Secret DS conference, Online, FF3, and whole bunch of shit...

[ChaoofNee]

I think Lumines sold twice what Coded Arms did.

So, yeah... that was a great comparison!

[Rocca]

I think the problem with the DS, if the sound really is that good, is that the presentation of the sound is pretty crap. The speakers just aren't that good, and even when using headphones, there is a nasty hiss when the sound level is low.

Maybe, but playing Dawn of Sorrow makes them sound terrific.

[MechDeus]

The DS might on a technical level have a better sound chip, but it sounds like ass compared to the PSP. The DS' speakers are okay and the PSPs are shitty but hooking the PSP up to headphones or a sound system makes it fucking amazing whereas the DS only gets marginally better. This is primarily because of the format and storage but there really isn't any comparision there.

PSP + headphones = console quality
DS + headphones = handheld

And yeah, there have been times where I've played games for longer periods of time then the gameplay warrented just because they sound excellent (like, say, Lament of Innoncence). Good auditory execution is a wonderful thing.

[SpoDaddy]

How are you defining console quality vs handheld quality? In terms of the quality of the sound the DS with quality headphones sounds as good as any streaming audio. Meteos is probably the best example, it's all about how the developer handles it (and how big the DS card is). A couple weeks ago I read that Nintendo and Square execs had mentioned in the next year or so DS cards approaching a gig.

[MechDeus]

How are you defining console quality vs handheld quality?

As in: One of them can sound good enough to not be out of place in a movie and was made with very high production values, and the other is like what most people attribute to videogame music because it sounds only slightly better then Genesis-level midi.

A couple weeks ago I read that Nintendo and Square execs had mentioned in the next year or so DS cards approaching a gig.

Then we better get higher-quality sound out of them by that point.

[SpoDaddy]

It's not as ridiculous as all that - PSP has been outselling DS 3-1 in North America, and Europe looks like it's gonna be a similar situation. Even total crap does well on PSP - I think Coded Arms sold like twice what Meteos did. Only much lower development costs and the fact that publishers probably don't want to see Nintendo go under (they need someone to keep Sony honest, after all) and the DS doing better than PSP in Japan keeps stuff going to it.

We here might get excited by the stuff DS has coming for it, but your average schmoe is probably still more impressed by PSP's functionality, horsepower & Playstation name. It makes sense as a lifestyle device for alot of people, it just has a crap gaming library.

PSP has seriously outsold the DS 3-1 in the US? Even over the last couple months? If that's true I'm utterly dumbfounded, what are all these people doing with their PSP's aside from not playing good games? I still don't understand the success of UMD's and as far as mp3 support, I would think anyone that cares about music on the go would have a real mp3 player by now if they're willing to drop $250 on one.

Total crap does well on PSP just like total crap did well on N64, people are starving for games, Midway made a fortune selling crap on N64 in the early days. The design philosophy of DS games vs. PSP games is going to be PSP's undoing. Making a PSP game is essentially making a home console game and selling it for 50 bucks, the PSP audience bought the system to play beautiful console games on it. A PSP game gets attention from the media by being gorgeous. Lots of developers are balking at the returns on that vs. just making their game for a home console, or just doing a shovelware port of a PS2 game onto the PSP. Making a game on DS is far more lucrative because the costs are far less and the audience isn't expecting much out of the graphics as long as the game is fun. Look at Trauma Center, it's gotten tons of attention from the media and it's essentially a photoshop game from a developer's standpoint. Castlevania is going to sell an asston on DS and it's development costs are like 1/25th that of the average high profile console game. Nintendo's eagerness to work with third parties and let them use their mascots is also huge.

Even the really high production value DS games are going to cost a fraction of what a PSP game would cost to make (unless it's a PS2 port). I think the fact that there are DS kiosks everywhere is also a big factor, the Nintendogs kiosks alone must have sold a hundred thousand DS' (they're what made me first seriously consider buying one).

Meteos isn't a fair sales comparison because it's not a high profile game, Lumines was on every magazine cover and hyped as the PSP's killer app. Even Coded Arms got a lot of hype because it was the first FPS on PSP and was in development for PS2 for a long time. A fair comparison will be Castlevania DS or Nintendogs vs the best selling PSP game. First impressions can be devastating, if Sony doesn't start dispelling the sentiment that PSP is a multimedia device first and a handheld second they're going to get killed once Apple jumps into the multimedia portable market.

As in: One of them can sound good enough to not be out of place in a movie and was made with very high production values, and the other is like what most people attribute to videogame music because it sounds only slightly better then Genesis-level midi.Then we better get higher-quality sound out of them by that point.

I don't see the Genesis level midi thing at all, Meteos sounds as good as anything on PSP and the DS' surround sound effects are flat out awesome.

[Kev]

I think a lot of people really underestimate the DS hardware, it's a LOT more powerful than an N64 (which it's usually compared to). It can handle slightly fewer polygons, but it's CPU(s) is much faster, it can handle far more colors simultaneously, it's got far more texture memory (the achilles heel of the N64), it's got much better sound hardware than the N64 (or the PSP, shockingly enough), and it does a metric asston of stuff in-hardware (like cel shading, various lighting and scaling/rotation, compression, etc). It's obviously not as powerful as the PSP, but it's a lot closer than most people think.

Is there a site that compares the tech specs and theoretical performance of both systems vs. acutal real-world performance?

[MechDeus]

I don't see the Genesis level midi thing at all, Meteos sounds as good as anything on PSP

No it doesn't.

and the DS' surround sound effects are flat out awesome.

Surround sound? Where? How would you even hook that up? There are very few headphones which support such a feature and the only way to get it out of stereo AFAIK is through Pro Logic/PLII, which would require you to take an 1/8" cable out of the headphone jack into a stereo splitter into a reciever (and I'm not even sure if PL can be done through 1/8" cables).

[1CCOSA]

At the time this went to press that was probably a logical arguement, on the third party front anyway. There's no way EGM could've peered in to the future and seen this news coming. It blindsided most of us. There's a lot of things EGM does wrong, but this isn't really something to pick out.

Good point. Part of me kinda forgot what a big surprise some of the conference was.

And Strider, I wanna see some links and doc that the PSP is outselling the DS "3-1 in NA." News sources such as the above say they are still "neck and neck," if not a small lead by the DS.

[avatar]

From my knowledge.

In the U.S the DS and the PSP are selling closer together than before. I wouldn't say 3-1,buy thew PSP is selling more.Period.

In the U.K. The PSP is selling more. True it's off the momentum of a launch,but it's just a matter of time before the PSP passes it up.

In Japan, the DS is making the PSP look like an N-Gage. A million units ahead and counting.

Worldwide the DS is ahead, and if the support they are geting now continues they stay that way.