The Holtonian

Gaming Giberish: DS vs PSP...I've played neither so i'm going on what I've read

With the recent release of the Nintendo DS I figure I should use my knowledge to discuss this topic of portable gaming. I read up for a long time, article was like 6 pages of back and forth with some subarticles in between about the PSP vs DS and which is better. So far it seems a toss up and all the gamers who wrote the article agreed its a toss up. As we have it now DS (Stands for Dual Screen) has two screens, how ironic. The top screen will be the main one, with the bottom one being a stylus type device that can possibly act as a palm pilot and also be used as a controler at times. Nintendo brags that gamers will be able to talk to each other while gaming... though if one is standing right next to one, one would thing talking would suffice... but I don't work at nintendo so what do i know. The system will also have a wifi type device making multi player gaming easy. So far not too many games have been revealed. One i saw is a metroid game where its only multi player, the graphics look somewhat shaky though.

   The PSP, has a lot more game developers behind it which is what made the PS2 so great, millions of games. However what Sony has always lacked is that marque game that sells the system. For Nintendo they have tons of marquee's Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Donkey Kong the list goes on. Playstation has had Tekken and not much else. Xbox at least has halo, they don't have much else, but they do have halo, which is by far the best first person shooter on any console.

      From a pure looks standpoint I like the DS because it looks more like a laptop, which for some reason I like better. I also like how, like a laptop, it folds up which keeps the screen safe. The PSP has a cover that clips on, but that doesn't seem as good to me, it could get lost. I've heard rumors that the PSP will be a multi-media device and be able to play movies and music, however for a $150 I doubt it will have the memory/harddrive of an ipod to store movies and music on. It may make little discs one can buy much like the Gameboy SP has done lately with some kids cartoons. Another major difference in the games is cartridge vs discs (mini cds of sorts). Nintendo loves its cartridges, which killed the N64. A cartridge can't get the video quality of a disc plain and simple. However Nintendo feels that a cartridge will be far superior in a handheld than a disc. This could be true as they still have not made a cd player that doesn't skip when you jog with it.
      What Nintendo did learn from the 64 was be first! The 64 came out too little too late in relation to the Playstation 1. This year the DS will come out end of november just in time for Xmas, the PSP is supposed to come out next year but it could be pushed back. And the fact remains that much mystery remains about the PSP. Sony hasn't even put it on its website yet. So much like the article I read, I'll wait to see which one does better. I thought about about buying a SP but am not really sold on the game choices. There's a few games I like, metroids, mario kart, and the original nintendo games, but other than that I see nothing out there. That and it could go the way of the virtual boy here real soon when the DS comes out.