, which isn't a mainstream distribution channel.

In fact, people considering a PSP but not getting one because there simply are none might even switch to buying a DS because those are widely available with an ever increasing games catalog. As people buy the DS, friends and family see the DS in action as well and will be tempted into buying it, while they can still only read about the PSP online.

[Geebs]

for touch screen gaming, I have a Palm

[saturn]

i've seen games on the DS, the stylus approach is nice but not enough to convince me to buy one. The whole unit looks/feels cheap and the games look old. I'd rather get a GBA or its successor.

that's my opinion

[Eraser]

for touch screen gaming, I have a Palm

Your palm doesn't do 3D graphics