My thoughts on the PSP + DS

[NFG]

Someone asked me what I thought of the PSP + DS, the new portables from Sony and Nintendo.  Here's what I said:

<NFG> well Sony apparently intends to persue a celphone model with downloadable paid content that's DRM-d to the hilt, and that turns me off hardcore.  It'll be an amazing system, but Sony isn't gonna win friends with the constant micropayments required, and as a company they don't do things I like.

<NFG> The DS is a strange novelty, the example Nintendo gave of drawing clouds on the touchscreen to save mario from falling leaves me totally cold.  A new concept it may be, but FUN?  Show me.

Nintendo's screenshots do not make real efficient use of the two screens, and I maintain there are only two reasons to make a dual-screen handheld:
1. To make the system foldable (good)
2. Novelty value (bad)

The simple fact is a dual screen is no more useful than a single, larger screen.  

http://www.n-philes.com/e3-2004/articles/E...kFpreNHgsUC.php
what a waste, what's that 2nd screen for again?

This is a better use, but it's hardly something that needs two screens:  
http://www.n-philes.com/m/game/ds/mario64x4/mario645.jpg

[Vertigo]

This is a better use, but it's hardly something that needs two screens:  
http://www.n-philes.com/m/game/ds/mario64x4/mario645.jpg

IMO part of a game is the exploration theme, of learning about the place you're in, making a map in your head or, if you like, on graph paper and learning it for yourself. Complete level maps from the off are a big bad thing and it doesn't encourage you to use the parts of your brain related to memory, pathfinding and logical problem-solving. It's like in Metroid 3 or Prime where you have to explore a certain percentage of the area yourself before you get to the map room, which gives you the little bit of help you need to find all those nice extras if you want to. Metroid Fusion, on the other hand, was happy to stuff the map down your throat and then virtually pick you up and carry you to the next bit, which I didn't enjoy at all.
I also don't see the value in Nintendo rereleasing N64 games that everyone's already seen and done, it's a bit like the game strategy of N-Gage if you ask me. China is one market (iQue), but for those of us that already saw and finished it 8 years ago, there's little or no interest there, especially as we're likely to still have the original stuff stashed away somewhere.

As for the PSP, for me personally, I'd like to see some actual games please because I play games, I rarely watch movies, I hardly ever download music, so I don't really need this personal media station in the form it's in now. I've never seen the attraction of portable DVD players that feature everything a normal DVD player does but at 5 times the price with an under-spec screen, so I have no reason to buy into PSP at this point, especially not with all the proprietary formatting it uses. Apple could very easily make something superior at a similar price and probably will but won't garner the recognition they deserve because their name isn't Sony.
As NFG has said, I agree, I don't like the way Sony does business, not because I'm a silly paranoid child and I heard a rumour once that they're a big and evil corporation, but because of the way they do things, to force people to buy into upgrade after upgrade of very similar hardware in order to rake in the cash. Sure, it's a business and that's what they do, but I don't particularly like it. To me, they're the Electronic Arts of hardware, and I don't want every game that comes in the future to be EverQuest.