The Next-Generation Handheld War
With the 3DS coming out this spring, it was only a matter of time before Sony started talking about their successor to the PSP. Well, that time just happened to be tonight (since in Japan it’s tomorrow when people are actually awake), and their strategy is quite interesting. New hardware was to be expected (which should be out by the end of the year), but they’re going a step further and basically turning Android devices into a virtual PlayStation handheld platform via a whole software package and store that they’ll be releasing. Since I’m firmly in the WP7 camp (for my phone anyway) I probably will just look upon that from the outside, but I’m sure I’ll be a slave to the games and pick up a PSP2 when it gets something I feel like I can’t live without. If that’s at launch then so be it, but it took until both Tools of Destruction and MGS4 came out for the PS3 (and a $100 price drop) before I got it. For the record, I’ve beat the former of those twice and the latter I’ve played for maybe all of 30-45 minutes.
The 3DS is more of an automatic purchase for me, but Nintendo is apparently sticking with a couple design decisions (around, surprise, the online connectivity portion) which do cause me to hesitate slightly. The friend code situation, while misguided at times, is at least simplified, but apparently their digital download store isn’t going to have the concept of accounts (beyond what is tied to the hardware), so that means no redownloading? I mean, I guess the Wii and DSi are in the same situation, but still, just seems like an odd choice to make when virtually no other system is like that.