sleepyBelieve it or not, the PSP is actually my preferred system. The DS' touch screen just isn't how I want to control most of the games I want to play; I prefer the precision of a digital pad. (I play Advance Wars DS/DoR with the D-Pad, not the touch screen, for one.) The PSP simply has a better control layout, and its single screen is more practical for the majority of games; it's hard to make full use of two screens, it seems. The iPhone has it worst- I really can't play action games on a touch screen, I've found. (It's excellent at Civilization, though.)
Signed homebrew on the PSP- homebrew using the fact that Sony's security key was broken and therefore can load and run without any sort of PSP hack at all- is also excellent, which helps. (My attention is mostly on Tyrian and GBC/GBA emulation, I admit.) DS homebrew, despite my buying a flash card for the purpose, really hasn't held my attention.
It's pretty obvious to me why the iPhone is winning, though. An iPhone or iPod Touch can be a "good enough" handheld game system, and the game prices are dirt cheap, so someone who has one may have very little incentive to buy a dedicated console. A dedicated handheld console isn't stopping smartphone sales any, though.
Smartphones are becoming dominant enough that this factor may well threaten the viability of dedicated handheld gaming consoles as a whole, a generation out. I think it's a little premature for this one, but I may just be optimistic in favor of dedicated systems...
I've migrated to DreamWidth. The original post is at http://kistaro.dreamwidth.org/473446.html. View
