Nintendo and Sony Square Off in Handheld Game Market

Nintendo has announced November 21st as the US launch date for its new duel-screen model (DS) of the GameBoy Advance while Sony is keeping quiet on the exact release date of its PlayStation Portable (PSP). Sony struck back with the news that the new smaller version of the PlayStation 2 will come out November 1st. 95 percent of the market share for handheld game devices is devoted to Nintendo, but it is predicted that Sony will cut into the market with the advanced PSP, which will feature both music and movie players. One analyst, Takeshi Tajima, analyst at BNP Paribas, said that Sony's PSP is likely to appeal to a different age group, 20 and over, than Nintendo's game devices which are more popular with younger children. Sony is also working on the next PlayStation model, which will support Blu-ray technology, held by some electronic and PC makers as the next-generation DVD format.