Casual vs. Hardcore is an imaginary distinction, created by kids who don't get enough exercise or sunlight. Either a game is better, or it's worse... And that's totally subjective. I have a PSP and I have at least 10 good games for it, but it's a chore to tote and play (start-up time, loading times etc. ). Never gets used. Meanwhile, I play Worms on my phone constantly, wherever I find myself on line, or when I'm lounging around. If you have more fun with it, it's better.
There is a difference between better and more convienient. Just because you play it more does not make it better quality. For example lets compare top notch games, in one hand you have Monster Hunter for the psp and in the other you have, oh wait there are no games on iphone that compare to such quality, my bad. The iphone will one day be a top contender for gaming, but for the moment it is too stunted by its consumer complaining about game prices to ever recieve a psp quality game. I do play my ipod, however until devs stop releasing 95% tower defense and .99 cent crap, I cannot compare it to the psp.
"Powerful" is too vague as a question. From my own tests PSP has about ten times the raw polygon pushing power of a old iPhone. The 3GS seems to be around twice as powerful though fully exploiting shaders etc. may up this figure substantially. I still doubt that it has more than maybe half the raw poly pushing ability of the PSP though. Keeping the 3GS and it's shaders out of the equation (mostly because I don't know a lot about specifics) and comparing with the older iPhones, that raw polygon count is almost irrelevent, the iphone can multitexture (classically used to combine detail textures and/or precalculated lighting in lots of games including mine) while the PSP would need two passes to achieve a not-as-good result. The PSP also has only a quarter of the memory of even the old iPhone and a slower CPU. Basically, to get the most (graphically) out of either platform requires a different approach. If I found myself porting Ground Effect to it for example I'd almost certainly want to rebuild the landscape system (where most of my polygons go) from scratch. It really is pointless to ask which is 'best', it all depends what you are waiting for. If you want a pocket version of he latest and greatest game by an ex-PS2 focused studio, it's going to be better on PSP while the best pocket versions of previous gen John Carmack tech (or similar) will come to iPhone. The 3GS complicates things further. Shaders are a lovely way to work and will, eventually, give some amazing results but it'll be a while before anyone will really be able to afford to focus too hard on them at the expense of that huge market of older machines.
Again, it's subjective. All "Better" can ever really mean is in relation to how an individual feels about the title. If I have more FUN with it, it's better, no? There are too many factors that come into play. "Quality" is equally subjective. If a game is hi-gloss graphics AND great controls, AND great level design, but it isn't innovative... Is it better? Lots of people find a lot of ancient SNES games to be far superior to current "quality" titles, because they appreciate the innovation of that old game. So, if innovation can ALSO = quality, then an iPhone game stands just as good a chance as a PSP title. Motion-X poker, for example. It's fairly simplistic, but it's more addictive than any PSP game I own. Ergo, in my realm of understanding, it's BETTER! The logic is simple. Most people consider the DS to be "better" than the PSP, despite the DS's obvious shortcomings.... But just like the iPhone, there are 50 lousy DS games for every good one. I'll take Fuzzball over Socom (PSP) any day of the week. Simply put, I think it's BETTER!!
Lol okay enough of this, as an ex-psp owner i just had to get into this. i had a cfw'd psp and i enjoyed it alot, and i mean ALOT. With the psx games to all the original titles, i carried that thing around like it was my baby. Organized homebrew, all my emulators, dang that thing was fun, the fact to me is that yes the iphone can achieve those gfx, and it can make great games, companies just dont want to take the risk. In terms of homebrew though, that thing was jam packed, im surprised that the iphone doesnt have a community for homebrew as big as the psp. My psp was customized to the barebones. everything, gameboots icons, the works. I believe the iphone has yet to receive a game of caliber equal to or greater than monster hunter, or god of war, heck ill even throw GTA out there. and wats this u say, load times and boot times, if u took care of ur psp then u shouldnt have to worry, and why is everyone comparing the psp phat to the 3gs, why not compare the newer psp.(not the go, but the slim 2 or sumthing) Now i got an ipt 2g and i enjoy playing a match of..... nvm I enjoy taking out my psp and doing a quick match of street fighter alpha, or a quick run on monster hunter, no need to worry about save cause all u do is put it on sleep wen u need to. Not to mention i beat Zelda: OOT on my psp, that was the thirteenth time i beat it. Overall to me, the fact that the psp had a great homebrew community, just made up for the fact that there wasnt any innovative games. Now once iphone gets a community like that, im pretty sure imunna love it too.
Lol, another thread. The PSP is almost a 5 year old system, the iPhone 3GS just recently came out. PSP revisions barely got any significant upgrades (the 2000 series introduced more RAM) while the iPod/iPhone got significant hardware improvements. The iPhone 3GS may be more powerful, but its up to what people do with it. Development on the PSP tends to cost more, but there are usually more people working on projects with more significant funding. iPhone/iPod developers tend to be closer to indie status, though there are some major developers. So you get like this difference in types and quality of games. Both the PSP and iPhone 3GS continues to astound me. The PSP is still cranking out great games like Assassin's Creed (you HAVE to see the trailer for it), Gran Turismo, Little Big Planet, Soul Calibur Broken Destiny, etc. The iPhone is getting excellent games like Command and Conquer Red Alert, Need for Speed Shift, iMech, KillTest, etc.
Iphone vs. PSP = PSP wins. Iphone vs. DS = DS wins. You're comparing a phone, no matter how fancy or intuitive, to actual portable systems. Wishful thinking.
An assertion w/ NO substance whatsoever. Xerox marginalized it's "PC" department in the 70's, because they asserted that the technology would never replace paper. Now they're barely escaping chapter 11. There's even talk that the USPS is on it's way out. All because of think-tanks that were to narrow to see the big picture.
And even with the DS games I found similar games on the iPhone tons cheaper that I liked way better. It is probably just me but I enjoyed Uniwar way more that I did advance wars on the DS, and it was about a 30th of the price.
