[Crazy Jetty]

Quote:

Originally Posted by webz

Gamegear wasn't a failure. It managed to claim, and hold, a small, yet significant piece of the portable pie, compared to dismal attempts by the Atari Lynx, Virtual Boy, and Tiger's Game.Com to gain a foothold.

As a former owner of a Gamegear, I can honestly say it's three main problems initially were cost, size to screen ratio, as well as BATTERIES. Thing held a charge for about two hours with 6 batteries. Gameboy used 2 and went for 6+ hours. Also, Gamegear launched at a time where the only real franchise Sega had was Sonic. Not enough to maintain a system. I preferred playing Gamegear, but it had only 4 titles in many years of existence worth owning: Sonic, Mortal Kombat, and MK2, and columns. The rest were mediocre at best. Nintendo cornered the cheap parent market by releasing the first Gameboy for $87, and it was 1/2 the size... nevermind the fact that the CPU and screen came from a japanese calculator...

With the PSV, Sony has mutiple developed franchises, it has a good relationship with it's third party developers (something Sega was notoriously bad with, back in the day), and they also have clout Sega never dreamed of having. Sony learned from the PSP. The UMD was a joke. too big and fragile for portability. Also, Sony learned that selling movies in a $20 UMD format was a joke. They learned their mistake with Bluray (Blu/DVD/digital box sets).
They also learned that people are cheap, unethical stealing rats, and if given the chance, they will steal software instead of buy it. That's why craigslist was FULL of ads offering modded PSP services. By the time Sony got it under control, it was too late for the PSP. The Vita has remedied many of these issues, and I honestly don't think the 3DS is it's main competitor. The 3DS is aimed at kids. The biggest hurdle to the Vita is the Smartphone/tablet market. Sony has to convince teens and young adults that they want another thing in their pocket/purse. 3G & social media compatibility is the first step (very few tablets have 3G now, and most smart phones have a small screen). The other thing they must do is convince people that they want a full featured, high production game for $29 to $39 instead of Angry Birds or Doodlejumper for $1.99. Which actually ties to my final point... Sony needs to really advertise the minis games. These little $2 to $7 games are fantastic and simple. They are quick to download and are just as good as many of the games on an iPhone, but Sony rarely promotes them.

I have a Gamegear. Had one since it came out, and know all these things.
Everything you say is truth, but it doesn't really do much but push my point. Nintendo dominates the handheld market, and always has. And always will.