Handheld Wars: Sony PSP vs. Nintendo DS*
A Buyer's Guide to Portable Gaming
A Brief Overview of the Two Systems:
Nintendo DS: Known as the Nintendo Dual-Screen, the DS is a handheld game device with two screens, a stylus pen, and the ability to play both Nintendo DS and Gameboy Advance games. Equipped with wireless technology, a touch sensitive screen, and a microphone, the DS has many characteristics similar to a specialized PDA, but with awesome gaming ability.
Sony Playstation Portable (PSP): The Playstation Portable is Sony’s answer to Nintendo’s handheld market dominance. With a large wide-screen display, more powerful innards than the Nintendo DS, and a media type capable of storing 1.8 gigabytes of data, the Sony PSP is well positioned to change how we think of portable gaming.
Detailed breakdown:
Technically, the Sony PSP dominates the Nintendo DS in terms of horsepower. With far superior hardware under the hood, the Sony PSP is capable of pushing out graphics that fall somewhere between the PS and the PS2. This means that the Sony PSP has about the same graphical advantages over the Nintendo DS that the Playstation 2 has over the Nintendo 64. Whereas the Sony PSP is basically a portable version of the current PS2 home console, the Nintendo DS includes a number of features that have never been seen in a handheld gaming unit. The Sony PSP’s strength lies in its graphic ability, and the Nintendo DS’s strength lies in its additional features and creativity. Let’s compare the two units point by point.
Screens:
Sony PSP: The Sony PSP has a 4.3-inch screen, which is gigantic in terms of handheld systems. The screen uses a letterbox resolution of 480 x 272, and has 24-bit color, meaning that it’s capable of displaying millions of colors with a quality that is unparalleled in terms of portable game units.
Nintendo DS: The Nintendo DS has two separate screens that run simultaneously depending on the game you’re playing. While both screens are smaller than the Sony PSP’s single display, they can be used in tandem to provide varying information, such as a map on one and your playable character on the other. Additionally, the bottom screen on the Nintendo DS is touch-sensitive, so in addition to being a display device, it can be an interface.
Comments: The screens on the Nintendo DS and the Sony PSP are equally cool, in my opinion. The Sony PSP is certainly going to have more wow power with its wide-screen gaming, but the Nintendo DS is going to be capable of more in the long run. This is a good example of the difference between Nintendo and Sony’s approach to the market; Sony offers the current home console experience on the go, while Nintendo offers a different approach all together
Connectivity:
Nintendo DS: The Nintendo DS comes wirelessly enabled, meaning that Nintendo DS games with a multiplayer feature are capable of linking together without cables for some co-operative or competitive fun. Many Nintendo DS titles allow multiple Nintendo DS systems to play together with only one physical copy of the game. The disadvantage of the Nintendo DS wireless is that while it is technically able to connect to an 802.11b network, there isn’t any software available that allows you to do it. While the Nintendo DS will be able to connect to wireless hotspots somewhere down the road, it doesn’t do it out of the box, making any future over-the-internet style gaming an accessory or game dependent option.
Sony PSP: The Sony PSP uses Wi-Fi 802.11b communication protocol to enable wireless gaming for it as well.
This serves the same function as the wireless in the Nintendo DS. The Sony PSP is also capable of connecting to existing Wi-Fi hotspots, and may be able to download firmware upgrades over the Internet when they're released sometime in the future.
Comments: Online gaming for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP are both equally possible, and just a matter of time. What is concrete is that the Nintendo DS is built to allow at least some wireless gaming with a single cartridge; you don’t need four friends with the same game in order to enjoy the experience, just four friends with one Nintendo DS each. The Nintendo DS’s touch pad and stylus also allow users to send text and graphic messages back and forth wirelessly, which the Sony PSP can’t do for lack of an easy way to input messages. Based on what the systems are capable of doing at this moment, the Nintendo DS is better designed to let the user do more with the system’s capabilities.
Controls:
The only significant difference between the controls, besides the Nintendo DS’s ability to use the touch screen, which opens all sorts of possibilities, is that the Sony PSP has an analog stick as well as a traditional directional pad. Since most games on the home consoles use analog sticks for control now days, it’s a good bet the Sony PSP’s will see a great deal of use.
Game Media:
The Sony PSP and Nintendo DS utilize different types of media for storing games. Games for the Sony PSP come on what’s called Universal Media Discs, basically miniature DVDs created with a certain type of laser, and can store up to 1.8 gigabytes worth of data. This is substantially more than the Nintendo DS, which clocks in at a maximum of about 128 megabytes per card. In short, the media capacity for the Sony PSP is an order of magnitude greater than the Nintendo DS.
Battery Life:
The disadvantages of having a DVD-style media device is that accessing it is more power consuming than the card-based media of the Nintendo DS. As a consequence, the battery life of the Nintendo DS is substantially greater than that of the Sony PSP. Sony PSP runs for roughly 3.5 hours per charge, depending on what you’re doing with the system. The Nintendo DS, on the other hand, lays claim to between 6 to 8 hours worth of gaming life on a single charge.
Features Unique to Either System:
Here is where the direct comparison has to end. There are certain features that the Nintendo DS has that the Sony PSP simply does not, and vice-versa. There are things that the Sony PSP is designed to do that the Nintendo DS never will. It a lot of ways, these features here are the deciding factors between the systems.
Nintendo DS: While graphically the weaker of the two systems, the Nintendo DS is still an excellent gaming system, and not just in a “when considered by itself” sort of way, either. Even when compared directly to the Sony PSP, the Nintendo DS is able to come away the winner on some very key points. Primarily, this has to do with its interface, meaning the touch screen and the microphone. Both have very real, concrete applications that make the Nintendo DS a powerful system for games.
Additionally the touch screen gives the Nintendo DS near PDA abilities. Just recently, Nintendo licensed the Palm operating system, raising the possibility of word processors that run on the Nintendo DS, email programs, and Internet browsing software, which would be great if combined with a keyboard of some sort. While the touch screen sounds sort of gimmicky upon first hearing of it, there are really exciting possibilities that are just waiting to be developed.
Another feature is the microphone, which is built into the unit, including a plug-in for some sort of headset, maybe similar to a cell phone headset. Possibilities have been raised that the Nintendo DS might be able to serve as some sort of an Internet phone, or be able to offer in-game chat features. When you consider how significant some of those applications may be, and suddenly the Sony PSP’s, “I look really good” doesn’t sound nearly as hot as it did.
Sony PSP: While Nintendo is focusing on expanding the capabilities of handheld game systems, Sony is focusing on providing the user with a portable media center. Unlike the Nintendo DS, the Sony PSP uses a proprietary memory stick to store data in addition to the UMDs, which aren’t writeable. MemoryStick Duo cards come in sizes up to about 1 gigabyte, and can store everything from mp3s to movies. Because the format is one that is used by computers as well, the discs can be plugged into a personal computer, loaded up with music, or mpeg4 video, and then returned to the Sony PSP for playback. This means that the Sony PSP is not only a portable game device, but also a portable media center that plays music and lets you watch movies on the go. It can serve the function of mp3 player, game device, or child-distracter on long trips.
Conclusion:
Depending on how you approach the industry, both the Nintendo DS and the Playstation Portable are tremendously exciting. The Sony PSP has immediate spell effect; every person who touches it will want it. However, I actually predict that the Nintendo DS, with its weaker processing power and storage space, but with expanded interface, has the potential for being the better gaming unit. Nintendo has and is addressing the primary limitations of gaming-on-the-go, and that’s control interface. Their innovations will allow far more flexible and unique games to flourish. That combined with the Nintendo DS’s backwards compatibility to GBA games, and it’s well positioned to move gaming in new directions. The Sony PSP, on the other hand, will be able to produce PS2 level graphics, but have troubles overcoming the design problems; no matter how much they try, there simply aren’t as many buttons on the Sony PSP as there are on the PS2 controller, and so compromises will have to be made in order to make certain games work well even if the system is capable of displaying it in full glory.
Pretty and fast, the Sony PSP is fundamentally limited in what it can do. That doesn’t mean that we won’t see great games on it, or that it won’t sell like hotcakes, but it does mean that the Sony PSP itself will never be more than an extension of the home unit in terms of games and the experiences that it offers. That said I’d pick up the PSP for its mp3, video, and multimedia capacity alone.
First, though, I’d buy a Nintendo DS.
It’s a better trend for the industry.
It’s a better game system.
And ultimately, it’ll give you better gaming.
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* Article from nintendo.about.com