Sony vs Nintendo : a battle we've seen before

Today Sony and Nintendo are nearly on equal footing in terms of how they run their business in this gaming industry. They both have highly successful closed platform mobile devices. They both make similar sales month over month and they both have shown their hand for what the next generation [of portables] will offer.

The Nintendo 3DS is home to some N64 classics such as The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Mario64, and many more. The Nintendo 3DS also has the same basic control scheme of the N64 and hardware capabilities of a similar nature. For the unaware some may think the 3ds was an accessory to the N64 to play your games on the go.

The Playstation Vita has some characteristics shared with it's oldest predecessor the psone. The psone was lightyears ahead of times with it's new optical media and cutting edge graphics. The PS Vita is currently the highest specced mobile device on market and with an OLED screen and rear touch panel the PS Vita is bringing essentially our day equivalent (hardware wise) of the psone.

People often remarked that Nintendo had too long of an established position in the industry for Sony to take any of the pie. But the psone triumphed and it is one of the best selling consoles of all time. The battle of Vita vs 3DS is similar to that of psone vs N64, one that says Nintendo should win, after all look at the huge success of the DS, can Sony possibly top that? I suggest they will. The Vita has too much going for it at such a competitive price that Nintendo simply have been outgunned. The lack of 3rd party support recently suggests to me that they are jumping ship and backing Vita in what they [the publishers] hope, and Sony hopes, will be a one horse race.

Of course, even if my predictions or wild accusations turn out to be true, the fact is the N64 vs PSone battle was a little different - and both systems ended up being pretty damn amazing. Games on both systems are widely regarded as the best of all-time, and with good reason. FFVII, MGS, OoT, Mario64 and GoldenEye to name but a few - if Vita vs 3DS produces results just half as good, I think it's fair to say bring 'em on!!

And who's to say this won't happen? Maybe Vita WILL get all of the 3rd party games, and a few first party, but when Nintendo backs their hardware - they back it with full force. Could the 3DS have an OoT that's not actually OoT? Could there be a new GoldenEye [IP] by one of Nintendos 1st party? What about Metroid?

Regardless of sales the battle should be a good one, but my blog does suggest the Vita will triumph in a similar way to the psone.

Thanks for reading, comments as always hugely welcome.

[iamnsuperman]

"when Nintendo backs their hardware - they back it with full force" thats the problem really Nintendo hasn't with the 3DS. I can see more of a focus on the the Wii U in the next year but what effect this will have on the 3DS. They needed to releasr a new console but did the release the 3DS to early/close to the Wii U to make supporting it hard. The Wii U looks expensive (development wise) and with lack of credible third party on the Wii they need to focus heavily on the Wii U which could leave the 3Ds behind

[dedicatedtogamers]

I hope that the PS Vita upsets the handheld space and Nintendo loses ground. It would wake them up.

[Xof]

lol, no, it wouldn't. They'd see that and decide to try marketing a Nintendo-brand mobile phone next.

[miyamoto]

They must join forces or they will not survive the ever increasing pressure from the likes of huge American companies like Microsoft and Apple.

Japan video game industry is really in great danger right now but I want Nintendo's and Sony PlayStation's tradition and culture to remain strong and revitalized.

I also don't want all the Japanese developer and publisher's who depend's so much on these two pillars of gaming to suffer if one of them ever goes out of the race because NEC, Neo Geo, Sega outage from the console race were so tragic enough.

Sony and Nintendo should help each other because the Japanese game industry is being choked every minute every second of the day.

What would happen if these Japanese developers fall one after the other because they could not compete with their multi-million dollar counter parts in the West?

I love shooters like Uncharted & Killzone but what would happen if all we have are American shooters and no variety?

I believe with Sony's established mainstream core gaming brand + Nintendo's established family friendly & casual reputation operating under one roof then we could say we will have a well balanced Western ( SCEA & NoA) & Eastern (SCEJ & NoJ) video games ecosystem that is impregnable from threats of the other forms of entertainment & industry.

Nintendo + Sony should leave all their differences behind them and deal with the greater solution needed by the Japanese industry.

[BIGBOSS08]

i think ps vita will outsell 3ds. its not impossible at all. look at sony, they looked unstoppable at once. people think nintendo are successfull now? just because of the wii and ds? that is nothing compared to how badly sony dominated the market with playstation 1 and 2 and yet they somehow managed to fall behind nitendo. it could easily reverse again if the right moves are made.

[LightofDarkness]

Nintendo have dominated the handheld market since the Gameboy. The Vita is not likely to change that. If people aren't buying the 3DS right away, Nintendo will add something to make it an even more attractive machine. And you can't possibly believe that Sony's console dominance is comparable to the amount of money that handhelds have generated for Nintendo over the years.

Sony PlayStation 2 2000 153.19 million[1][2]
Nintendo Nintendo DS 2004 146.42 million[3]
Nintendo Game Boy/Game Boy Color[4] 1989 and 1998 118.69 million[3]
Sony PlayStation 1994 102.49 million [5]
Nintendo Wii 2006 86.01 million[3]
Nintendo Game Boy Advance 2001 81.51 million[3]
Sony PlayStation Portable 2004 70 million[6

Those numbers add up rather heavily in Nintendo's favour. The only things that look poised to change the game are smartphones.

[pain777pas]

The Vita is an impressive piece of tech to say the least. The first dedicated handheld with 2 analog sticks, touch pads and six-axis. You cannot predict the impact of the device until established franchises take advantage of the inputs that are on tap. LBP Vita is a perfect example. Many have made videos post E3 and stated that they can't play the other versions of the game because the Vita adds so much to the game because of the many inputs it has for GAMING. The DS gaming wise will have to make 3d meaningful in a way for it to sell.

[theonlylolking]

Sony and Nintendo really should team up. Sony should make the console and nintendo releases all of their games on it.

This is how I think the profits should work

sony gets all profits from consoles sold
nintendo gets all profits from their published games
sony gets all profits from their published games
nintendo and sony share equal profits from DLC
nintendo gets slightly more profits from multiplatform releases since sony gets all profits from consoles sold.

OR they could just share equal profits from anything sold

Nintendo's franchises like pokemon, mario,etc... with sony's granturismo,uncharted, etc... would make the console a huge hit and none could stop them.

[Raendom]

Well, for that to happen one of them would have to drop out of console development altogether, and It's possible that may happen but unlikely. In the very, very far future if it does happen, it'd feel so weird lol.

Kinda like a repeat of Sega, loving Nintendo enough to team Mario and Sonic up. :P

[skrug]

you do know that sony sell the console at a loss, especially at launch even after a couple of years later

[kane_1371]

What is this supposed to mean?
His point was very clear, something that I agree on it too.
You know that Nintendo created a big competition for itself just by being plain stupid and stopping its co-operation with SONY in making consoles when SONY stepped forward and suggested nextgen consoles should run on CD:s which Nintendo laughed at, well it bite them on their ass and SONY released PSone which revolutionized console gaming. Yeah, your point is absurd since it doesn't have anything to do with OP's post.
You are just a troll seeking for a moment of fame on N4G and hate from PS fans.

[skrug]

@kane_1371

theonlylolking:
"sony gets all profits from consoles sold"
"nintendo gets slightly more profits from multiplatform releases since sony gets all profits from consoles sold."

what PROFIT would Sony get from SELLING HARDWARE at a LOSS.

and no, Nintendo was planning on having CD attachment with snes. and approched Sony to develop a cd attachment for the snes and a contract was made, however Nintendo secretly cancel the project because Nintendo didn't like how Sony had full control of the CD format for the games

[TruthbeTold]

A HUGE part of Nintendo's yearly revenue/profits come from hardware sales. They always sell their devices at a profitable price, and they always make return money on them from day one. How in the world could Nintendo come even close to the level of revenue that they currently are at by not only ceasing to release hardware, but also to share half of what they make from games with another company? It's just not going to happen.