Just look at this and tell me you don't see the possibilities. As you can see, I'm quite excited, but being a member of the late majority when it comes to buying game consoles/handhelds, it'll be another year or so before I actually purchase one for myself...

So, speaking of the late majority, there seems to be lots of arguments over whether backward compatiliby is an overrated feature and how the uber specs of the PSP is going to crush the DS. As for the former, I think that really depends on how great you want the product to be in terms of grabbing market share. This feature can be mapped onto some of the segments described in the technology adoption life cycle for better analysis. And for the latter, that's what some people in the auto industry thought,too , until they smartened up and realized that just because the engine produces more horsepower per liter, it doesn't make the car more enticing to the masses than the competitors'.

For early adopters and enthusiasts, it doesn't matter at all whether a console is backward compatible or not. Some will buy them simply because they're the newest and the greatest, but for most of this segment the deciding factor will be whether or not it has support from their favorite game development houses. If that's hard to believe, then just find out how many people went out of their way to buy a Playstation just because Squaresoft had announced its exclusive release of the Final Fantasy series on the platform, or how many bought the Xbox just because of Halo. It's no secret that the games sell the consoles, and not the other way around.

While it's true that brand name development house suport usually goes hand in hand with cool hardware features, those cool features don't necessarily equate to more memory, faster cpu, and or larger screen real estate. Many game development houses that want to make truly unique titles tend to bank heavily on the storyline, gameplay or the user interface. That means if a platform has the features that will help them fulfil those goals, they will make games for it (sure, developers may bitch and gripe incessantly about the miniscule amount of video memory, but developers will bitch and gripe no matter what ^.~ ). Having said that, it cannot be ignored how big of a user base, either existing or projected to exist, can be associated with any particular platform. That is especially true for big game houses that don't take risks or have painted themselves into the corner of the innovator's dilemma.

Yes, stunning visuals are important, but if visuals become the driving part of the game, then those games are only going to be able to garner a relatively small marketshare and will most likely fail to attract the majority of early majors ( of course, that's not to say that the game itself would have necessarily failed ). Though I'm willing to take a step back and say that a certain visual style is more appealing to the masses than others ( meaning that it may actually play a big role ), that is not to say that the early majors will be swayed by whether the technology being used is able to render multi-billion polygons in real time or use highly sophisticated texturing pipelines; platforms with games that provide a fun and immersive experience in a visual style that the gamers relate best to will be adopted by the early majority.

It isn't until we start talking about the late majority and the laggards that backward compatibility starts to matter. Late majorities tend to be against dicontinous technology advancements, so in order for the late majority to buy into a new game platform, they'll weigh in factors such as whether they'd be able to buy used games for cheap, rent games from a mainstream store or perhaps borrow some games from their friends hoping that those friends won't miss the games too much. Backward compatibility clearly helps make all of the above possible due mostly to the effect of generation gap caused immediately upon the introduction of the new generation platform. So we can see how backward compatibility can help convince this segment to adopt a new generation video game platform. Sometimes, it's quite possible that the late majority will end up morphing into early majorities. Think about someone who has yet to plunge into a video game platform as they've been just passively scoping out the water, unsure of what to buy. Before they know it, the new gen platform comes out, and now they are faced with the choice of buying either the previous gen platform for cheap or buying the new one at a premium. While the stubborn late majorities may go for the used one, there's a distinct possibility that some of them will morph into early majorities for the new gen platform because they will justify their purchase with the large used game software base ( and of course the devil on the left shoulder telling them how cool they'd look with the latest and greatest gadget =P )

With all the market analysis aside, one other thing I believe people should realize is that when creative professionals are given constraints, they are forced to crank up their creative engine and show their true brilliance. I personally believe that creative professionals that work for the mainstream market should constantly be put in various levels of contraints to really bring out interesting experiences to the gamers. If we spoil ourselves with moore's law, we start seeing games that are so blindsighted by the advancements in technology that they lose track of what it is they're trying to achieve. For example, are we developing a 3d engine or are we trying to create a fun and immersive interaction experience? Of course this full circles back to games selling the hardware.

Nintendo DS has plenty of horsepower for a handheld, and on top of that it provides what no other handhelds in the market does in terms of user interface possibilities, not to mention enough connectivity options (oh, and I'll just let the long battery life feature slide cuz that should be a no-brainer requirement unless you're Sony). If I were a game developer I'd be all over it losing sleep on how best to take advantage of them, not on whether enough units are going to be sold. Mark my words guys, the DS in Nintendo DS is an acronym for "Da Shit!" =)