Deceptive game case makes children cry
by Andrew Yoon 
{ Aug 25th 2006 at 5:00PM }
Sony-hating Joystiq once talked about the new gaming Oreo: a DS Lite placed into the Value Pack PSP sock. When a junior high school teacher from 4 color rebellion (Disclaimer: it's a Nintendo blog) tried putting a PSP in a DS carrying case, all he did was make his students sad. One child even cried.
You see, my students had become accustomed to playing with the ever-present DS lite. After class, some girls came up as sasked, "Can we play Mario?" I explained that I didn't have my DS with me, but one girl pointed to the case and its DS logo. I opened the case and watched their faces fall as they saw the PSP. I asked, "Would you like to play with this instead?"They replied, "No."
The blogger goes out to point that he was surprised by this response, considering how the much-better graphics of the PSP didn't attract the kids at all. "To these students however, it is not an end-all multimedia device. It is just some shiny black thing that doesn't play Animal Crossing." As amusing as this story is, if Sony wants to extend their reach, they somehow have to steal part of the lucrative children's market.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Matt @ Aug 25th 2006 6:05PM
Seriously, it's not that Sony has to go after the childrens market. What they need to do is get better advertising, better support for the psp in general ( including how they treat the American market like utter crap, compared to Europe ), and last, but not least... better games.
I'm not even considering a purchase of the PS3 at this point, just on how unsupportive they've been with not only the PSP, but the former Harddrive for the PS2.
pixelator @ Aug 25th 2006 6:10PM
Kids love simple, easy to play games. If he'd had one of the many retro collections, Loco Roco or Puzzle Bobble, maybe they'd have been more interested. By the same token, if all he had on his DS was Resident Evil, Age of Empires and Brain Age, the kids might've been positively overjoyed to see a different system. You could set this kind of scenario up with a GBA vs. DS, too. "Where's Minish Cap?"
But there can be no arguing it, the DS has better kid appeal than the DS. It looks more kid friendly, even the more delicate Lite is still pretty kid resistant and you have to admit, those games load quickly and it's easy to get into most of them.
Even so, I think the reaction here was a little ridiculous - an 11yo boy crying over someone not letting him play their copy of Animal Crossing says a lot more about the parenting involved than it does about Sony's appeal to kids.
Richard Armour @ Aug 25th 2006 6:20PM
My little cousin loved it when I showed her my psp, shes about 7 years old, different strokes for different folks I guess ( I showed her Liberty City Stories)
Tiago @ Aug 25th 2006 8:38PM
My niece is 9 years old and she loves to play with my PSP, in fact I have to hide it all the time 'cause I'm afraid she'll break it or scratch it if I'm not monitoring :F
uchiha5 @ Aug 25th 2006 10:36PM
I don't by this. In junior high and he's cryin over Animal Crossing? If it is true whats wrong with this kid? Well it doesn't prove much if true. I think people just have different taste being that I see little kids with PSP'S as well as I see adults with DS's
capt. castellanos @ Aug 25th 2006 11:19PM
after people read this theres gonna be alot of Fights.
Psp is better then nintendo!
Nintendo is too kidy!
everyone loves nintendo more!
get over it!
different people like different things!
i for one love the fun easyness of Nintendo
and i love the Advancement and Graphics of Sony
Sponge @ Aug 26th 2006 12:02AM
i for one love the fun easyness of Nintendo
and i love the Advancement and Graphics of Sony
Posted at 11:18PM on Aug 25th 2006 by capt. castellanos
So you like Nintendo because it is fun and you like Sony because it's prettier then Nintendo even if the games are worse?
uchiha5 @ Aug 26th 2006 7:13AM
capt. castellanos, nice try but I think even the most blinded fanboys can see your just trying to start something.
me @ Aug 26th 2006 12:01PM
I hate kids. Screw them.
capt. castellanos @ Aug 27th 2006 3:14PM
whatch'a means? i like the fun games of nintendo, even though graphic-wise the games are pretty not great.
and the psp has the awesome multimedia capabilities for movie watching and music and the games are allright.
my ds is fun, but my psp is more grown up.
capt. castellanos @ Aug 27th 2006 3:17PM
lemme just say a game like GTA or Grand Turismo wouldn't be as fun on a DS.
but mario-like games, would do so great on a psp.
well... if mario wasn't made by nintendo and put on a psp it wouldn't do great, but it nintendo made a nintendo game on the psp, i'm sure it'll be awesome.