Playstation PORTABLE! (1 Viewer)

[Dave F]

If you look at it as a $300 portable, of course its too much, butIt's not being positioned as a game system. It's a a $300 phone that plays games, and is entirely in line with the prices of other high-end phones. The thinking is that for the same price or for a little more, a consumer will pick the phone that they can plays cool games on.

-Dave

 

[Morgan Jolley]

It's a a $300 phone that plays games, and is entirely in line with the prices of other high-end phones. The thinking is that for the same price or for a little more, a consumer will pick the phone that they can plays cool games on

I understand, but for a little less I could get just as much functionality with a wider variety of games on more than one device. Which would I rather have, a great selection of great games, an OK cell phone, and a CD player or an N-Gage for $300? In fact, the GBA can sort of play MP3s right now with a special device (the name escapes me), which makes it take two parts of the functionality of the N-Gage at 1/3 the price. Plus, you have to pay money to plan those blueTooth games, which is a bit annoying since you're already paying for cell phone service.

And let's not forget that you need to remove the batteries to change the game you want to play on the N-Gage. Overall, it's overpriced and for the people who can afford to look like they're rich. No real gamers are going to buy this with the intentions of it actually lasting that long.

 

[Dave F]

Overall, it's overpriced and for the people who can afford to look like they're rich.

Again, that's only if you look at it as primarily a game machine. As a phone, it's right in line with the higher end model phones.

-Dave

 

[Marshall Alsup]

Here is an article I read that had some good info on it. It sounds awesome to me. I like the idea of being able to watch mpeg4 video on it.

link

-Marshall

 

[paul h]

Info from computerandvideogames:

"Each UMD can hold a massive 1.8Gb of data - roughly three times the size of a PSone disc, and the chipset is apparently able to create graphics far in advance of PSone. Which means it would also trounce GBA SP and Nokia's forthcoming N-Gage, performance-wise. And PSP will further be able to playback a whopping two hours of FMV at DVD quality."

"Big Japanese third-parties are reportedly already clamouring to work on the system (shock), and first dev kits are due to be shipped this Autumn with the machine itself set for general release by the end of 2004. And yes, as a handheld, PSP will be multi-region out of the box."

From that Forbes article:

"It will have a wide screen that measures 480 pixels wide by 272 pixels high, and will be oriented in a 16-by-9 aspect ratio, meaning it will resemble a wide-screen TV, and it will be backlit. The screen will be able to render 3D images using curved surfaces and conventional polygons."

"On the outside, it will have a USB 2.0 interface, which means it will likely talk to PCs in some fashion, and will have a blazing fast handheld-to-handheld connection for head-to-head gaming. It might also connect directly to the Playstation 2--and later, perhaps, Playstation 3."

"PSP will support both stereo sound and MPEG4 video. MPEG 4 is a new standard that compresses video down to a size that is suitable for handheld devices like mobile phones, PDAs and so on. And given Sony's place as a media entertainment giant with both a movie studio and a record label to support, it stands to reason that PSP is going to be a lot more than just a gaming machine."

"What clinches the PSP's apparent dual mission is media that will be used for gaming software. Sony calls it the Universal Media Disc and it's a 1.8-gigabyte optical disc in a cartridge. Aside from storing the software for games, the cartridges ought to be able to store enough video to play a movie or two. We've seen estimates that up to three hours worth of MPEG4 video can fit into a space of 512 megabytes, which means there should be plenty of space for lots of video on these cartridges, to say nothing of digital music."

"There's a lot more than videogames on Sony's agenda for this device. Sony could easily port movies and music collections to the UMD cartridge format. But the trick will be power. PSPs will have a rechargeable lithium ion battery. And as anyone who has a portable DVD player with an LCD screen or notebook PC with integrated DVD knows, nothing drains a battery faster than watching a full-length movie. That will present some design challenges that may make it difficult to keep the device small. But if there's one thing Sony is good at, it's product design."

 

[Morgan Jolley]

Well so long as it's not ultra expensive, I'm sold.

 

[MikeAlletto]

There are so many questions about this thing. Will you be able to put a dvd you own in your PC and rip it to mpeg4 and push it over to the portable somehow with software provided by sony or if you want to watch movies are you going to have to rebuy your movies yet again (I doubt all studios will reissue their movies for this device).

My bet is the whole "watch movies from the disc" thing won't be used at all, it'll be more for mpeg4 versions of cutscenes in games.

What developers do they have lined up? I'm assuming everyone that already makes PS2 games?

The screen will be able to render 3D images using curved surfaces and conventional polygons

Well ok, thats all fine and dandy (although inaccurate, how can an LCD screen process anything but color on, color off), but how about some real specs instead of marketing PR type info?

I'm not gonna even get slightly excited until better specs and first hardware gets shown.

And since you can't play PS1 or 2 games on it their library is going to be pretty limited for awhile. Would be cool if you could pop a PS1 cd in your PC and transfer it to a blank disk for this device.

 

[Bruce_S]

The N-Gage was announced today as having a $300 pricetage. Anything about $100 for a handheld is too much for me, especially since I don't want a cell phone or MP3 player

I guess, we have to wait for a couple of years for the price to come down. Imagine N-Gage be around $100-$150, it'll be more tempting once that happens.

-bruce

 

[Allen_Appel]

I have enough trouble keeping my GBA screen clean, and I don't press my greasy cheek on it. I also have a problem with the gameplay buttons being so close together. Oh, yeah, and I can't afford it. I guess the N-Gage isn't for me.

 

[MikeAlletto]

Here is a link that has some pictures showing the media:

http://psp.ps3insider.com/hardware/0002.html

 

[Masood Ali]

I think a main reason to launch at the end of 2004 is cost. Sony doesn't want to cannibalize their PS2/PS3 sales by releasing a portable that costs upwards of $150.

 

[Morgan Jolley]

I wonder if they'll have some sort of connectivity features like the GBA/GCN.

I wonder what it will look like.