Why For Art Though Lite?

By Plagiarize

First of all, let’s get something straight, worthy or not, the DS Lite is no SP. The original GBA had one major flaw: Its screen. Short of cracking open the device and manually installing a front light (no easy process) you were pretty much stuck waving your GBA next to a light to see what the hell was going on. That or buying a clip on light that needed batteries of its own, and made the device less portable and more cumbersome.

While many complained about the removal of a standard headphone jack, overall the SP was welcomed with open arms because not only did it fix the crushing flaw with the system, by adding in a front lit LCD screen (not as good as backlit for colours, but plenty good for seeing what’s going on), it had three other major improvements. It was smaller, it had a clamshell design that protected the screen much better than on the original, and it had a rechargeable battery, with better battery life than you got on the old unit with standard AAs.

The only other real complaints heard about the SP was that it had been work in progress before the GBA even launched. Nintendo as always were just tweaking and waiting until they could launch the unit profitably at a price people would pay.

The DS Lite is no such band aid. It addresses no flaw that the original system had, arguably because the original system had no glaring flaw. It makes the device smaller and lighter, at a small cost to practicality as GBA games will now stick out a bit. It makes the stylus bigger, certainly a welcome and wanted change. It improves the battery life and offers 4 different brightnesses to the screens. The same highly rated backlighting technology that the GBA Micro and more recently, the SP have been given. It’s not as big a deal for the DS though, which was already backlit… and while the battery life at equal brightness has been upped by a few hours, at its highest brightness, the battery life is slightly less. So, if there’s no design flaw that needs addressing, why go to the trouble of relaunching the system with a new design given that the old one was doing so well?

Anyone who has seen the GBA micro will know that you’ll rarely want to be using that highest brightness, and anyone who used a DS will know that for the most part the screen is adequately bright. Neither battery life nor screen brightness were lacking on the old system. More choice is good though obviously, and it gives the DS something that the PSP has. In fact, at its highest brightness, the DS Lite will be brighter than the PSP at its highest brightness.

Perhaps this is our first clue.

Unsurprisingly, Japan will be first to receive the DS Lite. Release dates for other markets have not been announced and the reason should be clear to anyone that follows Japanese sales. Throughout December and into January, demand for the DS exploded. Sales figures initially quadrupled… the DS sold over a million units in less than two weeks (more than it sold in it’s launch period)… and then they started to fall off sharply…

Because everywhere was selling out.

Second hand shops starting selling DSs at more than the price for a new device. In fact, the situation was not too dissimilar to the launch of the X-Box 360 in every other market than Japan. Japan wanted the DS, not the X-Box 360, and there just weren’t enough to go around.

That’s why the Lite has been announced so early, and that’s why the Lite will get a few months of exclusivity in Japan. Nintendo need to get DSs into the hands of everyone that want them, and right now Japan is the only place with shortages.

Its only interesting to remember the DS came out in America before it came out in Japan. It’s only interesting to note, that after a highly successful launch, sales figures dropped off sharply for a few months, until the game drought ended.

Despite having global leadership over the PSP with the DS, and despite destroying the PSP in Japan, things are different elsewhere. Monthly sales of the two devices right now are neck and neck. Basically whichever unit gets the bigger game, wins that month. This is impressive for the DS, since no one thought it’d be fighting fit still. In Europe, where the PSP got a very late Summer release, it was amazing to see how quickly the launch buzz dissipated. Within a few weeks the DS, powered by Nintendogs, was outselling the PSP.

Nintendo of course, have kind of been here before though. The GameCube released in most markets before the X-Box. For a good while they held an early lead, and for a good while after the X-Box caught up, they kept pace… but ultimately the X-Box won out in the end.

The DS Lite looks to me, like the killer blow to the PSP in Japan, and the response to it elsewhere. One thing that has never been debated is that the DS is more practical than the PSP. The clamshell design, instead of a huge shiny plastic surface, almost begging to be scratched. The longer battery life. Cartridges instead of optical media that introduces load times to portables.

As a gaming device the PSPs advantages have been its higher resolution, brighter screen, its analog nub (disappointing as it is, it’s still got one) and it’s slimmer thickness making it more pocketable.

The DS is a bit of a 4×4. The PSP is a polished seventies vintage mustang. You just don’t want to take it out on the open road.

It’s not remotely debatable which is the better looking device between the two. The PSP has all the style the DS doesn’t. No model is going to lick a DS. It’s not going to make the cover of Stuff, or be as liked in the pages of FHM and other so called ‘male lifestyle’ magazines.

For a portable device, looks are a huge draw, and with the DS Lite the PSP loses one of its biggest advantages. While it’s debatable which looks better, it’s debatable which looks better. In other words, the DS Lite, with it’s clean lines, smaller size, and shiny smooth plastic is now in the same league as the PSP when it comes to aesthetics, and which ever you prefer. It’s the difference between pulling out a two year old mobile phone and a new one. It’s embarrassing to own a mobile phone that’s not got the ‘look’ for the style conscious, and the DS has never had the look.

While Sony tried to make the fight about multimedia, it screwed up on the gaming side. More DS games were sold in Japan last year than PS2 games were sold. That’s not a typo. The DS software outsold the PS2 software, let alone the PSP software. The unquestionable success of UMD movies is what is saving the PSP, but whereas the DS (sold for a profit) has one of the highest tie ratios (systems to games) the PSP (sold for a loss) has one of the lowest.

While it’s far from a failure in Japan, the hardware sales of the PSP just aren’t keeping up. Not remotely. Its multimedia capabilities aren’t getting people to buy one over the DS, because the DS has more great original games and less ports. Even its ports are more interesting, adding large new options and functionality.

In a survey of Japanese gamers, 63% of them said they were going to buy a DS Lite. That’s incredible, but it’s not the KEY fact. Of the people that don’t own a DS already, just over half of them plan on buying a DS Lite. That’s the incredible figure. That’s what aesthetics nets you. All those people put off from owning a DS want a Lite. Is it because of the battery life or the brighter screen? Probably not. It’s smaller, it’s sexier, and now they no longer feel any embarrassment in owning one.

That’s just the gamers too. The look of a system, especially a portable system, is even more crucial to the casual gamers, or the usual non gamers that the system has already had great success with. When your device looks like an I-Pod instead of a Game Boy there’s a big cultural difference. When you can say ‘oh yes, I do brain teasers and sudoku on this’ when someone sees it, that’s a big difference between saying ‘I play mario’.

The DS Lite is going to be a phenomenon in Japan, probably more so than the original DS was. Elsewhere, it’s going to be a great help in the battle with the PSP, because Nintendo just won over the style conscious who’d been deliberating.

The Micro was the first sign that Nintendo were realizing how important looks were. It was, I’d argue, an experiment. Nintendo obviously liked what they saw, and the DS Lite is the result. When the Lite comes out in America, if you want to see how big a threat it is to the PSP, look to Sony. If Sony drop their prices and bring the white PSP to America at the same time, you know that they acknowledge the threat.

So why isn’t the DS the runaway success it is in Japan elsewhere? I’d argue that looks are part of it, but not all of it. Style may well give the DS the edge over the PSP, but the real reason is fairly simple. Much was made over Japan not buying the X-Box 360 ‘because it was an American console’, but the truth lay in the games. There was little of interest for Japanese gamers on the system. Now look at the DS and the PSP. Which has the better version of all the classically western styled games? The PSP obviously, and it’s only the fact that it’s almost entirely ports that’s holding the device back. But in part due to the PSPs higher resolution screen and greater power, it’s unlikely to ever fully step out of the shadow of its ports. It’s too powerful.

As we’re all learning with the next generation, more power means bigger teams, longer developement times, and with the PSP being intentionally close to the PS2 in inner workings, porting is the cheapest and easiest option. The DS on the other hand is much better suited to smaller development teams, but it has a different problem. Western developers just don’t seem to know what to do with it. I own 18 DS games. Only two of those are from a Western studio. The first is Tony Hawk American Sk8land. It’s a port yes, but nobody does ports like Vicarious Visions. In many ways I prefer it to American Wasteland, the game it’s based on. The second is Metroid Prime Pinball, a Nintendo game developed in England. Apart from that, only seven of the titles I own aren’t published by Nintendo. This is the DS’s problem outside of Japan. All the good games are Japanese. Nintendo can’t single handidly force Western developers to ‘get’ the DS so its doing what it can.

The DS and the PSP haven’t had much overlap in their markets, but the Lite is encroaching on the PSPs turf, and things are going to get even more interesting in this handheld battle. While many say ‘once the PSP starts getting as many good games as the DS has its dead’ you can just as easily say ‘Once the DS starts getting good WESTERN games the PSP is dead’. The DS Lite is Nintendo’s trump card in the mean time. It’s going to put the DS out of the PSPs reach in Japan, and it might well start giving the DS the edge elsewhere.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t wait to see how and if Sony respond. Dare they take their eyes of the PS3? With software sales on the DS beating even the PS2 in Japan, dare they not?