pdb

I've just about had it with idiot gamers who consider owning a stack of unpopular games and a reputation on web-boards as qualification to consider themselves as an industry expert and analyst. You know exactly who I'm talking about.

"The Dreamcast would've killed the PS2 if it was marketed better!!"

Right. The fact that Sega was losing $75 on each console shipped, the Dreamcast was missing DVD support, had easily pirated games and crap controllers, AND that Sega had burnt its bridges to both 3rd party developers and retailers with the Saturn had nothing to do with it.

"The Gamecube is the #2 game system!! The only reason the PS2 is ahead is because it was released first!!"

Mmm-hmmm. I'm equally sure that a lack of 3rd party support and no online strategy is completely unrelated to Nintendo being forced to drop the console price to $49 to keep retailers from eliminating its shelf space.

"Nintendo is not failing!! They're still making money!!"

So if you make a living selling apples, and you made $20 two days ago, $10 yesterday, and $5 today, there's no problem?

And now it's:

"The PSP will fail just like the N-Gage!! The PSP is too expensive at $250! Nintendo 0wnz0rz the handheld market!! The DS was out first and it's cheaper! It's fragile and will break! Sony doesn't understand the handheld market!"

The last claim is my favorite. You'd think they'd never heard of the Walkman.

Listen up kids: Never piss off a waiter before he delivers your soup, never hit on 18 and NEVER bet against Sony when it comes to video games. Don't forget, Sony invented the modern home video game console market.

While it's true that both Sega and Nintendo were selling game consoles prior to the introduction of the Playstation, it's impossible to overstate how Sony utterly remade the way the console market worked. Having dabbled in publishing games for both Sega and Nintendo, Sony knew how poorly 3rd party developers were treated by the big two. Licensing fees were high, and both were known for stealing good ideas, or denying licences if they had a similar game in the pipe.

Sony turned all of that around. Development kits were inexpensive and plentiful. Licenscing fees were low. Sony even contributed to cobranded advertising, in both magazines and on TV. Sony took video gaming from being a diversion of little kids and geeks and made it popular for teenagers and adults. Sony expanded the age bracket from 4-15 to 4-50 and everyone won. That was the real innovation and why the SNES and Genesis were smoking craters a year later. Sega's hardware operation never recovered, and Nintendo is still struggling. This is why the video game market BELONGS to Sony, and why Sony has sold more boxes labelled "Playstation" than everybody else has sold consoles, combined, ever.

Which is exactly what the PSP will do to the Game Boy Advance / DS market. While Nintendo has softened their stance on 3rd party publishers somewhat, the DS and GBA in particular are still stuck catering to the preteen market, which is not a growth sector. At launch, not only will the PSP have TWICE the titles available as the DS does after 4 months of being on the market, but those titles also represet a much more diverse selection than is available for the DS.

Apart from that, you only have to visually compare the systems:

The DS looks exactly like what it is. A kid's toy. Aesthetically and ergonomically it's clunky and unpolished. That stylus is as good as lost. Not to mention using both the face buttons and stylus to control a character is awkward at best.

The PSP simply oozes coolness and tech. The screen is gorgeous and huge in comparison.

So, what about the price? $250 sure might seem high for a handheld system, especially if you still think $80 is a tad steep for a GBA-SP. Well, guess what? Sony's not selling PSPs to you. Their target isn't going to blink at dropping $250 on a PS2 he can slip in his pocket. Who do you think's been buying Ipods?

But here's the secret on that price: Sony's not charging that to just cover the cost of the system. They're charging that because they can, and because they expect to not have enough systems on hand to meet demand. Expect the price to rapidly head for $200 by Christmas by the time initial demand dies off and they're able to crank up production.

There's also been a lot of griping over the system breaking. Well, that didn't seem to slow down the PS2 much, did it?

Finally, let's not forget the claim that Nintendo dominates this market sector and that there's no way a big, faceless corporate entity like Sony can understand how to market this system to gamers.

…

Funny, that's what they were saying in 1994 too.