Thursday, January 27, 2011

Hype: It's What's For Dinner

It seems as though the hype machine is in full swing, and not just on the games front. Sony and Nintendo are poised to release new handheld systems during 2011, with Nintendo launching their 3DS in March ans Sony releasing the followup to their PSP(currently called NGP or Next Generation Portable by various sources). We honestly don't know a lot about the NGP, so we can't make any fair comparisons, but gamers have already began their coronation of Sony as the console maker to finally take Nintendo's top spot in the handheld market. Again, I'm not one to start making claims about Sony or Nintendo yet, but I will say this: since the debut of the Game Boy in 1989, many console manufacturers have tried to take Nintendo's spot at the top of the handheld market, but none of them have made even a dent in Nintendo's market share. I understand that on paper, Sony has created a much more powerful system, but remember they did the same thing a few years ago when the first PSP was released, and it struggled to see any headway against the DS. In all honesty, the Major reason the PSP sold at all was the proliferation of the hacker community with that system. as far as these new handheld systems go, Parents are going to buy the 3DS for their kids like they do every time Nintendo releases a new handheld, and teenagers who don't have to save their own money are going to cry for the NGP when it comes out. Those same little kids are going to be upset because their parents are going to buy them crappy games for their 3DS and the teen is going to put their NGP on ebay. My advice for both, give it a year and see what kinds of games are being released for them before you buy. At the end of the day, as powerful as the hardware is, it means nothing if there are no games worth playing. We saw that for the first year of the Playstation 3, and we still see it with the Wii.

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