PSP and DS now out - pick your pony

Cafe Society
1

Well the PSP was released today, and from the looks of it at the store I visited today, it has a hefty array of games launching with it. More than the DS has out right now, and it’s been out since November.

So now I wonder which one will take the lead. I don’t think one will neccesarily deliver a crushing blow to the other, but I believe one will be more popular than the other in the long run.

DS is innovative by incorporating two screens, one with touch screen functionality, making for some interesting and unique games. Also, from my experiences, the battery life is pretty damn good. On the downside, it’s been out for 5 months now, and still only has around 10 games designed specifically for it, even though the GBA library is also at your fingertips.

The PSP, on the other hand, has a bigger screen, though it still only has one. Apparently it also allows you to play music and movies(?). The complaints I’ve heard about it so far, though are that the battery life is very short, and the button closest to the screen has a tendancy to stick. From what I’ve heard, this is due to the size of the screen, and the developer refused to fix this, saying that it would take away from the experience. Also, the PSP is much pricer, costing you $250 (plus, you need a memory card which will cost you more).

I’m hoping the DS will win out since I’ve already shelled out the $150 for it. I also have a feeling more people will like the two screen design better than the one big one that we’ve seen everywhere else. What does your gut tell you? Which is going to become more popular?

2

I’m a DS fan, and I do hope it wins, however, I must concede that the PSP looks pretty damn sweet. But thing it, I can play most of PSP’s games at home on a bigger TV with better graphics and sound.

On the contrary, the DS offers new gaming experiences. However, as the OP mentioned, the amount of worth while games for the DS is still low. Hopefully that’ll turn around.

Anyways, regardless of anyone’s thoughts on the matter, this will surely be an interesting duel, as both are worthy opponents.

3

I picked up my shiny new PSP yesterday. I looked into the DS, but was turned off by what appears to be a pretty slim selection of games.

And speaking of games - I was on the fence on whether I needed a PSP until I started reading about “Lumines.” I love puzzle games anyway, and this one is from the creator of two of my old favorites, Space Channel 5 and Rez.

Anyway, I’m very impressed with the PSP. It just feels like a quality piece of hardware. I’m not really seeing the button problem that you mentioned, and I’ve heard conflicting reports on whether whatever that problem was has been corrected for the North American release.

The fact that you can play movies is kind of cool, but I can’t see it being a big feature for most people. I know I’m not going to buy two copies of every movie I pick up so I can have one for the PSP. The launch batch comes with one of the Spiderman movies to show off the playback, and I admit that it’s pretty freaking awesome.

It’s cool though that you can copy movie files to the PSP’s memory stick. I just have the 32 MB stick it came with in there now, but once I get my 1GB stick, I’ll be able to load this sucker up. You can use apps like PSP Video9 to encode files correctly for the PSP, or you can download files that are already in the correct format from PSP Connect (not that there will likely be anything of interest there, but it’s a good place to test out the functionality).

You can copy MP3s to the PSP as well and play them on the go, but it’s a pretty standard setup. Nothing that’ll threaten my precious iPod anytime soon.

It also has a photo gallery option that’s pretty cool. You can organize pictures by folder and flip through 'em manually or slideshow style. I’ve been experimenting with various text>jpeg converters trying to find a good one to transfer documents into PSP-sized pictures so I can read posts from here and TWoP on my PSP when I’m stuck somewhere waiting around. I used to do this with my iPod, but I loves that big beautiful PSP screen. :smiley: Rumor has it that there will eventually be functionality to read documents on the PSP without the trickery, so I’m excited about that if it’s true. I’ve read that they’re contemplating a news download type feature too, so let’s hope there’s some truth to that. :slight_smile:

Anyway, the most important thing for me personally is the games. I love a good puzzle game, and there are going to be three available within the next couple weeks. There’s Lumines that I already mentioned, one called Mercury, and another called Smartbomb, the latter two of which look very very cool. After I saw the videos for these three games and found out there will be a Final Fantasy game available eventually, I was sold. :wink:

I’m looking forward to checking out the multiplayer as well. Almost all of the launch games have some multiplayer aspect to them, and there are (I think) five titles currently playable over the internet (MLB, NHL, ATV Offroad, Twisted Metal, and NBA I think). The PSP communicates wirelessly with other PSPs around it or through your wireless router out to the internet. I need to get my brother over here to try it out. My wife isn’t interested and my daughter is a little too young (three weeks and two days old).

Anyway, I think the DS is pretty cool, but I was definitely wowed more by the PSP. I think it’s a great little device. And considering its “cool” factor (every geek I know is lusting over it), good selection of games, additional functionality, and eventual interfacing with the PS3 I think the PSP is going to be tremendously successful.

And now if you’ll excuse me, my daughter has decided it’s time for her 1:00 AM scream. :smiley:

4

Here’s my comparison:

Screen: The DS has two, but that’s mostly a gimmick, and it doesn’t look like developers are going to take advantage of it. The DS also has a touch screen, and I thought it wasn’t necessary, but when I play the PSP I kind of miss it. The PSP has one screen but it’s bigger and more beautiful than the DS’s. The DS folds up when not in use to protect the screens, while the PSP’s is unguarded and requires an (included) case.

Battery life: DS has a longer battery life I hear, which isn’t that much to begin with.

Controls: I absolutely despise the PSP’s analog stick, and I recently wrote an OP about it here. I’ve always hated the Playstation’s 4 button style d-pad as well. The DS has a touch screen which offers neat game innovations and pretty decent analog emulation. I think the DS has much better controls.

Games: Frankly, they both have a poor selection at this point. Nintendo always tries new stuff though, which is a plus for me. Too early to tell, really.

Functionality: The PSP can play MP3s, but I think anyone who’s has the slightest interest in that has bought an iPod by now. It also plays movies, but I could care less. The DS just does games and wireless chat, which is refreshingly simple and non-pretentious.

Eh, I dunno. If the PSP didn’t have a crappy analog stick I’d like it more. So far I like the DS more, mostly because of that.

5

Don’t forget that the DS also has Wi-Fi functionality, too. It can currenty communciate with other DS’s, and it wouldn’t take much more for it to interface with your computer, or a router.

Really, I think the main problem with the DS is it was released without all of its functionality being utilized. Hopefully, developers will take advantage of its potential fully soon, before the PSP trumps it, though.

6

Actually, online was confirmed just last week for the DS, though we won’t start seeing game utilize this feature until 3rd and 4th quarter of this year.

7

I don’t buy hardware at release. Ever. I wait for at least one price drop.

That having been said, I’m leaning towards the DS. Right now, the only PSP game I’m interested in is Darkstalkers Chronicle; which is essentially all of the Darkstalker games in one. And Final Fantasy: Advent Children is a movie, which will also be released on DVD. On the other hand, the DS has two games out now I’m interested in: Wario Ware and XX:XY. There’s also a few interesting games in the pipeline, including the first American release of the Hanjuku Heroes series.

8

I sold my GBA on Ebay years ago because I viewing the screen was difficult under anything but the best circumstances. I’m no fan boy and I think that competetion is good for us consumers. Nintendo has dominated the handheld market for at least the past 15 years so it’s nice to see someone seriously breathing down their necks. Not because I hate Nintendo but because it’s good for all of us.

Marc

9

Did you have the original GBA? Or the SP? Many people complained of the lack of backlight on the original design, prompting Nintendo to release a brand new design a year or two later, complete with backlight (and alot more compact). The DS’s screens are a bit bigger, and backlit.

10

DS

I’m extremely frustrated by both of them. DS for the lack of games, but everything available and in the pipeline for PSP makes me yawn upon mention. There’s never been a game for any Playstation system that has interested me much, but Nintendo consistently wows me.

11

I happen to have both – here’s what I think:

I saw a keynote presentation by Nintendo’s President Mr. Iwata at the 2005 GDC, where he discussed upccoming games for the DS as well as other plans Nintendo has. Then I tried the DS and Wario Ware on the expo floor, and I was immediately sold.

The DS’s interface is so flexible and easy to use – I loved Wario Ware on Gameboy Advance, and I love it more on the DS. The way both the touch screen and microphone have been used in Wario Ware is really impressive – it’s novel, so that might be contributing to why it’s so fun, but the input system seems really varied.

More exciting though, Nintendo apparently intends to be very experimental with games for the DS. There’s a game called Electroplankton coming out, which is essentially a collection of sound experiments. You can remix oldschool Nintendo music in one ‘mode’, and record your own sounds to be played back as part of a rhythm in another. In the title mode, you can organize plankton who make little noises in an order that depends on their position on the screen. Pitch changes as the plankton grow.

The DS is an interesting system, and the way that Nintendo is exploring the limits of it, and focusing on innovative gameplay and experimentation rather than simply re-hashing exisiting concepts is a really great idea (and I wish it would spread to the rest of the gaming industry).
My PSP was won as part of an award, and arrived a day before the N.A. launch – it has a few dead pixels and an irregularity on the plastic covering the screen, and it unfortunately didn’t come with any games (the DS came with a demo of Metroid). But aside from that, it looks beautiful – it’s design is slick, and the screen is huge. I really liked the way the analog control felt when I moved it around – it almost feels like it moves farther than it should, intriguingly. But so far I can only turn it on and set up the system (which doesn’t provide a very good indication of what the PSP can do). I think I’d buy Wipeout, and maybe Lumines, but that’s it so far.

It may have more games than the DS does right now, but there are about the same number of games for each system that look like they’re really worth playing.

I think both systems have potential in terms of what they can do aside from being a game system – the inclusion of Wi-Fi on both is especially cool for multiplayer, and for connectivity to other systems. The only disappointment is having acquired these things so early in their lives – there’s so little out there for either platform right now!
Anyway I vote for the DS.

12

I’ve played with both of them briefly. The DS struck me as cool, but large. The screens are relatively small for the size of the unit. And the quality of the images is okay but not great.

The PSP, on the other hand, took my breath away. The screen is huge and high-quality, and the unit itself is physically less imposing.

I think that both will succeed in the market, but I think that the PSP will outsell the DS by a fairly considerable margin. The crossover potential of it is not its ability to play MP3s (although that’s a good thing) but its ability to play movies. As the co-worker who let me play with his PSP said “The screen on this is better than any portable DVD player I’ve seen.” I don’t think movies on UMD are the killer app, but I think movies converted and dropped onto Memory Stick will be.

It’ll be interesting. I think the DS will produce more innovative games, but the PSP will have higher production values.

Plus, the PSP just looks cooler.

13

Can somebody post a legend of some type? Contextually, I’m getting the impression that you’re talking about video game platforms, but I’m horn-swoggled if I know what PSP and DS are.

I suspect that GBA stands for Game Boy Advanced.

14

GBA - (Nintendo) Game Boy Advance
DS - Nintendo DS (Developer System)
PSP - (Sony) PlayStation Portable

15

whoops – I forgot to include half:

DS - Nintendo DS (Developer’s System, Dual Screen)

( :smack: )

16

I went by Toys 'R Us to look at the PSP, but all they had were boxes; needless to say, I wasn’t quite ready to plunk down $250 just to play-test the console. :wink: But I admit I was sorely tempted to get one right there…

Instead, I went online and got a Nintendo DS instead. :smiley: But it’s a gift for a relative, so I won’t get to play that, either. :frowning:

17

RJ, my advice to you: do not handle the PSP. You will instantly desire one with a burning passion. It’s better not to know, really. I was a happier man before I had held one in my hands and seen the screen for myself.

Unless, of course, you actually have the wherewithal and permission to buy one. In which case, g’head. Handle it. Just don’t blame me if you then want one.

18

What? Nobody votes for the Nokia N-Gage?

(Yeah, I’ve got nothin’. I’ve got a modified GBA that has a backlight, which I prefer to the Gameboy SP, but that’s it.)

19

Does anyone know if the North American PSP fixes the “accidentally eject the disc if you flex it too much” the initial units had?

20

Even though I don’t play games much anymore, I would definitely have to spring for the PSP if I had a choice. Being into consumer hacks is what sells it for me. Short battery life? Make a usb (or whatever else) battery. Have to buy two movies so one plays on the PSP? I’m almost positive you could jerry-rig a system up where you could PNP a DVD player.

Plus, I’m a diehard fan of Playstation. Through N64 and the latest models, PS is the way I swing.