With an all-out war brewing over which next-generation console will rule the living room, it's easy to forget the battle for pocket space.
But there are lessons to be learned from the duel between Nintendo and Sony for handheld supremacy.
Essentially, it's a match between the wily, but technologically outgunned Nintendo DS, and the slick Sony PSP, or PlayStation Portable.
The DS, a clamshell device with two LCD screens and built-in wi-fi, appeared in 2004. Earlier this year, Nintendo unveiled the DS Lite, an update that basically brightened the screens by a couple of notches, while slimming down and prettying up the whole package.
The PSP appeared in March 2005, offering only one screen — but the rich display is markedly superior to that of the DS. In addition, the PSP allows users to play music, watch movies and browse the Internet.
Ultimately, these small soldiers are battling for big stakes. Handhelds account for about 30 per cent of the billion-dollar gaming industry.
So far, it is Nintendo's game.
By August of this year, the DS and DS Lite had sold nearly six million units worldwide. With a late start, the PSP counted slightly more than five million unit sales.
But what's most telling is the month of September, when Nintendo sold more than 400,000 units in the United States, compared to PSP sales of about 150,000.
Still selling out regularly in Japan, the DS is looking as dominant as the Nintendo GameBoy was way back in 1989.
The DS Lite is no slouch in the technology department — its clever touch-sensitive screen is unique in the industry — even if it lacks the firepower and multimedia smarts of the PSP.
"It's ultimately a gaming machine," says Farjad Iravani, marketing manager for Nintendo of Canada. "The DS is not envisioned to be a movie player and so on."
Indeed, Nintendo's ambitions with the DS Lite are all about reaching out to the non-traditional gaming market. Part of that strategy, according to Iravani, is keeping the unit affordable — a DS sells for $150, while the basic PSP retails for about $230.
Part of the plan is producing innovative games, such as the massively successful Nintendogs, which lets users raise a virtual pet, teaching the dog voice-commands through a built-in microphone and loving that virtual Fido through a touch-screen interaction.
Then there's Brain Age, a program that promises to "train your brain in minutes a day" with a variety of reading and math exercises.
So far, the PSP lags behind in the quantity and sheer scope of its titles. There's the requisite Grand Theft Auto, a smattering of racers, shooters and, well, more shooters. But role-playing games are scarce and there's not much in the way of groundbreaking innovation.
The PSP is, however, the technological heavyweight in this match-up.
It feels solid in the hands, with games looking almost impossibly vivid. Movies are crisp and detailed — even if the built-in stereo speakers could use an extra notch of volume.
But historically, technology alone hasn't proven to be much of a trump card in the gaming industry.
Look no further than the Sega Master System. Duelling for market share with the Nintendo Entertainment System during the mid-to-late 1980s, the console was technologically superior to the Nintendo Entertainment System — in an eight-bit kind of way.
But with a little help from a plumber named Mario, Nintendo buried the Master System by the early 1990s.
That system's demise is a testament to what happens when technology is left hanging. Nintendo supported its capable console with an avalanche of innovative titles.
Sega, while releasing scores of games, could not keep up with the Nintendo barrage.
So how goes the PSP? Well, it's certainly dangling its neck out with new formats and technologies again. (See: Betamax and Blu-Ray).
This Sony wraps the PSP around a new disc format called Universal Media Disc, or UMD. Great for games. Not so good, it seems, for movies, with weak sales and support from film studios drying up.
In a recent chat I had with PlayStation Canada spokesperson Matt Levitan, he mentioned revisiting some of the studios to discuss the UMD strategy.
Let's hope it includes slashing the prices. To pay between $15 and $20 for a movie you can only watch on a tiny screen is absurd. Asking consumers to start collecting movies that could easily be rendered useless if the PSP becomes extinct is bordering on contempt.
And make no mistake; the handheld market has always been a dicey proposition.
Remember the Sega Nomad? Introduced in October 1995, it scarcely touched ground in North America, despite the incomparable advantage of being able to play full-sized Sega Genesis cartridges.
And heck, who could forget Gizmondo. What? Never heard of it? The handheld gaming device showed up in 2005 and plunged its creator, Tiger Telematics, into bankruptcy less than a year later.
But it was the only handheld on the market with built-in GPS, which alone could have been a boon to parents who wanted to track their kids as blips on an Internet map.
It also packed a camera, could play MP3s and send email.
Oh, and it was also a bomb. A very big bomb.
If the PSP, for all its design brilliance, is going to avoid going the way of Gizmondo, it had better get its gaming act together.
Sony certainly trumpets all the other grand plans for its little engine. Unlike the DS Lite, which won't be able to connect with the Wii, the PSP is all about playing nice with its big brother.
Sony envisions the PSP as a kind of remote control for the PS3, tapping into its wireless capability to control a bevy of functions on the next-gen console, such as accessing music on the hard drive, flicking through photos, and even, at some point, watching movies on the PSP that are stored on the PS3, from anywhere in the world.
That may also be why it's so vital for the PSP to succeed — much of its fortunes will be a boon for the console's success.
History, and Nintendo, shows us that in order to succeed, the PSP is not only going to have to get fun, but a little weird, too.