Seriously. The PSP was a portable PS2, while the PS2 was still on top of the world. The DS was a gimmicky toy that sold better because it was priced and designed for play.
One aspect of that which seems obscure: the original DS used scanline graphics… for 3D. It could draw exactly 1000 triangles, row by row, at 60 Hz. This made low-poly games dead easy to optimize, and high-poly games an absolute nightmare. This also only worked on one screen at a time, which is why the second screen was always a map or a menu or something. The easy way to do 3D on both screens was to alternate, but that drops the framerate to 30 Hz.
Seriously. The PSP was a portable PS2, while the PS2 was still on top of the world. The DS was a gimmicky toy that sold better because it was priced and designed for play.
One aspect of that which seems obscure: the original DS used scanline graphics… for 3D. It could draw exactly 1000 triangles, row by row, at 60 Hz. This made low-poly games dead easy to optimize, and high-poly games an absolute nightmare. This also only worked on one screen at a time, which is why the second screen was always a map or a menu or something. The easy way to do 3D on both screens was to alternate, but that drops the framerate to 30 Hz.