Sony learned nothing from the PSPGo, did they?

[Zeus]

For a system absolutely dying in sales (sells less than 1000 a week in Japan and they won't even separate the sales from the UMD versions in North America) seems like they're going to make the same mistake for the PSP2 and have absolutely no support for physical media

http://edge-online.com/news/sony-hints- ... -only-psp2

It was a decent run while it lasted. I like the small selection of excellent games on the system. Guess the iPhone will be the DS's only actual competition - an indirect one at that - unless Microsoft changes its mind and enters the market

[Eric]

PSPGo served no purpose, it was literally a more expensive version of what people were already buying/had with no additional utility, and cut off the previous physical library.

If the PSP2 is a more powerful system and it's upfront right out of the box that it's digital only I don't think it'll run into the same issues.

[Zeus]

Look at the pricing structure of iPhone apps: generally $5 or less, yes? Only a few exceptions to that if I'm not mistaken. How well do you think $30 or even $40 download-only games will sell? That's what Sony's going for. Even XBLA and PSN games die when they break the magical $15 premium price.

[Eric]

I don't think Sony would put out a a Download-only system, again, and make the same exact mistakes twice, they've shown they can adapt to a changing marketplace, so we'll just have to wait and see.

[Zeus]

I don't think Sony would put out a a Download-only system, again, and make the same exact mistakes twice, they've shown they can adapt to a changing marketplace, so we'll just have to wait and see.

Sony is very, very stubborn and thinks they can control market demand with their admittedly excellent marketing. There's also a couple of parts in that article that make it seem like what they're trying to do is become a super iPhone and eliminate physical media altogether, especially since they see piracy as by far the biggest issue with the PSPs lack of success (as opposed to, say, the fact it's over-priced and has a relatively small selection of acceptable games). The fact that they think the PSPGo is a successful experiment and the VG247 rumour seems to be far more than just someone talking out of his ass just lend further support to the theory. And they again mentioned the handheld space having such strong competition from smartphones means to me that they're going for a portable set-top box device and, as we all know, anything that does everything never does anything well.

Sure, we'll see, but I'm skeptical it's going to be anything other than a physical media-less device. Too bad, I'm probably more fond of my PSP than most and I will be sad to see it either die or move into a completely different market than the DS.

[SineSwiper]

This is all a moot point, as Android will kill all handhelds in 5 years, anyway.

[Zeus]

This is all a moot point, as Android will kill all handhelds in 5 years, anyway.

Gaming is a little different market right now than the smartphone market. If, say, Nintendo every released their own Android phone then we might be talking. But until then, there will always be a market for gaming-only machines. I just want to see enough competition to keep Nintendo on their toes. The PSP was that for a short period there and it was great. But if they move out of the market, I'm concerned we won't have nearly the breadth of wonderful titles as we've seen on the DS.

[SineSwiper]

All it takes is one manufacturer to make an Android "phone" with buttons on it, and it's all over. And I'm not talking about an N-Gage, either. (That was a phone that had games on it, and it had horrible controls because it was a phone first, not a gaming platform first.) Hell, it doesn't even have to be a phone, but it can be primary a gaming handheld with Android on it. Suddenly, you have a game that is compatible with many different phones, whatever Google's iPad will be, and the Android handheld gaming platform.

This would be much like the relationship between PC gaming and the 360. It requires little effort to convert from PC to 360 because at its core, the 360 is just a fancy PC. When you have handheld devices (phones, pads, portable gaming) all running the same OS, it requires even less effort.

[Zeus]

I'm wondering if a company like Nokia, if they start losing serious market share to Apple 'cause of the gaming aspect of the iPhone, won't approach Nintendo on a joint venture device. I really think that phone and PDA-like features on a gaming system is a much better marriage than games on a phone device. And considering that the markets aren't (yet) directly in competition with each other, that may be a good expansion strategy for Nintendo as well, as long as they keep the releases different so their own handheld doesn't suffer.

[SineSwiper]

The lines are blurring EVERYWHERE. Everything is in direct competition with everything else, even if they don't believe it at first. Again, I'm on the Android bandwagon because the concept is turning phones into sets of hardware that does stuff, instead of something that is specifically a phone. When you open up the OS and provide this compatibility that hasn't been seen since the PC, the possibilities are endless.

Pretty soon, it'll just be pads of different sizes that all pretty much do the same function. What the hell is the difference between a smart phone, pad computer, gaming handheld, netbook, console, and PC? All of these devices have the same capabilities, just different sizes, and different levels of portability.

[Zeus]

The lines certainly are blurring but there will always be a niche market for a company like Nintendo since their strength is the gaming experiences they provide. And, for now, there's still a division between the gaming and smartphone markets. Sure the smartphone markets are starting to do lots of gaming and being successful at it but they still haven't come even close to replicating the experiences on the PSP or DS. They simply don't do gaming well enough and gamers demand a certain level which the iPhone or other smartphones simply can't offer due to their design. Sony's thinking with the PSP2 that they can have the touch-screen of the iPhone and buttons of a PSP and that may put it over the top. We'll see.

[Kupek]

This is all a moot point, as Android will kill all handhelds in 5 years, anyway.

And next year is the year for Desktop Linux.

[Julius Seeker]

At best, Android will replace the BREW platform in 5 years. Like BREW, developers will be developing for not one, but the top 40 devices. Also like BREW, it won't be competing with Nintendo or Sony. Though unlike BREW, publishers won't make any money off of it. So I guess it might be more like java without the hope of non-North American markets =)

[Zeus]

This is all a moot point, as Android will kill all handhelds in 5 years, anyway.

And next year is the year for Desktop Linux.

Ha!

[SineSwiper]

And next year is the year for Desktop Linux.

Given that Android is running off of Linux and Google will likely come out with their own iPad this year, that's probably not that far off. Linux proper, though, is too busy fighting over KDE/GNOME (for 15 years) on that piece of shit X platform (which has been around for 30 years). The whole X11 platform needs to be cut off from the limb, to wither and die.

Android, if they can manage to merge at least part of it back into Linux, might actually give the whole idea of "Desktop Linux" new life, and give them the excuse they need to abandon X. I think for a while, though, it'll be Android for the desktop and Linux for the servers, as it'll probably be a long effort to get things working with the two of them as a unified OS. But the payoff will be huge, considering the amount of apps for both playgrounds.

[Julius Seeker]

My prediction. In 5 years the top mobile platform will be Symbian. Apple iPhones will continue to be the top phone.

[SineSwiper]

Well, I've got that bet down and we'll see what happens in five years.

[Anarky]

My prediction. In 5 years the top mobile platform will be Symbian. Apple iPhones will continue to be the top phone.

Unless Apple tries to diversify their product line I don't see that happening. I think the ability to have Android on so many different devices is the strength Apple will never have.

[Anarky]

Apparently Sony is trying to fix the PSPGo:

http://kotaku.com/5552923/sony-gets-agg ... spgo-games

[Zeus]

Apparently Sony is trying to fix the PSPGo:

http://kotaku.com/5552923/sony-gets-agg ... spgo-games

Fixing it would be to include a physical media reader. Until we see strong sales of games priced $19.99+ USD, I'm not convinced download-only is the way to go for either handhelds or consoles

[Julius Seeker]

My prediction. In 5 years the top mobile platform will be Symbian. Apple iPhones will continue to be the top phone.

Unless Apple tries to diversify their product line I don't see that happening. I think the ability to have Android on so many different devices is the strength Apple will never have.

That's exactly the point I was addressing above. Developers are going to have to develop for the top 40 devices, rather than just one or two devices.

Aside from the different chipsets, heap, and resolution; Android devices run different versions of firmware which handle things very differently (ie. Having an app which is locked to a specific screen orientation on earlier versions; and then on later versions this no longer works; and you all of the sudden have an app, which once behaved correctly, that now switches orientation between portrait and landscape with assets for only one orientation - yes I have seen this exact issue). That, combined with the almost non-existant market for paid apps, is why Android is getting mostly cheap BREW and Java ports, and iPhone is getting much higher end games. It's just much easier to develop for iPhone.

Also, Android lives off of Verizon contracts (that's why crappy motorola phones using it, like the Droid, are actually selling); the best Android phone - The Google Nexus One - released with both GSM contracts (on Sprint and Rogers), and a cheap unlocked version (to use on any GSM network), completely bombed. It doesn't matter if there are 50,000 Android devices if none of them are selling in the tens of millions. In fact, if there were 50,000, apps would likely only work well on a small portion of them.

To date, each iteration of the iPhone has been bigger than the last; they are increasing marketshare with one device a year, and iPhone's userbase is WAY larger than any other current Smartphone.

As for Symbian. Nokia is by far the largest manufacturer in the world for mobile phones. They just didn't break into North America. In a few years the mega markets (India in particular) will be getting into the Smartphone models, and it'll likely be mostly Nokia/Symbian - so a surge in that market is not too far off. Nokia bought Symbian in 2008, Symbian today is the largest Smartphone platform. Android won't likely take much of this market; at best they'll eventually replace Verizon/Qualcomm's BREW platform; that's where Android's biggest success has been seen; but because of lack of real competition, Nokia and Apple are non-existant on the CDMA networks.

[SineSwiper]

One, nobody has heard of Symbian. I had to look it up. Two, it's Nokia. It will never last. Three, if the lack of competition is the only thing holding it up, it's only a matter of time before Android shows up in their market and burns the monopoly down.

Also, the Nexus One isn't their "best phone". Otherwise, it wouldn't have bombed. It suffered from support problems and Google's lack of hardware experience. I think they are going to try the unlocked phone again with the help of a third-party.

Their best phone would be something from HTC. The most popular one is probably the Droid, selling 250K in the first week. Android's sales have surpassed the iPhone this quarter.

Also, your comparison of Java/BREW vs. Android is completely fucked up. Java is a LANGUAGE, and Android is an entire OPERATING SYSTEM. That's a huge difference. Claiming that developers can't write programs for different screen resolutions is like claiming that Microsoft can't write Word for different PC configurations, or game companies can't write PC games for different configurations. Hell, we're talking about much smaller sets of changes for these phones than with PCs. They could realistically test for every single Android phone out there. The reason why BREW didn't take off is because it's a separate VM layer that slows down the phone and suffers from memory problems.

Apple will lose this war just like they lost the PC war, and for the exactly the same reasons.

[Kupek]

Claiming that developers can't write programs for different screen resolutions is like claiming that Microsoft can't write Word for different PC configurations, or game companies can't write PC games for different configurations. Hell, we're talking about much smaller sets of changes for these phones than with PCs. They could realistically test for every single Android phone out there. The reason why BREW didn't take off is because it's a separate VM layer that slows down the phone and suffers from memory problems.

And yet... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?si ... d=32426078

You like Google. You like open-source for reasons of principle. So do I, on both counts. But you seem to think Android will win-out because you like it.

It's also worth keeping in mind that right now, it's not Google versus Apple. The data for smart phone platforms from February 2010 is RIM (Blackberry) 42.1%; Apple 25.4%; Microsoft 15.1%; Google 9.0%; and Palm 5.4% (source: http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_ ... rket_Share)

[SineSwiper]

And yet... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?si ... d=32426078

Sorry, the link doesn't really work.

You like Google. You like open-source for reasons of principle. So do I, on both counts. But you seem to think Android will win-out because you like it.

No, I hope it will win out because I like it. But, that's not why I -think- it will win out. I think it will win out because the similar battles have occurred with standardization, and the conditions seem right for a more standardized platform for, well, everything.

The PC world is morphing quickly. There is a bit of ambiguity around just what is a computer, or browser, or media device. A console is a phone is a netbook is a computer is a DVR. When all devices can connect to the Internet and do stuff, what else is there that is left that separates a computer from any other device? (After all, if you can create a browser on a platform, you can create anything else.)

That kind of environment requires some level of standardization, something to glue that together. Right now, Android is in the best position to do that. That's not to say that Android is going to be on the next PS4 or something, but Android could fill every other gap.

It's also worth keeping in mind that right now, it's not Google versus Apple. The data for smart phone platforms from February 2010 is RIM (Blackberry) 42.1%; Apple 25.4%; Microsoft 15.1%; Google 9.0%; and Palm 5.4% (source: http://comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_ ... rket_Share)

That must be older data. Last I heard, Android was second over RIM, surpassing the iPhone. It was big tech news.

I'm still curious at the whole RIM thing. Either RIM has just had that much of a share for a while (especially with all of the business saturation), or something recent happened. I don't really know of anything big with them recently, so I'm forced to assume the former.

[Julius Seeker]

Actually, those numbers are only US numbers. The iPhone alone is beating out all of the Android devices combined worldwide by quite a large margin (15.4 to 9.6) - this doesn't include iPod touch sales:

http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1372013

As for Nokia; Sine, I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about on Nokia; it's not "nobody has heard of Symbian" more accurately, it is YOU who haven't heard of Symbian; there is a world outside of Kentucky and the US. I also don't see why you think it won't last because it's Nokia, their dominance of the mobile market looks like it's going to last a good long time; they sold over 110 million phones last year - more than double that of the entire Smartphone market combined. 

Android is the one with the limited competition so far - you mentioned the Droid's success. That's propped up by Verizon that is on a CDMA network where it has no competition from anyone except the lowsy Blackberry Storm line. The Droid is still a Motorola phone, and i feel sorry for people who actually bought it and it's bulky oven drawer of a slider keypad (which is one of the worst keypads I have ever seen).

As for the Nexus One, it IS manufactured by HTC and is the top phone they manufactured for the past 6 months; and will be until the release of the Evo, which is more or less an upgrade on the Nexus One. Which one did you think was better? 

Java ME and Android are BOTH mobile platforms with specific markets and certifications.

Your comparison between Microsoft a mobile game developer who requires art time and dollars for different assets on different resolutions and hardware capabilities, who probably will put more hours into development than copies they'll actually sell (because it's Android). In comparison, MS Word is a popular 'word processor' backed by a company which has tens of billions in revenue. As I mentioned above, Android's crazy firmware upgrades mess everything up from version to version.

Kupek's link that you mysteriously can't access:

I've developed 7 Android apps and the huge diversity of Android versions and devices out there really is a nightmare. I have an enormous number of extra code paths due to it. All this extra complexity makes apps tougher to write, tougher to test, tougher to debug, tougher to enhance.

Some examples of bizarre stuff I have to do:
Android 1.5 has a Java NIO bug that forces me to copy data to a temporary array on its way to buffers to be rendered via OpenGL. This hurts performance on older phones that often need it the most. It also means I have to do more testing to make sure both code paths are well exercised. I bet many developers don't even realize the bug is there an just have broken OpenGL apps on Android 1.5. The bug fix would be trivial to port back to Android 1.5, which would make it drastically more likely to get on to these older phones, but there's no sign this will ever happen. Do I keep code paths like this? Or do I give up the 25% of the market that is Android 1.5? Neither is desirable.

Another really frustrating one is how I have to detect specific devices and request certain size depth buffers just to get decent performance. Hardware graphics acceleration is only enabled on the Samsung Galaxy for depth buffer size 16, for example, not for no depth buffer. Depth buffer size 24 works best on the Droid, etc.. The Galaxy has had this bug for a very long time. The Archos tablet has no hardware acceleration and there are promises that cheaper phones will be similar. Do I write all the extra code for adjusting rendering for each of these? Or do again give up large swaths of the market?

Anyway, I'm constantly dealing with issues like this. It is really disappointing that Android team, the carriers, and the device manufacturers don't do more to prevent it. Doing things like back porting fixes so that older phones can be more trivially updated would help enormous numbers of apps and app developers compared to the very few resources needed on Google's part to do it.

Meanwhile Google isn't even interested in solutions to these problems from what I've seen. One developer brought up another potential solution during a session at Google IO. He suggested making the highest level of Android a distributable framework, like .NET. This would allow updating it much easier. Not nearly as many phones would be stranded with old, buggy versions of the Java portion of Android at least. The Google staffers just brushed the idea off without even discussing it. They said fragmentation should really be called progress and to deal with it.

This isn't really surprising. If you look at a recent app produced by Google, the Twitter app, you'll see that it is unavailable to a huge percentage of the market because they don't support older versions of Android with it. Independent developers can't afford to ignore large sections of the marketplace like that. Google isn't in the app business, so the Googlers just go ahead and ignore the issue. You can see a graph of the versions of the devices on Android Market here:
http://developer.android.com/intl/fr/re ... sions.html [android.com]

And of course there are plenty of devices not on Google's market, many of which are even less likely to receive updates because they are updated by PC software rather than over the air.

So Googlers aren't even eating their own dog food on this issue. They just make app developers put up with it on their own, never experience it themselves, and then ridicule the issue as a bogeyman. I think I was happier before I read the blog post. At least then I could imagine they were working hard on the issue and just doing terrible at it. Now I know they don't even consider it an issue.

Lastly, about BREW - at least people can make money with their apps on it.


Oh, and I am not sure what this whole PC war you are talking about really has to do with anything now. It's a totally different market and a totally different era. Apple has the top Smartphone in the world by far, and There are many Android phones; all of them combined aren't selling as well as Apple's one phone. If your analogy with PC is accurate, shouldn't Android be marginalized, and Winmo be winning?

[SineSwiper]

As for Nokia; Sine, I don't think you have any idea what you are talking about on Nokia; it's not "nobody has heard of Symbian" more accurately, it is YOU who haven't heard of Symbian; there is a world outside of Kentucky and the US. I also don't see why you think it won't last because it's Nokia, their dominance of the mobile market looks like it's going to last a good long time; they sold over 110 million phones last year - more than double that of the entire Smartphone market combined.

You mean this Symbian?