The New Handheld War

For context, the last handheld war ended when Sega stopped making the Game Gear, a decade or so ago, so it's been a while since Nintendo has had some real competition. But they certaintly have it now.

The PSP comes out in the US a bit over a month from now, and it'll probably sell like flapjacks or hotcakes or whatever makes a good analogy these days. Of course, the DS already came out, and it DID sell like the previously mentioned food products.

The DS's bottom, touch sensitive screen is one clever innovation for the industry. I've heard rumors the the Nintendo Revolution, the supposed name for Nintendo's next gen console, will make use of a touch sensitive screen for controlling purposes.

Meanwhile the PSP has some amazingly awesome graphics, as well as the capability to be a digital media device. Its one screen is much bigger than the DS's two screens (not combined), and it looks a whole lot prettier.

So, who'll win?

Fucked if I know.

You see, both systems do have problems. The DS's touch screen, while an innovation, isn't being used much by the games. Sure, the Nintendo made games are taking full advantage of it, but developers haven't had a huge amount of time to do some brainstorming on the problem.

Meanwhile, the PSP has a bit of a design flaw. Apparantly the contact for one of the buttons, the square one that is closest to the screen, is not directly under the actual button, but instead off to the side a bit, making it a bit hard to hit, and also making it stick a bit if you're unlucky.

Oh, wait, this isn't a design flaw. According to Sony, this is a FEATURE. I'd mock some of the outlandish quotes, like how "Nobody would criticize a renowned architect's blueprint that the position of a gate is wrong," except that, if the gate was only five feet high, I might criticize it a bit because I couldn't go through it without ducking, but everyone is doing that, and I'd hate to jump on a bandwagon.

Besides, all the talk about the pros and cons for the systems is mostly meaningless. In the video game industry, like all other computer industries that depend on hardware and software, its not the tech specs of the console, or the flaws it has, but the games. Its all about the games. N-Gage has no games, so no one plays it. Simple as that. Only people the specs matter to is the developers. In a sense, the battle will be won by who can woo the third party developers the best: Sony or Nintendo.

Now, in the current iteration of the console wars, Nintendo is turning out to be the big loser. Their big release in the October-December quarter turned out to be Metroid Prime 2, which should've been better, as opposed to Halo 2, which was just amazing, and GTA San Andreas, which is possibly the only game that can really be said to have been better than it had to be.

However, what's kept Nintendo afloat is what's always hauled their sorry asses out of the fire: Nintendo remains the best first-party developer in the buisness. Their three main workhorses, Mario, Zelda, and Metroid, have more awesome games than just about any developer, anywhere. So, what's on the DS from Nintendo?

Well, they're playing the Mario card pretty hard. They have a port of Mario 64 to the DS, which remains one of the best 3D platformers ever, and a new Warioware game, the game that made ADD cool (appologies for the bad joke, but if you've ever played it, you get what I'm talking about), and they appear to be winners.

Only there doesn't seem to be a bit third-party hit. None. As I said, its going to take a bit of time for developers to figure out what the hell to do with it. The lower screen is pretty much turning into an inventory screen.

Meanwhile, Sony has called its old friends up and gotten some back up. While there are a couple Sony developed games out there (Wipeout Pure, MVP Baseball), they're getting some big help from Konami (Metal Gear Ac!d), EA (NFL Street 2, NBA Street, Need for Speed Underground Rivals), and Activision (Spiderman 2). Oh, and can't forget about Namco's Ridge Racer, which is already expected to do absurdly well.

Look I don't want to count Nintendo out. They've got backward compatibility going for them with the DS, which means that everything they have released up to now for the GBA is available for the DS, but without a steady supply of hits from outside of Nintendo, Sony is going to soak up their third party connections to win this war.

But, come on Sony. I don't give a damn about your pride. Fix the fucking PSP already! If a button doesn't work like it should, then its BROKEN. If it was designed that way, then its worse: Its not an oversight, or a manufacturing error, its some prissy little designers crying about art and ignoring functionality.

I think the Apple Cube is an example of this.