DS's surprising start...

[mustang2k5]

I do not think Nintendo even in their wildest dreams thought the DS would have this much success. I can remember Satura Iwata (or whatever; the CEO/President of Nintendo) saying something like Nintendo would be happy if only 1 gamer out of a handful liked the DS concept when they first discussed it. I think they have did more than that ....already.

I think Sony is surprised as well. This marks the first time since Sony entered the video game hardware market that Nintendo beat Sony in releasing their hardware (PS1 was almost a year before N64 and PS2 was about a year before GC). Nintendo has maintained they could beat Sony if they could beat them to the market. This is their chance. Sony will not be able to build hype by underproducing like they did for the PS2. They will have tobring many units to launch or Nintendo may trounce the PSP.

Sony also seems to be taking the Xbox method of selling PSPs(ie, losing loads of money on each system). Also, if they lower the prices of their games (currently 49.99 on ebgames.com) they will cut their profits. Nintendo reportedly produces their game cards rather cheaply while Sony's UMDs on the PSP cost more.

I would love to see Nintendo beat Sony FOR ONCE! I do think, however, that Sony entering the portable market may have made Nintendo step it up a notch. This should be good for all of us game players. I think this is Nintendo's best chance to beat Sony, and if they do well here, maybe they can carry it over to the console market. Now, back to Mario 64 DS!

Agreed. With Sony losing money (and profit, for that matter) with every PSP, and the fact that Nintendo beat them to the market, shows a significant increase in competetiveness from Nintendo. Let the handheld wars... begin.

[mustang2k5]

If Nintendo beats Sony, Sony will lose a lot of its swagger. Nintendo, as I stated before, has always stated that Sony only sold more consoles because Sony beat the to the market. Sony has just kind of laughed it off. Lets pretend the PSP gets off to a slow start. That will get into Sony's head, and they may lose focus on the PSP (not good for the PSP and its owners) and try to rush in the PS3 to beat Nintendo to the market.

Also, it is one thing to have successful home console on the market, but it is another to have a successful home console and successful portable console on the market. It will be interesting to see if Sony can be successful with both as well as Nintendo has.

For the first time in the so called 'System Wars,' Sony is behind and has an uphill battle.

Let us all take a moment of silence for Sony... Eheh, not really. If Nintendo can beat Sony to the makret with a completely awesome console, Sony better head for the hills (lol).

[P4NC4K3Z]

i hope the nintendo revolution totally owns the ps3...then sony will have to go back and make BETTER products with high quality...and slowly creep back to the gaming side

[x999x]

Originally Posted by mustang2k5

I do not think Nintendo even in their wildest dreams thought the DS would have this much success. I can remember Satura Iwata (or whatever; the CEO/President of Nintendo) saying something like Nintendo would be happy if only 1 gamer out of a handful liked the DS concept when they first discussed it. I think they have did more than that ....already.

I think Sony is surprised as well. This marks the first time since Sony entered the video game hardware market that Nintendo beat Sony in releasing their hardware (PS1 was almost a year before N64 and PS2 was about a year before GC). Nintendo has maintained they could beat Sony if they could beat them to the market. This is their chance. Sony will not be able to build hype by underproducing like they did for the PS2. They will have tobring many units to launch or Nintendo may trounce the PSP.

Sony also seems to be taking the Xbox method of selling PSPs(ie, losing loads of money on each system). Also, if they lower the prices of their games (currently 49.99 on ebgames.com) they will cut their profits. Nintendo reportedly produces their game cards rather cheaply while Sony's UMDs on the PSP cost more.

I would love to see Nintendo beat Sony FOR ONCE! I do think, however, that Sony entering the portable market may have made Nintendo step it up a notch. This should be good for all of us game players. I think this is Nintendo's best chance to beat Sony, and if they do well here, maybe they can carry it over to the console market. Now, back to Mario 64 DS!

Very intersting, but I think it's a little understated. I'll try to adress some of the good points you bring up.

Firstly, Ninty have been very aggressive with the DS' launch. Mr.Iwata has gone on record saying that the big N will not lose the handheld war. I don't think a 100+ year old company is suprised by the marketshare they've captured, it was part of their strategy all along, afterall, this is a bonified war.

The PS1 was only first to market as a 32 bit system because Nintendo faultered on their deal with Sony to create a CD addon for the SNES. Sony took what they had developed, and essentially added their own OS to suffice the SNES' role in the partnership. Nintendo unwittingly did this to themselves, and gave Sony the marketing advantage it needed.

I wouldn't neccessarily say the PS2 was purposely made in limited quantities to create a higher demand. All that does is drive up prices on ebay... It takes units in peoples hands to drive the software market, which as you know, is where the actual profit is. Less software moving off the shelves means less profit for everyone simply trying to recoup dev costs, and quite possibly backlash some smaller devs into delaying games until they've recoupped enough profits to invest into their next game. Unhappy devs lead to fewer onboard third parties, and for Sony, that's a very big problem since they have no mascott, or franchises that they have produced as a first party developer similar to Nintendo. Nintendo currently has more onboard developers than PSP. Userbase and production costs are just some of the reasons why. DS games are cheap to produce as you've stated thanks to new flashrom technolgy. These chips are stacked onto eachother in two layers, and can only be written to once. You can find them in kids toys like the Juice Box video player, and the Megaman/Pokemon chip battle systems.

Nintendo have never lost, they've always been winning. If you consider the fact that most of Ninty's top sellers are first party, you'd come to see their profits are higher than that of just licensing fees which is mostly what sony relies on. They may publish games, but they still have to pay a development team, unlike an already established staff that continually pumps out platinum sellers. Pokemon was in development for four years before it was released. Do you think Sony could afford to pay a dev to do that for them? Maybe if they knew their profits would total in the billions off of that one franchise, perhaps, but that's a gamble only Ninty can take, because quite honestly, they know their games are that good.

I probably sound like a Nintendo fanboy, but honestly I'm not. I just have an appreciation for good games, and having worked as a games reviewer, strategy guide writer, I've had to play A LOT OF BAD GAMES IN MY TIME, while Nintendo have historically delivered with each of their own franchise titles.

[SonicFan14]

I love My DS!

[P4NC4K3Z]

Originally Posted by blayke123

I love My DS!

dont we all?

no spamming please.....

anyway,

Nintendo have never lost, they've always been winning. If you consider the fact that most of Ninty's top sellers are first party, you'd come to see their profits are higher than that of just licensing fees which is mostly what sony relies on. They may publish games, but they still have to pay a development team, unlike an already established staff that continually pumps out platinum sellers. Pokemon was in development for four years before it was released. Do you think Sony could afford to pay a dev to do that for them? Maybe if they knew their profits would total in the billions off of that one franchise, perhaps, but that's a gamble only Ninty can take, because quite honestly, they know their games are that good.

that makes sense, but does it mean Nintendo is actually making more money than Sony? Sony has sold a lot more games, and even though they have to pay dev teams it still should add up to more than what Nintendo made.

[Pat]

I think the reason Sony is at the top of the gaming hill at the moment is because they released their systems first and the consumers couldnt resist. Im not saying I dislike the Playstation, its a pretty good console but the Gamecube easily beats it. If Nintendo can make a demon of a console, advertise it like hell and get it out there before the Ps3, I think Nintendo would take the lead just like Sony did with Ps1 and Ps2 because the consumers wont be able to wait. Other things with the console are essential though, there will have to be things like a DVD player, hard drive and CD player to gain interest from the older gamers.

As for the DS, Nintendo owns the handheld market. They always have and they always will