Latest Nintendo Rumors: 3DS Lite?

If only we could see inside Nintendo this easily.

While we await the results of Nintendo's price-slashing experiment with the 3DS, some rumors (courtesy of Bloomberg Japan) have surfaced, claiming that Nintendo is planning a big announcement in September, perhaps prior to the Tokyo Game Show. Nintendo's stock has risen almost 10% in the last few days, which certainly might indicate that something is up. Adding fuel to the fire is this report on French gaming site 01net.com, which claims to have heard from a source inside Nintendo the following things:

1) Nintendo is planning an add-on second analog control for the 3DS, which would retail for about $10.

2) 3DS dev kits have about a 6-month backlog, so Nintendo is outsourcing the production in an attempt to get them out faster.

3) Nintendo, realizing that the whole 3D craze has flamed out, is planning to de-emphasize the 3D display, possibly even rebranding the 3DS.

4) Nintendo is planning a new 3DS for release next year... which would radically tone down the 3D aspect, a new design and possibly the new branding.

While Nintendo may be about to make a big announcement in September, I'm sure it wouldn't be about any new hardware. I seriously doubt they would want to do anything that might hurt holiday sales. I'd expect some announcement of additional marketing efforts, perhaps some free software pack-ins or downloads, and maybe an announcement of big marketing spending over the holidays. I think Nintendo will want to push the 3DS as hard as possible this holiday season (I'm already seeing new TV commercials pushing the lower price and the software titles coming soon), to maximize the sales.

Nintendo probably realizes just how dire the situation is for the 3DS. If they can't show strong sales over the holidays, with a radically lower price tag and with Zelda, Mario, Mario Kart and Starfox all hitting the stores, you can bet 3rd-party publishers will be spraining a finger pushing the abort button on current or planned 3DS development. If the 3rd-party publishers head for the PS Vita or smartphones (or both), the 3DS has almost no chance of being a big success.

I suspect Nintendo is hoping to demonstrate at least strong sales this holiday season, if not stellar sales. Then early next year they can keep publishers excited by telling them about the new version of the 3DS, where they fix all the perceived problems (make it smaller, lighter, longer battery life, 2nd analog control) and relegate the 3D feature to a minor role (since it doesn't seem to be a huge draw for customers; if anything, it might be keeping moms away from buying it over concern for their kid's eyesight).

Nintendo won't want to make any public announcement of a new version of the 3DS until just before it ships, or else sales would probably totally collapse. They might, however, want to float a few trial balloons in the rumorsphere, just to see what the response is among publishers and customers.

I think shifts in the hardware and the marketing emphasis might help, but the real problem is with Nintendo's business model. The problem of dev kits being back-ordered 6 months is a huge one for the future of the device. No dev kits, no development... which means fewer titles, which means less software to attract buyers. The fact that Nintendo still wants to charge about $4500 for a dev kit shows they still don't understand the value in having a lot of titles out there. (Microsoft charges $99 for an XNA sub to allow you to make Xbox indie games, for instance; Sony's charging $2700 for a PS Vita dev kit.) Nintendo really needs to open up development, and put some serious effort into digital distribution, if they want to have a chance.

I note that Sony recently stated that all PS Vita titles would be available through digital distribution as well as in retail stores. Which may not make GameStop all that happy, but it's certainly a plus for customers. Nintendo has yet to make any substantive moves in this direction; if anything they've said they aren't all that interested in online stuff.

This is all happening as excitement is building prior to Apple's introduction of a new iPhone model. Rather, two new models; a new one with a faster processor, bigger screen, and better camera, the usual yearly advancement everyone expects. The real winner, though, is the other iPhone that's looking more real: The iCloud iPhone, which is essentially a cost-reduced iPhone 4 with only 8 GB of flash storage that can use Apple's new iCloud service for streaming music and video. This may be so low cost as to be free with a 2-year contract with AT&T or Verizon. If that's true, we're talking an even greater threat to the 3DS and the PS Vita.

Yes, yes, I know smartphones don't play the deeper, richer games you find on consoles... yet. But everyone needs a phone, and when you leave the house you'll always carry that, for sure. If you have a smartphone that plays some pretty nice games (that are mostly free or only a couple of bucks), you will be much less inclined to drop hundreds of dollars on a dedicated gaming device where the games cost $40 apiece. You'll certainly be much less inclined to buy a dedicated handheld gaming device for your kids when you will really want to make sure they have a phone first. If a really cool smartphone is $0 when you sign a 2-year agreement... hey that sure looks attractive. No wonder handheld software sales having been dropping for the last 3 years straight.

And as smartphones become even more popular, and their graphic capabilities equal or exceed consoles, we'll see more of the key console hits coming to smartphones. I'm not surprised at all that Nintendo might be getting a little desperate. I just hope they start applying their talent for disruptive innovation to their business models, and not just their hardware designs.

PS Vita Vs. 3DS, Round Two

The battle will begin soon...

Sony has now published the specs for the PS Vita, and now we can do a head-to-head comparison of the hardware.

PS Vita CPU: ARM(R) Cortex(TM)-A9 core (4 core), GPU: SGX543MP4+.
3DS: ARM 9 CPU at 133 MHz, ARM 7 CPU at 33 MHz,  DMP Pica 200 at 200 MHz

What does this mean in terms of performance? For the CPUs, the PS Vita's ARM 9 4-core variant can deliver somewhere between 8,000  and 20,000 Dhrystone MIPs (millions of instructions per second), depending on the clock speed (which is nominally 800 MHz but could be varied dynamically, but at the cost of greater power consumption). The 3DS is running its CPU at 133 MHz, and it's only one core; the second CPU is probably dedicated to running the second screen. Exact comparisons are difficult, but it's safe to say the PS Vita is at least 5x as powerful as the 3DS when you look at the CPU power.

For the GPUs, the 3DS delivers about 15 million polygons per sec, while the PS Vita should hit around 133 million; the pixel fill rate for the 3DS is 0.8 gigapixels per second, while the PS Vita delivers about 4 gigapixels/sec. Obviously we can't run the same benchmarks on both sets of hardware to see how this translates into actual game performance. Again, though, the PS Vita is clearly more powerful, at least 5x as much as the 3DS.

Both devices have an array of controls and sensors, though the PS Vita has the backside touch panel and multitouch capability on the front screen. The 3.5 inch main screen of the 3DS is nice at 800 x 240 (400 x 240 in 3D mode), but pales in comparison to the PS Vita's 5 inch 960 x 544 OLED display.

The most important final stat: Price. The 3DS is now the clear winner at $169.99, with the base model of the PS Vita coming in at $249.99 (you can pay $299.99 for 3G capability).

The software lineup is strengthening for the 3DS, with some key franchises (Mario, Star Fox) coming this holiday season. The PS Vita lineup will no doubt be solid, given that Sony has watched Nintendo's problems with having the hardware shipping without any notable software titles.

The real issue is how well either of these devices will do against smartphones. Is there still a substantial market for a single-purpose device, when you can get a smartphone that does everything you can think of at around the same price? Yes, the dedicated game devices have exclusive games, and deeper game play, and offer more power... but very few people are going to carry two pocket devices around with them all the time. And you'll always make sure you have your phone with you.

For kids, will parents buy them a dedicated game device, or one that they can use for school, communication, music, taking pictures, watching video, and games as well? Where the games don't cost $40 each?

I think Nintendo's got a reasonable price point for the 3DS now, and Sony's got a reasonable price for the power of their device. I'm just not sure there are enough gamers willing to spend the cash for those devices, when they can get gaming and a whole lot more with a smartphone. Yeah, smartphone games aren't as deep, you don't have the great controls... but they are cheap and there's thousands of them.

If Nintendo can't post some great sales of the 3DS this Christmas, I think Sony's gonna have a rough time selling PS Vitas next spring. Apple's new iPhone(s) are going to make the choices even harder. The new iPhone(s) will certainly be more powerful, which means even more powerful games could be played on it. Apple may also introduce an even cheaper iPhone that is still as powerful as the iPhone 4... which will attack dedicated handheld gaming devices at their most vulnerable point, pricing.

I would love to be surprised by a resurgence of handheld gaming this Christmas, but my prediction is that while Nintendo will do well, 3DS sales won't be stunningly high. The torch for handheld gaming will be passed to the smartphones, for better or worse.

PS Vita (NGP) vs. 3DS vs. iPhone 4/5, Round Two

Now that Sony has announced the most important piece of missing information about their new console (The price, not the name), and we have some sales history of the 3DS to examine, it's time to revisit the head-to-head comparison of the three major contenders for the handheld gaming crown. I first examined these three platforms in this post, after Sony first announced their new handheld gaming device.

Let's look at the hardware specs first. The 3DS has a 3.5" 400 x 240 screen on top (that's 3D mode resolution; it would be 800 x 240 in 2D) and the second screen below is 320 x 240. The PS Vita has a single 5" screen with a resolution of 960 x 544. The iPhone 4 (and likely the iPhone 5) has a 3.5" screen with a resolution of 960 x 640. The PS Vita has the largest screen that's close to the highest resolution screen, which is the iPhone screen. The 3DS has the glasses-free 3D effect which none of the other devices have, but for about 15% to 25% of the customers the 3D effect either doesn't work or produces nausea and headaches, or is just unpleasant.

What about graphics performance? Clearly the PS Vita, with its quad-core ARM A9 CPU and Power VR graphics co-processor has the others beat. The iPhone 4 has a single-core ARM-based A8 CPU, but the iPhone 5 is likely to have the same A9-based dual core CPU that the iPad 2 has. It still won't be up to the performance of the PS Vita, but it won't exactly be a sluggard, either. The 3DS has some custom silicon in there, so it's hard to say for sure how it compares. According to this article, the 3DS can put out about 30 million triangles per second, about the same as an iPhone 3GS and slightly less than a PSP. Which means it's way, way behind a PS Vita or an iPhone 5, by about an order of magnitude I'd guess. The fillrate in pixels per second is about 1.6 billion for the 3DS, which is definitely better than the PSP at 664 million or the iPhone 3GS at 500 million... but certainly way behind the PS Vita or the iPhone 5 (the iPhone 4 has a raw fillrate of at least 700 million pixels).

Finally, there's the price point comparison: The 3DS is $249, the iPhone 4 is hard to compare since it's under a contract, but you can get an 8 GB iPod Touch for $229, and the PS Vita will be $249.

I have to say that the 3DS doesn't stack up well at its current price point. Certainly its sales have been weaker than Nintendo projected, and it's currently limping along at a fairly low level. Nintendo is hoping that some strong software titles and more marketing spending will bring up its sales, but I think Nintendo will have to cut the price to $199 before Sony launches the PS Vita, or shortly thereafter.

Nintendo's big edge with the 3DS was to have been the 3D effect, but that's gotten a mixed reception from customers. Even Nintendo has been busy de-emphasizing its importance. Without that, thought, the 3DS doesn't have any advantages over the competition aside from exclusive software titles. Which is no small advantage, as Link and Mario and Starfox and others are a huge draw. It may not be enough for Nintendo to overcome the hardware and business model advantages of iPhones, the PS Vita, and of course Android smartphones and tablets. There are far more mobile gaming options than ever before, and smartphones and tablets have a variety of other features that make them extremely attractive.

Sony seems to be working towards having a variety of inexpensive downloads for the PS Vita, as well as movies, and perhaps will be more open to other functionality. Nintendo has said they will have 3D movies available, but 3D movies aren't doing all that well at the box office either. The 3D fad may have run its course... which would be a bad thing for Nintendo since it planned for 3D to be the major selling point of the 3DS (hence the name!).

The iPhone (and Android smartphones) have suffered from a lack of top-quality games, but titles like Infinity Blade have shown that it's possible to do some very impressive games for the hardware. (And with Epic Games announcing they've brought in more than $10 million dollars from Infinity Blade, it's clear you can make real money from these games, too.) I expect we'll see more high-quality games for smartphones in the coming years.

Verdict: On the raw hardware level, the PS Vita has the horsepower, the biggest screen and the best array of features. The iPhone/iPod Touch has an impressive variety of apps, many of them free, and quite decent hardware performance even though it lacks dedicated gaming controls. The 3DS is bringing up the rear right now, but with better software and a lower price point it could be quite competitive. Nintendo may well release a sleeker, less expensive version next year, and then it will be a different story.

Sony Announces PlayStation Vita, Amazing Price

3DS, this machine's coming to get you.

Sony has announced the name for the NGP (Next Generation Portable): PlayStation Vita (pronounced VEE-ta). Yeah, I know, it sounds like something from Jersey Shore. Well, it's better than the Wii. Regardless of what you think of the name, though, the astonishing thing is that Sony announced the price: $249 for the Wi-Fi version, $299 for the 3G/Wi-Fi version.

Sony has thrown down the gauntlet at Nintendo's feet, pricing the PS Vita exactly the same as the current Nintendo 3DS. In a head-to-head hardware matchup, the 3DS pales in comparison to the gorgeous HD 5" OLED touchscreen, rear touch panel, dual analog controls, dual cameras, and amazing raw horsepower that puts it close to the PS3 in performance.

Given that the 3DS has not exactly set the world on fire with its sales or its features or its software so far, this is shaping up to be a real battle for the holiday season when the PS Vita finally ships. Nintendo has about six months to ship some really strong titles, encourage third-party developers to do the same, get some good marketing programs in place... and maybe reduce the price to $199 before the holidays. So far, the software for the 3DS has not been impressive, and the hardware is clunky, and customers don't seem to find the 3D effect more than a gimmick (and one that about 25% of the audience either can't stand or can't notice). I think the 3DS will have to be $50 cheaper than the PS Vita if it wants to be at all competitive. A better version of the hardware would be nice, one that was smaller and lighter with better battery life.

Sony's not ignoring the threat from smartphones, either, by making the PS Vita compatible with the PlayStation Suite for Android. Old PSP titles that were downloadable can play on the PS Vita, too. This all may not be enough to really deal with the threat of smartphones, but Sony seems to understand the nature of the problem, which is more than I can say for Nintendo.

It's shaping up to be an interesting Christmas this year.