How Has Sony Gained a Foothold in the Handheld
Gaming Market?
I have made a great start to my 2000 word report on the games company Sony, and their role in the handheld gaming market. I chose to focus my report around a particular company because there are so many aspects of handheld consoles I could cover, across a vast range of companies from the past and present. I was also the owner of a PSP, the VITA and a DS so I can input a lot of personal information about Nintendo's foothold in the handheld market and Sony's attempt at competing with it.
Throughout the report I will be comparing Sony's devices to Nintendo's and how each of them target their particular audience. In a nutshell Nintendo have released a broad range of games or all genres, and designed a handheld console, which is both small and simple to use, making it an all round universal console. Sony's consoles have primarily focused on making their static games on the Playstation consoles portable for hardcore gamer's. The PSP and VITA maintain the same detailed controller layout to their static fathers, giving Playstation gamer's a similar gaming environment, instead of having to adapt to a new one. Their handheld technology also dominates Nintendo's consoles. But for what they excel at in technology they struggle for in unit sales, as the DS is by far a more attractive console for people of all ages.
Nintendo's extensive array of portable consoles from the Game Boy to the DS have remained sustainable in targeting a massive audience of all ages with their variety of games. Nintendo have always stuck with the casual, but challenging approach to their games be it puzzle games or all out action/adventure games. The idea is that any game a player of any age picks up, won't feel intimated by the games sheer controls and sophistication. Each game is as simple as the next. This is what has made Nintendo's handheld consoles so popular. They have found a simple and popular design in interface and physical look and stuck with it to keep their audience happy.
Nintendo's static consoles the Wii and the Wii-u have a vastly superior technology to their portable devices, but remain on the same universal audience wavelength, by having an array of different games of different genres available. The games are configured to the consoles motion sensing and touch screen capabilities. Games such as Mario and Legend of Zelda are very popular Nintendo exclusives and were reinvented to meet the technical specifications of all of Nintendo's consoles.
I have completed my first draft of my essay and had a couple of fellow peers read over it. I originally aimed for the essay to be from a financial marketing perspective, but found that I had actually been writing from a technological perspective. I talked in extensive detail about the PSP and VITA's technology, comparing it to Nintendo's consoles. I did include information about their sales and each consoles personal advantage, but I do believe that technical talk has dominated the essay. This forced me to change my title a little from including information about marketing and distribution to simply comparing the devices technical sophistication.
Below is my research conducted into Sony and Nintendo's handheld consoles
Sony PSP, Overview
The PSP was Sony's first big step into mobile entertainment. It was among the 7th generation of games consoles and was first released in Japan in December 2004 and then worldwide in September 2005. The PSP was the first handheld console to use an optical disc format, or Universal Media Disc (UMD). Games weren't the only form of media available in the UMD format. Films became available on the PSP too, It was also possible to transfer music and video files from a computer or Playstation 2 console via USB. There were endless possibilities to what was available on the PSP for the time of its release. It had other exclusive features such as the 3.8" LED display, bluetooth and built in wireless. In later models such as the PSP lite and 2000 Slim, introduced a larger 4.3" screen and a sleek, more portable design.
By 2011 there were 5 different models available: The original PSP, 2000, 3000, the PSP Go and the budgeted PSP E-1000. The newer models had their own unique features. The 2000 and 3000 was available in a variety of colours such as red and blue. It was also thinner with a built in microphone and bigger screen. The PSP Go was a much smaller console with a slide out control pad. The recent PSP E-1000 was a budgeted version of the original model. With the PS VITA on release Sony decided to make one final push with the PSP and made a simple version of it. Its major draw backs was having no Wi-fi and no more UMD. All games had to be purchased via The Playstation Store on your console and transferred
over.
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/sony-psp-e-1000-is-a-cheap-psp-for-europe-with-no-wi-fi-50004756/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable
http://uk.playstation.com/psp/
http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/psp-homepage
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/the-sony-psp2/
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/918340-/62204840
The PS VITA
The PS VITA was released early 2012. It was Sony's second handheld console following on from the PSP released in 2004. The main new features of the VITA was the additional analogue stick, multi-gesture touch screen and back surface and a guide button, returning your console to the main menu during any activity of the device.
After the PSP E-1000 was released, UMD's were no longer used in Sony handheld devices. This introduced the game chip and micro memory card available in a variety of sizes for the VITA.
It was pretty much the same style and size of the game chips for the DS. They had a much larger capacity for high performance graphics and supported intense detailed games.
Like the Playstation 3, the VITA featured gyro scope and virtual reality technology. The virtual reality system was integrated into the cameras on the device.
When purchasing the VITA it came with a set of virtual game cards. Each card had a coded shape on, which when placed on a surface of the players choice could be scanned, creating a virtual scene in a real life surrounding area. When the player physically moved the VITA around the scene remained still, but the consoles movement would allow the player to look around the secene in extensive detail.
There were a variety of games available, that came with the VITA. The two I played when I bought my VITA was Table Football and Cliff Diving.
The gyro scope technology was integrated from the Playstation 3's Dual Shock 3 controller and the Playstation Move. The gyro scope brought to life physical motion sensitive game play, immersing the player into the charcters world.
A good example is in Uncharted Golden Abyss. When Nathan Drake is walking over a narrow object such as a log of a pole a dial would come up with a balancing arrow. The arrow had to stay in the middle of the dial to maintain balance. This was done by physically titling the console side to side to keep the arrow central. Other examples from the Playstation 3 are on such games as Killzone 2/3 and Heavy Rain where the player has to press and hold a sequence of buttons while performing an instructed physical movement, like turning a wheel or preparing an explosive charge.Nintendo's extensive array of portable consoles from the Game Boy to the DS have remained sustainable in targeting a massive audience of all ages with their variety of games. Nintendo have always stuck with the casual, but challenging approach to their games be it puzzle games or all out action/adventure games. The idea is that any game a player of any age picks up, won't feel intimated by the games sheer controls and sophistication. Each game is as simple as the next. This is what has made Nintendo's handheld consoles so popular. They have found a simple and popular design in interface and physical look and stuck with it to keep their audience happy.
Nintendo's static consoles the Wii and the Wii-u have a vastly superior technology to their portable devices, but remain on the same universal audience wavelength, by having an array of different games of different genres available. The games are configured to the consoles motion sensing and touch screen capabilities. Games such as Mario and Legend of Zelda are very popular Nintendo exclusives and were reinvented to meet the technical specifications of all of Nintendo's consoles.
I have completed my first draft of my essay and had a couple of fellow peers read over it. I originally aimed for the essay to be from a financial marketing perspective, but found that I had actually been writing from a technological perspective. I talked in extensive detail about the PSP and VITA's technology, comparing it to Nintendo's consoles. I did include information about their sales and each consoles personal advantage, but I do believe that technical talk has dominated the essay. This forced me to change my title a little from including information about marketing and distribution to simply comparing the devices technical sophistication.
Below is my research conducted into Sony and Nintendo's handheld consoles
Sony PSP, Overview
The PSP was Sony's first big step into mobile entertainment. It was among the 7th generation of games consoles and was first released in Japan in December 2004 and then worldwide in September 2005. The PSP was the first handheld console to use an optical disc format, or Universal Media Disc (UMD). Games weren't the only form of media available in the UMD format. Films became available on the PSP too, It was also possible to transfer music and video files from a computer or Playstation 2 console via USB. There were endless possibilities to what was available on the PSP for the time of its release. It had other exclusive features such as the 3.8" LED display, bluetooth and built in wireless. In later models such as the PSP lite and 2000 Slim, introduced a larger 4.3" screen and a sleek, more portable design.By 2011 there were 5 different models available: The original PSP, 2000, 3000, the PSP Go and the budgeted PSP E-1000. The newer models had their own unique features. The 2000 and 3000 was available in a variety of colours such as red and blue. It was also thinner with a built in microphone and bigger screen. The PSP Go was a much smaller console with a slide out control pad. The recent PSP E-1000 was a budgeted version of the original model. With the PS VITA on release Sony decided to make one final push with the PSP and made a simple version of it. Its major draw backs was having no Wi-fi and no more UMD. All games had to be purchased via The Playstation Store on your console and transferred
over.
 |
| Original model |
PSP 2000 (slim/lite) 2007
PSP 3000 (2008)
PSP Go (2009)
PSP E-1000 (2011)
http://crave.cnet.co.uk/gamesgear/sony-psp-e-1000-is-a-cheap-psp-for-europe-with-no-wi-fi-50004756/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable
http://uk.playstation.com/psp/
http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/psp-homepage
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/27/the-sony-psp2/
http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/918340-/62204840
The PS VITA
The PS VITA was released early 2012. It was Sony's second handheld console following on from the PSP released in 2004. The main new features of the VITA was the additional analogue stick, multi-gesture touch screen and back surface and a guide button, returning your console to the main menu during any activity of the device.
It was pretty much the same style and size of the game chips for the DS. They had a much larger capacity for high performance graphics and supported intense detailed games.
Like the Playstation 3, the VITA featured gyro scope and virtual reality technology. The virtual reality system was integrated into the cameras on the device.
When purchasing the VITA it came with a set of virtual game cards. Each card had a coded shape on, which when placed on a surface of the players choice could be scanned, creating a virtual scene in a real life surrounding area. When the player physically moved the VITA around the scene remained still, but the consoles movement would allow the player to look around the secene in extensive detail.
There were a variety of games available, that came with the VITA. The two I played when I bought my VITA was Table Football and Cliff Diving.
The gyro scope technology was integrated from the Playstation 3's Dual Shock 3 controller and the Playstation Move. The gyro scope brought to life physical motion sensitive game play, immersing the player into the charcters world.
 |
| Playstation Move |
 |
| Wonder Book |
.jpg) |
| Wonder Book commercial screenshot |
 |
| PS3 Dual Shock 3 Controller |
 |
| Uncharted: Golden Abyss (PS VITA) |
 |
| Killzone 3 (Playstation 3) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FJ9NFaq6lg 4.03min |
The VITA's touch screen is very well integrated into Uncharted too. The player is able to swipe and tap the touch screen to fight enemies, climb obstacles instead of pressing buttons and avoid/leap over dangers, barriers. When leaping objects and performing special moves in combat an orange arrow will appear on the screen indicating the direction and angle the player needs to swipe their finger across the screen. this will initiate a small animation of Drake performing the move be it in combat, jumping an obstacle or avoiding dangers.
 |
| The orange arrow indicating that Drake has to cut through plants to access the next area. |
Tap to interact feature allows players to fight an enemy by simple tapping on them when a fist icon appears over them. When climbing walls, a white glow will appear on possible routes to travel. Simply slide around the route to travel and Drake will automatically move there, instead of pushing the X button over and over to move from ledge to ledge.
 |
| Example of a climbing scene (white glow is hard to make out but the yellow rocks sticking out have a white glow that appears, showing what can be used or not) |
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| Examples of combat |
 |
| http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyL1d3BcWgM 3.08 - 3.33min PS VITA performance reviews |
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/handheld-consoles/ps-vita-1061138/review
Technical research
Now I have covered a little bit about Sony's portable consoles market and static consoles to gain an idea of where the technology originally came from, I now need to dig deeper into the handheld gaming industry to find out what Sony has to compete with. From what I know so far, Nintendo's Game Boy/DS market and Apples/Androids mobile phone devices are the key competition as they both have a large experienced head start to Sony as they have developed thousands of different game apps and cards (for DS and GB), which attract a wide audience of all ages and tastes in genre.
Nintendo have been around with hand held consoles since 1989 with the Game Boy. As my essay is focused around the Nintendo market during the period of the PSP's release and beyond, I have included a timeline with all of Nintendo's consoles and their release dates. I have primarily focused my research on the DS's technology, as it was about when the PSP was released.
The Nintendo DS was first released in 2004. It was Nintendo's new line up of handheld consoles for the future of mobile gaming. The DS had a similar layout the Game Boy Advance SP with its folding system to reveal the screen. The DS also included an all new stylus touch screen, which could also act as a secondary in game screen or a display for playing Game Boy Advance games. Having a backwards compatible handheld made it an even bigger seller, as people who owned a Game Boy Advance could upgrade to the DS and still play their old games, as well as the new ones.
The DS had some really cool interactive in game features. I chose Mario Kart as an example. During Battle mode, your car would have three balloons and you have to compete against other cars to knock their balloons out to knock them out of the game. When you had a second to breathe in game you could blow into a small hole in the bottom of the DS to re-inflate your balloons to increase your chance of surviving.
The DS had an exclusive local Wi-Fi network, allowing players to play against each other in a small distance from each other. Not all players needed a copy of the game to compete, only one player needed the game and the other players could download it to their consoles through the local connection.
The console didn't have very good internal storage, but instead, the games featured a small amount of external memory, where players could save their game progress to. The games came in the format of a game chip. The games were small, there fore minimizing the games quality in graphics. Nintendo however never were the type of company that cared too much about HD graphics, creating a realistic gaming experience. What mattered to them is attracting a vast audience of all ages to enjoy a variety of different games, making them vastly outsell the Sony PSP and VITA.
Nintendo have been around with hand held consoles since 1989 with the Game Boy. As my essay is focused around the Nintendo market during the period of the PSP's release and beyond, I have included a timeline with all of Nintendo's consoles and their release dates. I have primarily focused my research on the DS's technology, as it was about when the PSP was released.
 |
| Handheld timeline, covering a number of the consoles since the late 90's |
The Nintendo DS was first released in 2004. It was Nintendo's new line up of handheld consoles for the future of mobile gaming. The DS had a similar layout the Game Boy Advance SP with its folding system to reveal the screen. The DS also included an all new stylus touch screen, which could also act as a secondary in game screen or a display for playing Game Boy Advance games. Having a backwards compatible handheld made it an even bigger seller, as people who owned a Game Boy Advance could upgrade to the DS and still play their old games, as well as the new ones.
The DS had some really cool interactive in game features. I chose Mario Kart as an example. During Battle mode, your car would have three balloons and you have to compete against other cars to knock their balloons out to knock them out of the game. When you had a second to breathe in game you could blow into a small hole in the bottom of the DS to re-inflate your balloons to increase your chance of surviving.
The DS had an exclusive local Wi-Fi network, allowing players to play against each other in a small distance from each other. Not all players needed a copy of the game to compete, only one player needed the game and the other players could download it to their consoles through the local connection.
The console didn't have very good internal storage, but instead, the games featured a small amount of external memory, where players could save their game progress to. The games came in the format of a game chip. The games were small, there fore minimizing the games quality in graphics. Nintendo however never were the type of company that cared too much about HD graphics, creating a realistic gaming experience. What mattered to them is attracting a vast audience of all ages to enjoy a variety of different games, making them vastly outsell the Sony PSP and VITA.
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| DS (2004) |
The DS Lite was released in 2006 and was an upgrade from the original 2004 model. It was a smaller, lighter model. It still featured all the original features and the small 'blow hole' was moved to below the top screen to improve the game experience. Since the original one was below the touch screen it was hard to blow into the hole while trying to look at the screen when having to lift the consoles up to your mouth.
The consoles was very popular and was then released in a variety of different colours.
 |
| DS Lite (2006)
The DSi XL was released in 2009. It was a completely new style of DS. As the age of gaming changed so did the consoles. The XL was bigger than the 2004 model, allowing a better gaming experience on a large scale. New features became available such as a built in mic and camera for video chat and online player chat. There was also an online store called DSi Ware, this allowed players to download books and games directly to their DS without having to get up.
There were of course a number of problems with the DSi XL. The bigger screens reduced the quality of some text based games and made it heavier and less portable. Content that you purchased from the DS Ware Store on the DS Lite could not be transferred and there were no improvements to the consoles internal storage. But the battery life was a lot better.
|
 |
| DSi XL (2009) |
The 3DS was released in 2011. It was a new look to the currently popular DS Lite and XL. The console now featured an in game 3D model, creating a whole new visual experience for the player. Only selected games were available in 3D such as Mario and Pokemon. The 3DS could still run previous DS games, but without the 3D functionality.
The console however had to sacrifice backwards compatibility, making it unable to run GBA games anymore. But many games were available to purchase on the DSi Ware Store.
The 3D mode worked by the player simply flicking the enable 3D switch reinventing the game they were playing in a new image. The new directional pad in the shape of a disc, functioned like an analogue stick on the PSP. It was used for 3rd person and 3D compatible games, bringing to life the new revolution of DS gaming.
The DS had improved internal memory meaning it could store media files such as videos and music, allowing offline media playback. It still didn't have external memory units that the Sony consoles had, but it was an improvement.
 |
| 3DS (2011) |
The 3DS XL was released in 2012, after the PS VITA came out. It was a combination of the original 3DS and the DSi XL console. It re created the visual sophistication of the 3DS and the size of the DSi XL, making games even more immersible and visually stunning.
Other than the changes in size, there were no real improvements to the console aside from a better battery and camera/mic quality for a better online and social gaming experience.
 |
| 3DS XL (2012)
Research Links
http://www.nintendo.com/ds
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS
http://www.nintendo.co.uk/Nintendo-DS/Nintendo-DS-Family-Nintendo-UK-s-official-site-Nintendo-DS-Nintendo-DSi-Nintendo-DSi-XL-116380.html
http://uk.gamespot.com/reviews.html?platform=1026?new_theme=standard
http://reviews.cnet.com/consoles/nintendo-ds-titanium/4505-10109_7-30895578.html
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-ds.htm
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-ds1.htm
DS Lite
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_DS_Lite
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/portable-gaming/nintendo-ds-lite-review-49277586/
http://vgsales.wikia.com/wiki/Nintendo_DS
http://www.displaymate.com/psp_ds_shootout.htm
http://www.engadget.com/2011/06/01/nintendo-drops-ds-lite-to-100-makes-it-easier-to-mario-party/
http://www.cubed3.com/news/4756/1/nintendo-sales-ds-lite-leaves-japan-feeling-blue.html
DSi XL
|
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/portable-gaming/nintendo-dsi-xl-review-49305467/
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-01-27-new-worldwide-wii-and-ds-total-sales
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/dsi-xl-dominates-in-japanese-hardware-sales
3DS
http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/handheld-consoles/nintendo-3ds-931771/review
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/nintendo-3ds1.htm
http://ds.about.com/od/nintendods101/fr/Should-You-Buy-The-Nintendo-3ds.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_3DS
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/portable-gaming/nintendo-3ds-review-50000079/
http://bgr.com/2012/12/20/nintendo-3ds-sales-analysis-260967/
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