Biaised article or not? You decide:
PSP
The big news for Sony this year on the hardware front (at least tangibly) was the introduction of the PSP in the US on March 24. Despite shipping 1 million units on day one and selling more than a half million units in the first two days on sale ($150m), the typical hardware shortages and eBay mark-ups happened anyway. On a positive note, the unit came in at a more consumer friendly price than many analysts expected just six to nine months earlier, where talk of $400 was common among pundits. By June, most of the immediate short-term demand had been met and the system settled into more typical availability and sales for the remainder of the year (November and December sales numbers are not available as this is being written).
By mid-October, the PSP's user base had crossed the 10 million mark worldwide, with 4.5 million of those being in North America. Its pace of adoption to this point has exceeded even the PS2's. Roughly 20 million pieces of software have been sold worldwide also by mid-October giving a tie ratio of roughly 2:1 (which is solid for portables, but weak as compared to static console ratios).
A somewhat surprising bright spot with the PSP's release has been the uptake of the UMD movie format by studios and consumers alike. By mid-October, 15 million UMD movies were sold, which is nearly as many games that have sold.
Nintendo DS
When Satoru Iwata gave the keynote speech at GDC in March 2005, he touched on several market factors that lead to the direction chosen for the Nintendo DS (and in many respects also the Revolution). The need to innovate and attract new players to the market was cited as the key motivators in both the design of the system's interfaces and the types of games Nintendo is developing for it. At E3, Iwata presented Japanese sales data for Nintendogs and Brain Training that backed his assertions that Nintendo was broadening the market and attracting new customers with DS. At next year's E3, we hope there will be US data that will bear out similar mechanics for this market.
By the close of March 2005, one year after the launch of the system in Japan (five months after the US's, and only a couple weeks into the European launch) the DS had shipped more than six million systems worldwide. At E3, Nintendo VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime's numbers indicated that DS was outselling the PSP worldwide. He quickly countered the obvious counterpunch to his numbers ,that was the PSP wasn't yet released in Europe, by rightly pointing out "that's not my problem".
Many believed the DS wouldn't be able to sustain the onslaught of marketing from Sony's handheld and the versatility the PSP provided, despite Nintendo's historical dominance of the portable category. In reality, a very competitive price point and some innovative titles making use of the system's unique interfaces (Nintendogs, in particular) have kept the DS very competitive in the US.
But all is not rosy with the DS. Third parties are complaining that, as with the Gamecube, their titles are not selling terribly well, with few exceptions. The DS sales charts are dominated by Nintendo titles so there's some question as to whether the wide range of third party support will continue (especially from Western publishers who typically don't benefit from the system's sizable base in Japan).
Revolution
As with the PS3, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. When is the system coming? And at what price point (hinted to be attractive as compared to Xbox 360 and PS3, but how much more attractive) and of course, how will the games actually play. Technical demos showing the controller interface are one thing, but building entire game experience from this interface is quite another. Also, with more limited technical prowess, even with the traditional controller 'sleeve' interface being available, will Revolution conversions of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles remain compelling or will the Revolution titles have to stand on their own as far as financial viability goes? 2006 will hold the answers.
AFAIC, I expected more professionalism from Next-Generation.biz. What a flawed/biased article :-/
PSP
The big news for Sony this year on the hardware front (at least tangibly) was the introduction of the PSP in the US on March 24. Despite shipping 1 million units on day one and selling more than a half million units in the first two days on sale ($150m), the typical hardware shortages and eBay mark-ups happened anyway. On a positive note, the unit came in at a more consumer friendly price than many analysts expected just six to nine months earlier, where talk of $400 was common among pundits. By June, most of the immediate short-term demand had been met and the system settled into more typical availability and sales for the remainder of the year (November and December sales numbers are not available as this is being written).
By mid-October, the PSP's user base had crossed the 10 million mark worldwide, with 4.5 million of those being in North America. Its pace of adoption to this point has exceeded even the PS2's. Roughly 20 million pieces of software have been sold worldwide also by mid-October giving a tie ratio of roughly 2:1 (which is solid for portables, but weak as compared to static console ratios).
A somewhat surprising bright spot with the PSP's release has been the uptake of the UMD movie format by studios and consumers alike. By mid-October, 15 million UMD movies were sold, which is nearly as many games that have sold.
Nintendo DS
When Satoru Iwata gave the keynote speech at GDC in March 2005, he touched on several market factors that lead to the direction chosen for the Nintendo DS (and in many respects also the Revolution). The need to innovate and attract new players to the market was cited as the key motivators in both the design of the system's interfaces and the types of games Nintendo is developing for it. At E3, Iwata presented Japanese sales data for Nintendogs and Brain Training that backed his assertions that Nintendo was broadening the market and attracting new customers with DS. At next year's E3, we hope there will be US data that will bear out similar mechanics for this market.
By the close of March 2005, one year after the launch of the system in Japan (five months after the US's, and only a couple weeks into the European launch) the DS had shipped more than six million systems worldwide. At E3, Nintendo VP of sales and marketing Reggie Fils-Aime's numbers indicated that DS was outselling the PSP worldwide. He quickly countered the obvious counterpunch to his numbers ,that was the PSP wasn't yet released in Europe, by rightly pointing out "that's not my problem".
Many believed the DS wouldn't be able to sustain the onslaught of marketing from Sony's handheld and the versatility the PSP provided, despite Nintendo's historical dominance of the portable category. In reality, a very competitive price point and some innovative titles making use of the system's unique interfaces (Nintendogs, in particular) have kept the DS very competitive in the US.
But all is not rosy with the DS. Third parties are complaining that, as with the Gamecube, their titles are not selling terribly well, with few exceptions. The DS sales charts are dominated by Nintendo titles so there's some question as to whether the wide range of third party support will continue (especially from Western publishers who typically don't benefit from the system's sizable base in Japan).
Revolution
As with the PS3, there are still a lot of questions to be answered. When is the system coming? And at what price point (hinted to be attractive as compared to Xbox 360 and PS3, but how much more attractive) and of course, how will the games actually play. Technical demos showing the controller interface are one thing, but building entire game experience from this interface is quite another. Also, with more limited technical prowess, even with the traditional controller 'sleeve' interface being available, will Revolution conversions of PS3 and Xbox 360 titles remain compelling or will the Revolution titles have to stand on their own as far as financial viability goes? 2006 will hold the answers.
AFAIC, I expected more professionalism from Next-Generation.biz. What a flawed/biased article :-/
