I-Mockery Forum - New handheld statistics: Numbers Don't Lie

James, I want you to read this. Particularly the part about the ports. Go ahead.

In the most recent Game Informer, there was an article about the sales and game statistics between the PSP and the DS. Some interesting things were brought to light. For example:

Ports: Many people bash Nintendo for having too many ports on their handhelds. However, looking at the titles, it seems that the PSP game library is approximately 76% versions of existing titles, whereas DS only has about 51%.

Holiday Titles: Sony has 41 new games coming out during the holiday season, and Nintendo has 49.

Holiday ports: The percentage of holiday titles that are ports on PSP is 54%, DS 45.8%.

Sales (hardware): In America, it is nearly tied. PSP 1.7-1.95 million units, DS 1.97 million. In Japan, DS not only outsells PSP, but it also outsells PS2, which, despite being out for so long, still sells quite a few units per week. PSP had yet to launch in Europe at the time of this writing, but DS already has a large fanbase installed.

Sales (software): PSP has sold more software, despite selling fewer systems. This is helped a lot by UMD movies. More on that later...

Fun factor: Many people are staying away from the PSP due to the fact that it does not deliver a new gaming experience. That, mixed with the high number of ports, and you have many people sticking with their PS2s instead, and then buying DS for the unique gaming experience.

Power: DS is the weaker of the systems, but the PSP is only using 2/3 of it's processing power. However, tapping into it to it's full potential will deplete it's already low battery life significantly.

Movies: DS has no movie playback ability at all. However, the PSP is selling more UMD movies than actual games, which is actually hurting game sales. The more movies that come out, the fewer games get sold, and there are about 100 movies planned for UMD by year's end.

Holiday sales projections: In a poll of perspective handheld buyers, about 18% said they wanted a PSP, whereas only 12% said DS. The remaining 70% were not mentioned, but I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that they weren't considering an N-Gage. Looks like GBA is still on top of the market.