Oh man do I have to rant about this.
Long and short of it, the Sony NGP is going to be a financial failure (unless Sony drops the price considerably), and the Nintendo 3DS is going to own the handheld market for the next five years.
Let’s review: About five years ago my friends and I were sitting at a restaurant and we were talking about the next generation of consoles. I said the Nintendo Revolution (the Wii’s name at the time) was going to outsell Sony’s PS3 with exceptional ease. To my surprise, my friends thought I was crazy, citing games like Metal Gear Solid and Devil May Cry coming to the PS3 and others games along those lines would make it worth buying. I said that those franchises are good, but motion controls are going to change the way we play games for a long time. Once again they laughed it off. Let’s fast forward to December 2009, me and my friends are at the same restaurant (Longhorn Steakhouse, in case you were wondering) and we have the same conversation, kind of in retrospect really. This time, I bring up how year after year the Wii has been outselling the PS3, and the Wii is incredibly fun to play. Both friends agree, and we all have a good laugh.
What made the Wii so successful? It’s not like Nintendo had a great run of consoles before hand. I mean, let’s face it, the N64 was only ok with good titles every so often, leaving those with Playstations to have a GREAT library to choose from. The Gamecube had so little third-party support it’s embarrassing to think of and its online play was comparatively part non-existent. So why would I say Nintendo had an ace up its sleeve? How about launching a console with a Zelda game that has motion controls? How about it was the first console with motion controls so simple my own mother could appreciate them? Oh, and how about this, the price was literally HALF the cost of the PS3 and it came with Wii Sports, a great way for anybody to appreciate the new controls for free! And what’s this, it’s backwards compatible with all Gamecube games and controllers! For only $250? Yeah, I was the first one in line at a BestBuy to get it.
What did the PS3 launch with? Umm, Resistance, Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Madden, and Call of Duty 3…. the rest were basically mid to low range games. Plus the price tag was $500 to $600, which is around what one usually pays for rent at a decent apartment, thus leaving only those with a ton of disposable income to buy the thing. Also, only certain versions were backwards compatible with Sony’s ridiculously large library of PS2 games. Why the fu** would Sony not include backwards compatibility into all of their consoles? It’s obvious that it’s not impossible to do or too costly. Well, technically speaking the PS3 cost $801to make and Sony lost $200 for everyone they sold. I am, to this day, surprised so many people bought this system upon its first inception.
So, now that we have a little history, we can understand what brings us to this rant. Well, the DS is getting on in years, it’s about 7 years old and the many iterations it has behind it are ok, but it’s about time for something new in the handheld market. Enter the 3DS, a more powerful DS, with GLASSES-LESS 3D. Recently, I was invited to Gamestop to get my hands on one of these and test it out. I am telling you right now, this thing is pretty damn amazing. The 3D isn’t gimmicky looking like some movies in theaters that are converted to 3D from their 2D roots. It feels and looks almost exactly like a DS, so it feels familiar, or and it completely backwards compatible with all DS games. Call me a fan boy, call me over optimistic, but at $250 this thing is a steal.
What about the Sony NGP? Well, don’t get me wrong it’s powerful with 4 processors, good looking with a AMOLED screen, and dual analog sticks, and it has a capacitive pad on the back of the console for touch controls. All this sounds impressive, but it also sounds really, REALLY expensive. Analysts predict with these expensive parts, the system should cost between $400 to $500, double the 3DS’s price. Big negative on it's part is the complete lack of UMD backwards compatibility. Sony, how is it you put forth all this effort INVENTING a new form of media and then a couple years later spend day in and day out trying to move away from the media outlet you invented and touted as the best form of portable media? Nintendo 3DS, I just pop in a DS cartridge if I want to play my DS games on it. NGP? I have to download the PS game from the Sony store at an additional cost! It seems Sony will try to adopt flash based memory cards for it's...WAIT a fu**ing second, so Sony is going to the cartridge format? Hasn't Nintendo being doing that for, I dunno, decades now? Words can't describe my lack of excitement for the NGP. Hell, the only reason I ever bought a PSP was to play particular SquareEnix titles (FFVII:Crisis Core, FF Tactics: War of the Lions, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, FF: Dissidia 1 & upcoming 2) and.....Patapon.....I like Patapon. Honestly, though that is pretty much been my entire PSP collection, niche RPG games. Everything else, I buy for my DS.
I know when the Sony NGP comes out, people will try to defend it, say they love all facets of it, try to hack it like the PSP was hacked. Truth is, the PSP as it is right now is lack luster. The DS has twice the market share of the PSP, and the DS crushes when it come to software sales. In this list I found on VGChartz, the PSP does not have a single game in the top 100 best selling games of all time list. The DS? 12! 12 titles that have just racked in the dough! Granted, most of them were first party titles and half of those were Pokemon, but whatever sells, right? Just ask the Microsoft Kinect. OK, before you get mad at me, name for me three legitimately GOOD Kinect games, and I will retract and delete that statement. Until further notice, I still say the Kinect has a ways to go, but that's neither here nor there...
If you are the person that thinks the DS is kids system ad the 3DS is going to be a kids system, too, please just grow the fu** up, man. Yes, the DS has kids games on them. Wanna know why? Cause they sell! Pokemon is considered a kids game, right? Then why was it a large group of "kids" (read: of drinking age adults) were standing in line outside my local Gamestop for the midnight release of Black and White? The DS and 3DS are as much a kids system as watching cartoons is a children's activity. Yes, the majority of the content is geared towards children, but that doesn't mean none of it can't be appreciated by adults. The day I can share a coherent and intelligent conversation with a young child about the finer religious and sexual themes in the entire series of Neon Genesis Evangelion is the same day a human being somewhere is attack by a black bear, shark, and struck by lightening all in the same moment. Basically meaning, if a child enjoys Pokemon, why can't an adult?
So, here we are. I want the 3DS, as I have it reserved and plan to pick it up on launch day. If Sony can drop the price of the NGP and release solid titles with it, then we will talk. Well, the 3DS launch titles do look pitiful, but with the promise of Zelda, Star Fox, and Kid Icarus, all in 3D? I am there.
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