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Wireless gets into game consoles: following the n-Gage trend?

So what's that in my hypothetical pocket? Why it's the hypothetical Nintendo DS and the hypothetical Sony PSP.

Nintendo and Sony are both facing each other off, though not admitting it, to take control of people's gaming pockets with the slow leaking of information on Nintendo's next and Sony's first handheld console games platforms.

Nintendo's pitch is a dual screened device, one possibly touch sensitive, with two ARM processors powering it - and buried on the spec sheet, 802.11 networking. Beyond that, it's all guesswork. Nintendo are playing the DS close to their chest, but I expect to see it with ROM cartridges as the game media. To date, Nintendo have had a long history of cartridge compatibility in their Gameboy product.

Sony's PSP has more known about it; it has a single screen, PS2 like (but not) graphics processing, 5.1 sound - and 802.11 networking too. The really big difference is the media; Sony are using a cartridge wrapped optical disk with a 1.8GB capacity. That's a lot of capacity on a small disk, more than enough for portable gaming, and plenty even for films.

Which begs the question, why the large media?

It may be key to the entire battle. Nintendo have classically focussed on the game playing capability of their devices. It plays to their strengths, with many great games available on all their platforms. But it is my contention that Sony isn't just thinking games for the Sony PSP.

Sony has access to a lot of movie content and a 1.8GB optical disk would be just the media for "movies in your pocket". It's a whole new platform and format which should give Sony a running start on beating the counterfeiters. Also, consider the Sony PSP takes memory stick, a medium which in Japan you can save TV programming to ... so you could set the tuner to record the news before you left for a commute and watch it from the stick on the way in.

How does this relate to wireless? Well, it points to the platform which may well be ideal for that killer wireless application; the Sony PSP. Nintendo will, I expect focus on 802.11 as a player to player and possibly player to Gamecube connection system. That's no bad thing, as Nintendo do make quite fool proof technology. But Sony are I suspect looking at a much bigger picture, movies, TV and net access. And the first person to put VOIP on it could be onto a biggy.

If, that is, Sony doesn't do it first.