The DS vs the PSP.

Okay lets put the handheld war into perspective. As we know the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are fighting for handheld supremacy. And like 9 times before, as Nintendo put it in their E32004 conference, they have come out victorious. And I believe that Nintendo will again pull out victorious against the PSP. Seriously let’s be realistic here and throw aside the sales figures. The Nintendo DS is a well made machine made for unique and refreshing game play. The PSP to me is a mini-sized Playstation 2 minus one analog stick and two shoulder buttons. And if you look at it on a whole, the PSP in a way does have mass appeal there but falls short in many areas.

-What I like and dislike about the Sony PSP.

The PSP is a portable PS2 and with that knowledge you can easily port some games to the system. In fact many games have already been ported. Tony Hawk's Underground 2, Wipeout, Midnight Club, EA's sports line-up and Dynasty Warriors have all made their way to the system. There are some original games for the system as well like Lumines, Metal Gear Acid, and Death Jr. Some of these games are fun, but unfortunately the PSP just doesn't have that hit game like the Gameboy did with Tetris.

The PSP is also a portable entertainment system allowing you to watch movies and listen to mp3's. Those are nice benefits but if you ask me the movie umd playback is utterly useless to a guy like me. I see no point in buying a movie I like twice in two different formats. The UMD movies also cost more than DVD's as well averaging at around $25-35 each. And the movie playback also eats away at battery life leaving you with next to no play time afterwards.

I do enjoy the mp3 music playback of course. The quality of the PSP as an mp3 player is really great. And it doesn't eat the battery life as much one would think.



As an overall package, the PSP is just too expensive for features you will most likely not use. At $249 with a small library of games, most of which are ps2 ports, a decent but battery life consuming movie playback, and mp3 support. It's really just too much for too much. I am a gamer not a multimedia-on-the-go-freak.

-What I like and dislike about the Nintendo DS.

The DS is in my mind a great system but it’s not without its fault. The system is unfortunately weaker graphically than the PSP by a huge margin. So was the Gameboy which defeated its graphically superior opponents like the gamegear, the lynx, and neogeo pocket. Proving that you don't need better graphics to make great games.

But of course this is where the DS has slumbered. Over the course of the first several months after the DS' release in the US there have been rather very little in terms of great games. In fact until recently, there haven't been that many games that fully utilized the system's hardware capabilities. Some games like Warioware Touched, Meteos, the remade Mario 64DS, Yoshi's Touch and Go, and Kirby Canvas Curse have shown that the system has great potential for some unique and fun game play. Unfortunately those games were far and few in between. Now the DS is finally picking up its pace and its future lineup looks very promising starting with the fall lineup.



The DS also come equipped with a slot for Gameboy advance games. SO if you were to ever get tired of playing a DS game you can just pop in, let's say Pokemon leafgreen, and poof there you go. So now you have just added a library of 200 plus GBA games to your system. Unfortunately because of plans for a future Gameboy handheld backwards compatibility only allows for GBA games which are a bummer. And because there are no extra ports on the DS you can't play any multiplayer games with friends.

The system dopes what it was meant to do. It plays games and it plays them well for the most part. The system doesn't come with mp3 or movie playback, plus the system just recently released Nintendogs and I believe that this will be the game that will make the DS a household name. The average joe, the average joe's girlfriend, and the hardcore gamer will find nintendogs to be the "it" game for a long time. Much like pokemon and tetris was for the Gameboy.

-Overall outlook for both systems.

I feel that the PSP might live on for awhile. It will live much longer than the gamegear did which was also in its own rights a great handheld but it also suffers the same problems that plagued the gamegear. One, the gamegear was too expensive and most people sought for the cheaper Gameboy instead. Two, the gamegear and PSP both have short lived battery life. This is a big issue as most gamers love to play those marathon game sessions once in a while or for long road trips. And finally, while the added bonus of being able to watch movies is nice, in the end people just want to play games and not be overwhelmed by the extras.

The DS has finally got the ball rolling after a slow start and it looks like it will be speeding up. A strong fall and winter line-up compliment the underpowered system. The PSP does have some stellar looking games coming out as well but I hardly have any interest in them because moist of them I can play on my PS2.

Now I do understand that my opinion does seem one sided but I am just speaking the truth and the truth is a harsh thing. And to make it harsher, 6 million people who own a DS agree with me. The PSP might catch a small sales jump now that its out in Europe but soon people will rather play something that isn't already hooked up to their 42inch HDTV's.