Quoted on Gamasutra

Gamasutra's been posting a decent feature lately, which is a "question of the week". Rather than just turning into a slashdot-style flame war of postings, they actually take responses, compile general trends & choice quotes.

Last week's question was about whether a PSP vs Nintendo DS war was brewing. My response was one of those posted.

They placed my response (It's the one that starts "While definitely positioned ...") in a "pro-nintendo" camp . For the record, I wasn't stating I thought Nintendo would win, I was just answering "yes, a war is of course brewing". The comment that put me in the pro-nintendo camp was a comment that better technology doesn't always win.

If I *must* predict a winner. Hmm... let's see:

Pro nintendo:
- HW has more possibilities for unique gameplay styles, and they have a better track record for doing stuff that's "different".
- Lower ASP
- Established user base, channel, content pipeline for handheld. Sony may be strong, but this is new territory for them.
- Nintendo has kids, and kids are a proven market for handheld.

Pro Sony:
- Better technology. More mips, and the screen is effing fantastic.
- It's a very sexy piece of consumer electronics
- MP3's
- Imagine a clint-eastwood-esque film in which a gunfighter is loading bullets into his sixgun before heading to the showdown. Bullet 1 is GTA:Handheld; bullet 2 is Katamari-da-handheld, bullet 3 is... you get the idea. Some very big properties to pull on that may be enough to take on Mario and the Pokemon gang.
- Sony won round 1 (PS1) by anticipating a trend and targetting adults as gamers were getting older. Have they predicted correctly again? Is a generation of gameboy owners itching to game while commuting or in class, and their Ngages aren't cutting it for them?
- Sony say jump, publisher say "how high?"

I dunno, it's a tough call. I give it to sony by a small margin, but it's going to be a fight for a while. Maybe both can be successful? Or is it like the Highlander line, "there can be... only ONE!"