Review of the Year: December

Actually, I think you'll find the department which contributes to 40% of Sony's total revenue, while not the highest budgeted department (the falls to their movie department purely because of the large costs involved) SCE, if you take into account possible budget (that is to say how much more money Sony is willing to give the various departments should they request it) SCE far outstrips every other department. If SCE asks for more money than they were allocated, they get it. You just don't strangle your most lucrative department.

OK, so what you are saying is that they have become one of the world's largest supliers of consumer electronics products (and premium priced ones at that) by producing tat. Interesting!



Well, here at SPOnG we have three PS2s, all of which are used heavily, poorly treated, and they last as well as anything else. We break 'em now and then, but we break Xboxes, Game Cubes and GBAs too.



And equally look at the ones the DS has. All new electronics have teething troubles. No matter how much testing you give a product, it doesn't compare with tens of thousands of people using it in real world situations.

Our PSP has not manifested any problems as yet. It has a single dead pixel - which annoys me, and if we bought it in the UK, I'd return it.



1. I didn't say that. I said thay were competing for manufacturing resources and components, not for market share.
2. That's not the worst thing ever.
3. It's "you're saying" not "your saying".



I didn't say it wasn't solid. I know it is. I dropped ours on the floor on the day we got it, and it survued with no problems.

I said it was plasticy - and it is. It's made of platic, looks like it is made of plastic, and feels like it is made of plastic. Plasticy. Cheap feeling. Nasty.

As for the PSP's "tonnes of problems"... ours has none, what about yours? Oh, you don't have one, do you? You're just repeating what you've read on Nintendo fan sites.



Where are your figures coming from? I said installed user base, given that very very many of the PSPs in channel seem to be on eBay, they are not installed. Also given that many will have been bought as Christmas presents, they were not installed in time to contribute to the charts for w/e 26th december.

But if Halo 2 (the biggest, most imprtant Xbox game of all time) can only manage number 11 on the current (Christmas) UK all formats chart, with a relatively healthy number of Xboxes in the UK, how can you expect a tiny number of PSPs to manage to chart titles in the Japanese Christmas charts? It's stupid and it's pathetic. As I said, come back this time next year, and see if PSP is charting games.



You appear not to think at all. What I said was that in terms of the hardware, PSP is clearly superior. Nintendo have a chance to compete with superior software... but it will have to be more than a few Mario/Wario games if they hope to win this battle, and it will have to be earthshattering if they hope to maintain their dominance of the hand-held market.

Personally, I hope that Sony do not manage to drive Nintendo out of the market... but on the evidence of the hardware alone, Nintendo have a tough challenge on their hands.



Peanuts. I mean, OK, to some extremely poor people, and people with no taste, they might prefer tosave a few pounds and have a DS. But anyone with any money, and taste will prefer Sony's sleek, sexy hardware. It's nothing for the added features, which as you point out yourself, will cost EXTRA on a DS.



OK. Now you're proven that you are either a fanboy or an retard. Anyone who think the DS is better designed than the PSP clearly puts their allegiance before their intelligence.

DS has potentially a more interesting control system. It's a more innovative piece of kit. But design wise, it's a poor second to the PSP.



You don't have to. You just need a single 1Gb Memory Stick Pro Duo, a USB lead and sofware that can transcode to H.264



What with Sony owning one of the world's biggest motion picture studios (the one that made Spider-man, Resident Evil Apocalypse, xXx etc etc), and one of the world biggest TV production companies (the one that makes Dawsons Creek, Married with Children, Mad about You, Larry Sanders etc etc) and having just bought MGM (the company that made The Rocky movies, Stargate Atlantis, Legally Blonde, and the James Bond Movies) I'd say the chances are fair that UMD will get its share of movies.

LOL, this is an intersting fight, I bet for the DS, you know how much this 1 Gb Memory stick cost? so you can play mp3 music and sotre videos?
its around 200 dollars, so, if they say that with the the PSP you can hear mp3, they should say immediately that you have to pay : 180 - 200 dollars (PSP without any vidiaogame included) plus 200 dollars (memory stick) = $380 - 400 ,
who is going to buy this ?
Besides, battery life sucks

PS2 is a pice of garbage, where you can play good games,
I HAVE BOUGTH 3 TIMES A PS2, the first was killed by a sudden change in electricity voltage, of corse my game cube and x box were intact after this incident, and the second one died cose the lens failed.
Its not alarming for me to hear news about the PSP complains,
We should organize a competition to check which PSP lunch its USB farthest ,now that every psp build has a problem with the USB coming out .

Boing! You just dropped the ball.

1. Unless this DS add-on plays DVDs, you're going to have to re-buy for the DS. It's going to be memory card-based, surely. See point 3.

2. The add-on will cost you - just like having to buy a MemoryStick for the PSP. Only 'tards would by UMD when they could transfers DVD movies to the MemStick.

3. If the DS add-on is memory card-based, you're going to have to buy the add-on AND a decent sized memory card. That's TWO additional payouts.

4. The DS' screen (pick which ever) is pitifully small for watching movies.

I've had my PS2 for years. A couple of months ago my daughter broke the disc tray facia. That's pretty good build quality considering the beating it's taken.

As for the DVD quality mentioned elsewhere, the video and audio quality seems just fine through my projector.

BTW, was your PS2 in use when the electricity surge blew it up? How about the other machines?

Ag. It all devolves, again.

I trust those who have used both machines for their judgement. I don't want a PSP (i hate memory sticks, i have no need for most of the features) and do want a DS- but that doesn't mean i'm blind. The PSP, should Ninty not pull their finger out their arse and make a new Game Boy that can pee on PSP from a great height (due to the small size and price of cube components, i'm amazed they haven't already), will kill the Game Boy. It's that simple; more people know what you mean when you say "playstation" than do "game boy".

I've owned all 3 systems, and the only 1 i don't still own is the PS2. It just doesn't have any pull left to me (OK, maybe Kingdom Hearts 2... but 1 game doth not a purchase of a PS2 make) and the bugger went and "disk read error"ed on me. OK, so did the Xbox- but Microsoft replaced that, free of charge, along with all my saves. Sony would have laughed if i'd asked them to.

No system is ever 100% reliable; the amount of memory card failures on various Nintendo games alone is staggering. Until you have one in your hands, judge not the DS or PSP.

It's been a laugh reading all this jibe. Now I'll have a go.

I think both systems have their pros and cons, and I STILL intend to buy both because both will offer something I want. Games.

However if you wanna ask who's gonna win this handheld war my money is still on Nintendo.

WHY You ask? Well my first reason is that failure is really not an option for Nintendo especially after N64 and GC, that's why GBA2 is the back up plans if DS fails. No one can say that's a bad plan. Nintendo have a good head start and have been using their smarts from the beginning, and such cunning (if you can call it that) will be valuable for them in the long run.

I think we should give it six months for both and then we'll see how things are doing. Should be around E3 time by then and the proper first round results should be in.

Sony's marketing will be good as always, but like we once may have underestimated the power of PS1/2 and Sony (even MS) you should also give the same respect to Nintendo. Stranger things have happened and Nintendo might just pull it off. It would be nice for them to grab some glory pie, why on earth should Sony have it all? Is this such a bad idea when MS and Sony have been enjoying so much success?

I really think that despite PSPs lovely sleek lines like anything new the novelty wears off after a while, and when that's gone you are really just left with another PS2 fullstop. Games look like PS2s, sound like PS2s and while this is all cool and in your hand I think people will be more likely to question PSP, since it does little that the PS2 can't do. For me only the wi-fi gaming is what interests me on PSP.

With DS this is different in the respect of the way you use it. Whether it's blowing on the mic, using the stylus and screen etc, just seeing someone using a DS in public (just as someone before experience) will be enough to ask in their minds "just what the hell is he/she doing?" On top of that which do you think will attract the non gaming females are more likely to be intrigued by and want to play? Doubt it will be PSP because at heart it's just really a PS2.

Lastly it's hard to classify people (fanboy etc) when you don't know them properly, we are all fans of games here and as such we should all do our best to open and boaden our minds. Only then will we truly be gamers. Think about that for a moment. Does Jeremy Clarkson only test drive Ford cars? No, he tries different makes and models and judges each on their pros and cons, with a topping of his personal opinion. Fair enough we aren't him, but we can try to aspire to a similar idea while being gamers.

I'll be looking forward a lot to March and May. E3 should be a laugh.

Oh, lordy! Mr. Clarkson as someone to aspire to:

"We've all heard about the PSP's game line-up, we've seen the tech specs, and the dead pixels are well documented. But I'm not here to discuss all that rubbish. I'm gonna shove it, UP MY ARSE!"

I was going to say, "If only he would". Thing is, that wouldn't silence his opinion-without-fact.