Becoming PSP - PlayStation Portable vs. the Nintendo DS

by Brad Larson  |  June 24, 2008

Although the Nintendo DS was first on the market, being launched just months earlier than the PlayStation Portable from Sony and despite claims from both companies that their devices are not direct competitors on the market, targeting different market segments, it's a obvious as it can be that the two gadgets have been in competition since their release, partly due to their similar capabilities and similar purposes. Every game fan knows that Nintendo DS brought a gaming fever with it when it appeared, but the electronic gaming art has been refined only with the appearance of the PlayStation Portable.

For starters, the Nintendo DS is bulkier in size and has an unfinished look with rough edges that make it look like a plastic child's toy from the 80s when displayed besides a Slim & Lite PSP for example. Even the simple, original PlayStation Portable is well-designed, with a slick finish. The Nintendo DS weighs around 10 ounces with the thumb strap, battery and DS game inserted (a little more if you add in a GBA cart), which is slightly less than the PSP's 10, 3 ounces. But still, the two 3 inch screens from the Nintendo DS does not match up to the 4.3 inch single bright one on the PSP.

As a comparison, the Nintendo DS has a touchscreen on the lower part of the LCD, which adds up to more interactivity than the PSP. If the same touchscreen functionality would be inserted in the LCD of the PSP it would make it a great PDA. While Nintendo is just planning to add music and video to the DS, the PSP has both features already and one can just imagine how a video would look like on a 3 inch DS screen and the 4.3 LCD screen of the PSP. It may be that the PSP's principal purpose if to provide users with a gaming console, but the features, diaplay and performance just leave far behind the Nintendo DS offer. Even in processor power the Nintendo can not match up to the PSP, with the Nintendo DS ARM7 and ARM9 it can not expect to kneel the PSP's 32-bit MIPS R400 CPU. A practical comparison would be to take the Ridge Racer special versions for the DS and PSP, both created by Namco. The DS version has some rough pixelated graphics and the lower touchscreen does not seem to bring much functionality for the user during play time. The PSP version for Ridge Racers is similar to PlayStation 2, with smooth graphics and finer details for the cars.