Iwata slams PSP – Really hard

‘Golden formula’ mocked by Nintendo chief

Posted by Staff
Iwata slams PSP – Really hard
After an irritating lull in cross-company handbag fighting, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has seemingly decided to kick things off again, claiming Sony has shot itself in the foot with the PSP project.

After slamming the PlayStation firm for its “lack of understanding of what modern consumers, using a handheld system require from its software,” and its “…naive belief that home system software comprises the same elements as portable system software,” Iwata took one of the boldest shots at SCEI anyone has taken for some time.

“PSP has been created with the assumption that the golden success formula is still working. We don't believe that," Iwata said to assembled foreign press. "We're making every effort so that people will say we were right. We're focusing on our market, ages 5 to 95 whereas Sony has decided to target a very specific demographic.”

Obviously, Nintendo is rattled by the PSP, with claims that the unit, a loss-leader of epic proportions, might be in some kind of non-manufacturing-related trouble, sounding hollow at best.

Still it’s always good to see the gloves come off!

We’ll bring you any return fire if and when it breaks.

Companies:
People:

Comments

dyne 9 Dec 2004 16:05
1/14
Nintendo needs to snap out of that make-believe world it calls reality. How many times must Sony knock Nintendo off its pedestal before Iwata and co get the mesage?
Autobot 9 Dec 2004 16:27
2/14
Maybe this is a change in Nintendo. They are going to reinvent the company when the GameBoy Evolution comes out.

I honestly feel that they should fire all decision making employees at Nintendo. The company has been going down hill since the N64. The edge Nintendo of late has turned into a ooy gooy sugary company. Everything htey did lookes like it came out of coloring books and such. When the New Nintendo system comes out it should stand out like the NES and SNES did. The GameBoy Evolution should also stand out with cleaver design. The NES style GBA sold alot because of the favorable colors. If they start making great styles for there new systems and avoid colors used in teletubbies. They might regain there top spot.

Also Mario needs to be more edgy again. He used to throw fireballs, hammers, fly, and become invincible.Now he just jumps and uses a water hose. Also Peach should be renamed Princess Toadstool as she once was. Bowser should return to King Koopa, and Wario should be a side character or rival not a nemisis. Design choices must be family friendly yet stylish. No more overly cartoonish attitude. He should have that fun (not carefree),clever, and determined look to him. Mario is a leader, not a goofball. He has to save the Princess Toadstool from King Koopa not play around, he has to have a determined look on him.

Kirby is the Carefree, goofball, with a cutsy attitude. He should ebe the mascot for the 2+ crowd. Mario should be the 7+ and Link should be for the 12+ and Samus is for the 16+ group. That helps parents understand and be confident that the products they buy for there kids will be appropriate everytime.
more comments below our sponsor's message
Ditto 9 Dec 2004 16:50
3/14
dyne wrote:
Nintendo needs to snap out of that make-believe world it calls reality. How many times must Sony knock Nintendo off its pedestal before Iwata and co get the mesage?


It's so true.

When will Nintendo wake up and look at what customers want and the market as a whole?

Iwata is talking rubbish when he says that the DS is aimed at people from 5 to 95. The DS is aimed at the under 18 market - at least one software publisher [EA] have declared that they see the DS as an under 18 machine and the PSP as an over 18 machine. I don't see many adult games on the DS that will give it that appeal.

An interesting point is that Nintendo was looking at developing network capabilities and extra peripherals for the NES, yet it doesn't look as if many of them will make it mainstream until the next generation, some 20 years after.

Nintendo really do need to realise that they're not the only dominant force in the market now. They're the smallest of three companies with the other two having much more financial power than them. They cannot just do what they want.

I have so much respect for Nintendo, but statements like this just show how little they know about their industry.

Autobot wrote:
The company has been going down hill since the N64


I think the company went downhill after the Super NES. It just couldn't sustain momentum for the N64 using just first party titles. The same happened with the Cube. What they need to do is get some adult games and third party exclusive, chuck some of the worn characters and make some new ones.
Funky 9 Dec 2004 17:41
4/14
Meanwhile, Nintendo put some stickers on an existing product, paint it silver and market it as something new, with 10 year old graphics and a touch screen that is pointless. Anyone remember this:

http://weblogs.jupiterresearch.com/analysts/laszlo/archives/game-n-watch.jpg

And there's Sony, who are only offering 1 year old graphics, DVD MPEG4 playback, mp3 playback and a 4:3 screen for only about £30 more. So what if the batterys last for only 4 hours... you'd expect that with games like GT4 Mobile and MG:Acid on a large screen, the battery drain would be greater than what is effectively Mario 64 on a tiny screen.

I will bet money right now that in a few months there will be a "limited edition" DS released, that is some sort of colour change, or have stickers or some crap like that on it.
Game_Devloper 10 Dec 2004 02:12
5/14
I can't argue with Iwata. Cause he's 100% right reguardless if you guy wana acept that or not.

But I am gona go into some details. Since I work in the game industry. The DS has more than N64 power its running a amped up engine. Also its very fast to make Games for.

But Iwata is 100% correct there aiming for the male Gamer that in age from 25-35. And guess what they don't buy handhelds so Sony shot it's self in the Foot!

By this time next year the DS will have double the Games of the PSP...

Another Secret What You See In The PSP Is Fake As A Three Dollar Bill The PSp Can Do PS1 Graphics And Nothing More... E3 Was Computer Emulation...

5thgeneral 10 Dec 2004 02:49
6/14
I have to disagree with you on a couple of things. First off Nintendo pretty much invented the Handheld market, so saying that they don't know their market is pretty inaccurate. Until someone comes along and completely changes the handheld market then and only then can you say things like that.

Sony is pretty much the little fish when it comes to the handheld market and they are the ones that have to prove themselves. So far every other contender has fallen, wether they had superior technology or not.

Also you can't say who Nintendo is targeting cause you dont run the company. If they say that they are targeting ages 5-95 than that's who they are targeting. People and the industry need to stop putting labels on everything Nintendo does. Nintendo said it themselves they make games for EVERYONE.

Saying Nintendo is Kiddie is like saying Mcdonalds is for kids and Burger King is for adults. Little kids need games too and if everyone has their way then all we would see is killfests and games too mature for kids to play. The industry as a whole needs to understand this and put out software for everyone not just adults.
kid_77 10 Dec 2004 10:01
7/14
Yeah right, a developer. Of course.
ku16610 10 Dec 2004 11:41
8/14
Nintendo are idiots ,
I just recieved my nintendo ds this week and i can tell you know , that the psp will out sell it bucket loads its the most ugly designed hardware in the universe the thing looks like a book rest. The packaging is pretty parp too , you get a demo
of a game you can play in multiplayer or single training modes.
Jez what happened to a tetris clone.
surely someone could have come up with something better than a demo of a game with no real single mode to speak of.

If you make your "item/device" sexy looking ppl will buy it no matter of fomulas and etc .
look at the pstwo , ipod , imac , g5
for examples.
Funky 10 Dec 2004 12:20
9/14
dyne 10 Dec 2004 14:40
10/14
Adam M wrote:
Iwata is talking rubbish when he says that the DS is aimed at people from 5 to 95. The DS is aimed at the under 18 market


Indeed. And besides, if that were true, what would be the point?

Most over the age of 50 couldn't care less about DS (if they know what it is), and the average five year-old probably couldn't handle a dual-screen concept anyways - I had a hard time touching and feeling myself around Mario DS myself, and I'm 24.
config 10 Dec 2004 15:33
11/14
5thgeneral wrote:
I have to disagree with you on a couple of things. First off Nintendo pretty much invented the Handheld market, so saying that they don't know their market is pretty inaccurate. [...] Also you can't say who Nintendo is targeting cause you dont run the company. If they say that they are targeting ages 5-95 than that's who they are targeting.

I believe that's the point. Nintendo haven't ever apparently targeted the 5-95 bracket. The company always manages to give the impression that its products are aimed at ages 5-16; kids and adolescents. We (gamers) know that the company has said this is not the case in the past, but its actions arguably show otherwise. If casual gamers and gift buyers aren't convinced Nintendo's products aren't right for them or those they're buying for, they won't be interested.

It's clichéd, but actions do speak louder than words. A small purple console (which I this is great) says it all.
Joji 10 Dec 2004 17:44
12/14
I agree with you that people will buy things on looks and PSP does look better, but i get so tired of telling you lot this, in this hand held game the games will count more.

I do believe that if Nintendo say they are heading for a certain market that's what they'll do, and I agree that they need new IPs and games etc. There's a lot of putting them in a box. While I agree that more mature games are needed from Nintendo themselves, Nintendo make games for the majority regardless of age because everyone is still a kid inside, no matter what age you are. And fun (like love, hate etc) is also universal and transcends societies age barriers. If you look past your gripes, and want really to enjoy you will and feel no shame in it.

To put it simply for you lot DS can be played in more ways than PSP. DS will allow more types of games than PSP (DS RTS games anyone?). Remember, the graphics war of consoles is more of less over now, and hand helds too would have reached their graphical peak with GBA2 if not for PSP. Once the graphics biz is out of the way it's down to the games on each system.

As it currently stands DS can do more types of game than the PSP because of the touch screen/stylus, mic etc. The PSP will just tread in the footsteps of PS2 but with the wi-fi in place of Play Online and not being chained to your house. How is this pushing things forward apart from visually, good looking hand held with good looking graphics? It's not and if Sony are gonna enter the hand held market, they have to bring more to the table that good graphics cause ever other format can do that stuff too. This is why DS will sell loads because it offers something else, you can't get any where else. Playing movies is nice, but we all purchased Xbox and PS2 for that didn't we? And if you can't watch your own content on PSP it's also a little silly. As for mp3s, it's a nice option but everyone already has Ipods etc with 20GB, so what's the point? Looking for gimmmicks, PSP has them more than DS.

It will also be very hard to judge DS on graphics on it's first gen of games, it may actually be able to do more than we've seen so far. Give it a year and we'll see. But as I said before this kind of thing will soon be over looked, when hand held graphics reach their peak and games can finally do all the talking. It's already happening.

What will make owning both great, is that both DS and PSP look like they are gonna have excellent support from 2nd and 3rd parties, and there is less chance of softcos bailing on Nintendo this time, like N64 and GC.

By the way, whoever said about the GC being purple. The U.S SNES was purple and grey and original GBA was also purple next to another different colour. Purple/blue is not a new colour, in fact I think Nintendo even had a solar powered G&W game back in the 80's the same or similar colour. Why be like everyone else anyway, other colours always come out later eventually regardless of system. Even PSP is following Nintendo's idea and there's nothing wrong with that.
GhostOfTomorrow 2 Jan 2005 22:52
13/14
Nintendo is definately not going downhill. For the first time in years, they're finally getting it right with the Gamecube and now the DS also (as its ludicrous amount of sales will testify). If you don't like "teletubby colours" buy the black or silver sytems, Eternal Darkness, F-Zero, and Metroid Prime. If Mario hadn't had the hose or some other gimmicky gadget or gizmo, you'd be whinging about how Sunshine was just like Mario 64 and saying it wasn't original enough. The rest of the post about the names of characters (King Koopa/Bowser? Who cares? And why?) seems completely irrelevant to the topic. If you want the fire-ball throwing, hammer-wielding Mario of yore, get yourself a copy of Smash Bros Melee and play a Tellytubby-coloured slice of fried gold.
And Kirby should be locked in a box and never let out for the abomination that is Kirby's Air Ride.

(I know I'm replying to an ancient post, but it annoyed me enough to make me reply to it)
Linlan 7 Aug 2007 08:18
14/14
Dear Richard Oxer,
From EC51,we know you have interested in fm transmitter in 2005.
Now do you still have interest in it? If you would like it,please let me know.


[7 Aug 2007, 09:54: Message edited by 'TimSpong'] I hate Monty Python therefore I hate Spam.
Posting of new comments is now locked for this page.