by Tweeg » Fri Jul 24, '09, 2:15 pm
I don't think there's enough on the market right now actually. The market could easily support another console and at least a couple of other handheld/portable systems.
Both of the current handheld system leave plenty of room for improvement. Nintendo made it clear earlier this year that they have no intentions of replacing the DS until at least 2011. And Sony's idea's of future PSP design take the future systems out of handheld gaming territory into the realms of mobile devices like iPhone. All it would take right now to sweep the handheld market would be something with a high-res screen, PC-like specs which at least just barely edge out the PSP, a less costly cartridge format than the DS uses, and a good battery life. Put a system like that on the market and the market is your to control.
Don't get me wrong, I like the DS, but Nintendo has misjudged what the core gamers currently want. We want an updated version of the system with much higher specs and way higher res screens, not the DSi with larger same low-res screens and a stupid camera.
PSP has been floundering now for well over a year. I applaud Sony for daring to release the optical based media handheld that Sega had promised back in the 90's, but the system has so many things I just don't like about it. And the first-gen PSP's were outright flawed.
On the console front, all of the current gen systems have one or more "features" that are more detremental than they are likeable. Wii promotes arm flailing and uses a dumb controller that looks and feels like a TV remote. Xbox 360 and PS3 both use internal HDD's, which at least the Xbox 360 can still function without. In my own opinion though, the PS3 is a gaming oriented computer, not a game system. Blatant requirement of having broadband to play online games cuts out a rather sizeable portion of the market of gamers who either can't afford it or can't get it in their area. And also with the Xbox 360 and PS3, publishers use the HDD and broadband connectivity features of the systems as an excuse to release flawed games to the market before they're ready with the intention of "fixing" the game(s) with patches to be released online. In essence, there's a lot to not like about the currnet generation of gaming consoles.