Zachack said:
But that's largely because of an existing userbase that for all intents and purposes doesn't have any significant DD options or a platform that treats DD as a secondary market.
Sure. That's the userbase that exists
right now. That's the userbase that is going to be determining the success of the various platforms in the next hardware generation, which is what we're talking about right now. That userbase is not going DD-only for major purchases in the next few years pretty much no matter what anyone does; the closest anyone is going to get to that is maybe easing them in enough that there's more potential for all-DD to be an option the generation after.
So you're admitting that when you play a multiplayer game on the 360 or PC or whatever that you'll simply crap your pants if you need to go to the bathroom? Or if someone demands your attention?
I do not suffer from any diseases or physical conditions that cause me to have no forewarning before I need to use the bathroom, but I imagine that if I did I would have trouble playing games online, yes. In pretty much any situation where a real live person wants my attention while I'm gaming online I'll have the option of "hold on a minute" unless it's like a chopped-off finger or something, which is pretty much the opposite of the ridiculous "yeah you just get kicked off your server if your phone rings" idea you're proposing here.
gofreak said:
but anyway, I thought in talking about barriers to convergence we were necessarily speculating on future directions and what smart devices could or could not address.
My goal is to establish why convergence is out of reach for
right now, when we're a year or less away from the launch of two new handheld gaming platforms whose functions are not (next year or the year after that or in all likelihood the year after
that) going to be fully duplicated on the smartphones people actually own. It's going to take companies actually spending effort on gaming (which Apple is doing and Google is just starting to do)
and companies actively trying to move in on Nintendo and Sony's dedicated space (which so far no one is really doing)
and doing so well, not just with a naive or foolish attempt.
I fully believe that handheld gaming devices will eventually converge in with media players and phones. (Heck, I believe consoles will converge in with them too.) What I think is silly, hyperbolic to the point of being nearly useless, is suggesting that such a point has arrived and that the PSP2 is "dead on arrival" as a result.
Steve Youngblood said:
For the record, I'm not in the camp of thinking that smartphones are lousy gaming devices and that Nintendo is invincible in the handheld market. However, I do disagree with the notion that iOS gaming has made such significant strides that we're about to be on the verge of a nerd showdown between Apple and Nintendo for portable gaming supremacy. I believe that could develop over the next several years, but I'm not in any way convinced that we're there yet.
Back to the actual topic at hand, though, I don't think the PSP brand has the slightest chance of being a worldwide market leader in handheld gaming. But I think it's a mistake to extrapolate Sony's uphill battle onto Nintendo by surmising that Nintendo also shares a similar -- if only delayed due to their current strong position -- predicament in that no dedicated gaming device will be able to stop the juggernaut that is smart phone gaming.
This is pretty much my position as well.