Los Angeles, Ca. – At the Electronic Entertainment Expo here, Sony Entertainment, Nintendo’s decades-long challenger in the game console market, took the wraps off its PlayStation Portable (PSP), the system it thinks will give its competitor’s still to be introduced Nintendo DS a run for the money. 

Both devices are targeted at incorporating many of the features and functionality of the various wired and wireless Internet-centric consumer devices, from PDAs and handhelds to Web-enabled cell phones and WLAN connected digital cameras, all of which have been incorporating various gaming capabilities as well.  

One LCD screen, not two

Scheduled to be delivered to consumers late this year, or early next, the PSP, rather than a dual screen mode, as in the Nintendo offering, has a 4.3 inch widescreen TFT display. It contains 32MB of DRAM and is powered by a 333MHz CPU. Like the DS and most of the competitors nipping at the duo’s heels, it also has a wireless port, USB and a rechargeable lithium ion battery with 10 hours of play time.  

It has a  built-in disk drive, specially designed to handle the 1.8GB minidisk style media which will hold games, movies and music. It also has a  USB 2.0  port, a Memory Stick Pro Dual slot, 802.11b wireless networking capability, an IRDA WLAN interface that links to an IR remote.  

It incorporates many of the familiar Playstation control functions:  the standard triangle /square/circle /cross buttons on the right hand side, L and R buttons on the shoulders, and a d-pad and miniature stick on the left hand side.  

It also has Start, Select and Home buttons, as well as switches to turn power on and off, the latter acting also as a hold button; brightness control; volume and audio mode button; as well as a button to enable/disable the device’s WLAN functions when it appears they are using too much battery power. At the show, a number of  USB peripherals  were being demonstrated on the PSP - including a camera, a GPS (global positioning) unit and a keyboard.  

While Nintendo has not been as forthcoming about details, its Nintendo DS will no doubt have much of the same functionality as well as price, which is estimated, at least initially, to be in $250 range.

Whither Sony in games? 

How much luck will Sony have against Nintendo in this new segment of the gaming market? According to Brian O'Rourke, Senior Analyst, Converging Markets & Technologies, at In-Stat/MDR, of all the other emerging competitors in this space (including Nokia and Tapwave), Sony seems to be the most formidable.  

“Sony is definitely promising an ambitious set of capabilities, with the PSP set to offer all forms of digital entertainment, including digital audio and even digital video player capabilities,” he said. “Sony has also said that eventually the PSP will have telecommunications features, perhaps indicating that it will have mobile phone capability.”   

However, said O'Rourke, while adding capabilities does offer more to the consumer, it also raises manufacturing costs, which in turn raise the price point. In addition, multifunction devices require greater consumer education, which in turn increases marketing budgets. Sony has delayed the release of the PSP to the late 2004/early 2005 timeframe, he said, possibly due to difficulty reaching a price point that will entice enough buyers.  

“Fortunately, Sony's massive number of first-and third-party software titles for the PSOne and PlayStation 2 will, despite these challenges, parlay into success,” he said. “As of the first quarter of 2004, there were over 2,000 titles available for the two platforms, a very  significant resource to draw upon in developing titles for the PSP.”

Market Favors Nintendo 

However, despite Sony’s success in the broader consumer electronics device market and its more than impressive runner up status in games, O’Rouke thinks the market favors Nintendo.

“Nintendo is the most successful company in the history of handheld games, and there's no indication that this will change any time soon,” he said. “Do not expect Sony to recreate the success it experienced with its PlayStation launch. Nintendo has established its dominance in handhelds, and its future corporate success depends on maintaining that dominance." 

If Nintendo has to worry about anyone, he said, it is the likes of cell phone vendor Nokia and Tapwave, a handheld/PDA vendor. “Nokia is a well-funded rival that very much needs to extend its product line beyond the low-margin handset business,” said O’Rouke. “And Tapwave, though without the funding or marketing expertise of the bigger players, has executed well on its Zodiac handheld platform.” 

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