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Portables (Games)

Sony CTO Reassures PSP Fans 30

Posted by Zonk from the i-assure-you-i-am-not-kidding dept.
Thanks to GamesIndustry.biz for its article regarding new PSP news, including statements by Sony CTO Masa Chatani that "our plan to sell the PSP within the year is secure". He also revealed some new features of the PSP, such as a "home page" type screen, while being quite quiet on the battery issue. Commentators still seem to find it unlikely that the PSP will be out before 2005.
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Sony CTO Reassures PSP Fans More

Sony CTO Reassures PSP Fans

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  • So.... (Score:2, Funny)

    by HanClinto ( 621615 )
    Given the plethora of comments, it appears that /. readers are incredibly concerned about the PSP. [/sarcasm]

  • Pre-sales? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Oliver Wendell Jones ( 158103 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:21PM (#10472398)
    Do pre-sales count as "sales in '04"?

  • Battery life and homepage (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:31PM (#10472511) Homepage
    Am I the only one who gets really sick of turning on my PS2 with a game in it and I have to go through the whole damn PS2 menu just to play the game?

    Some games just go right to the game when this disc is in and the unit is on, but many don't.

    Frankly, with the PSP, if battery life is an issue, and I can't see why it wouldn't be, I don't want to waste time/battery life going to a damn homepage. I want to play a game. This isn't a handheld computer, this is a portable gaming device, don't add steps that make me wait longer to play the damn game.

    • "PS2 Menu"? If you're talking about the browser, if that's coming up with a disc in the drive, then you've got drive problems and it's not recognizing the disc without a struggle.

    • What? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Thedalek ( 473015 )
      Eh? Your PS2 doesn't always boot into the game? That, my friend, is most likely a physical problem (or you're just being impatient). It is certainly not a programming fault. Any time you power up your PS2 with a PSX or PS2 game in the drive, it should (barring harware failure or scratched up discs) boot straight into the game.

      If it stops at the menu, give it a few seconds. It has to validate the disc. If it never moves on, then your system is lacking functionality that other PS2s have, most likely du
    • They want the added "coolness" factor, that it's almost a computer, but never will be. I'll go for the Nintendo DS, and then wait for PS3.
    • Click [gamefaqs.com] "Disc Read Error Sony Repair FAQ" to discover that Sony has been party to a class action lawsuit on this issue, and that as a settlement you may have your PS2 repaired free of charge (+ S&H).

      Basically, your laser is almost worn out. As a PS2 and XBOX modder, I can say the PS2 is, in fact, the poorest quality and design of console available on the market today. I wouldn't give a PS2 to anyone under 14, lest it fall off a table and end up destroyed.

      The XBOX, however, is about the pinnacle in qua

  • Screw battery life... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Paladin128 ( 203968 ) <aaron.traas@org> on Friday October 08, 2004 @02:39PM (#10472628) Homepage
    I'm much more worried about the speculated $350 price tag. That's one great way to keep it out of my pocket.
    • That feature was designed to remove any fat wallet you may have preventing you from inserting a psp fully inside the pocket.

      Sony is thinking about us!
    • How happy are you going to be to lug a PSP around in your pocket, when you know that you'll only be able to use it for about 3-4 hours before having to recharge it for 2+ hours? There has been a lot of noise from people asking what the battery life is going to be like under actual gaming conditions, and Sony has let it go on this long without even TRYING to quell the rumours of poor battery life. That says to me that: a) The battery situation is at least as bad as suspected (under 4-5 hours of gameplay on o

    • Re:Screw battery life... (Score:4, Interesting)

      by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Friday October 08, 2004 @05:30PM (#10474634) Homepage
      I agree. I want one, but if they price it above $250 they are shooting themselves in the foot and will be another Sega Nomad (those were expensive at first as I remember) or like the NeoGeo Pocket (don't remember the true name, but it premiered at like $500, IIRC).

      Their target audience may be "older and more sophisticated" with more discresionary income, but if they try anything over $250 they're dead.

      And I hope they do good with battery life (I trust they will). I'm not expecting the 20 hours a GBA can deliver, but they don't want to be the next GameGear (man did those things eat batteries!). But since the battery is internal and can't be swapped out (according to everything I've seen), when it's dead, it's dead (can't put new ones in like you could with the GameGear); so that's even worse.

      • The neo geo handheld was the Neo Geo Pocket Color, or NGPC. The original handheld to price itself into irrelevancy was the NEC Turbo Express. I don't even remember the Nomad when it was new, I never saw one at all until much later when I got one as part of a trade or something. (I've since let it go; the battery life was abysmal.)

        I'm sure the PSP's battery will be at least as replacable as the iPod's :) I know the power consumption of the PSP is probably at least an order of magnitude higher than iPod's

  • Money can be spent only once. By the time the PSP is in the stores, my cash will be alreasy spent on a Nintendo DS or two.
  • Why should there be any PSP fans when the thing hasn't even come out yet?

  • Not reassuring (Score:4, Insightful)

    by M3wThr33 ( 310489 ) on Friday October 08, 2004 @07:17PM (#10475532) Homepage
    If Sony was truly confident about releasing it this year, the specs should be near final.
    Three main issues exist with the PSP. Launch time, price and playtime. Launch time is only questioned because of the neglect to the other 2 factors. Saying they'll release it this year should do nothing to relieve anyone because they haven't done anything else to confirm it. When they release REAL info regarding playtime and price, THEN you can estimate how far along they are.

    Only two situations can exist. They know the price and life. The question is if they are good or not.
    If it is expensive and dies like a fruitfly, then by not releasing info, they get fanboys to defend Sony by saying "They didn't confirm anything yet."
    If it is cheap and long lasting, keeping it hidden only instills doubt into the people. There's NO good reason to keep it hidden from us unless it's negative.

    Also, I'm not calling the people who put down speculation Sony fanboys. I'm just saying Sony fanboys will use that excuse to defend Sony.

    After seeing Nintendo's DS presentations in the US and Japan, there should be no doubts left about the system. You know whether you want it or not. Battery life, price, availability and launch games are set, mostly because it's launching in about 6 weeks.
    The PSP should be launching in the same timeframe, and battery life and price are hidden. Availability is questionable and launch games are shaky and unconfirmed mostly. (Maybe I'm wrong, but GT4PSP was delayed, right?)

  • ...who cares? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by ZeeCog ( 641179 )
    The battery life was very vaguely referred to as being around 8 hours. Then they threw in the wildcard of power conservation requirements for developers effectively negating what was already revealed. Also, the still yet-to-be-disproven pricepoint rumour of $350 dollars hangs over this system like a dark cloud. If I was Sony, and there was this rumour floating around about how the handheld I'm supposed to be debuting soon is grossly overpriced, I would hastily take motions to put it down. So it leaves m
  • One thing that I don't really understand is why Sony seems to think it is okay to release in Japan before they can possibly have much of a line up of games ready. If there is even a smidgen of truth to the rumors going about, then the line up will not be great and battery life will be between 1.5 and 2 hours. Yet they insist on launching! This is starting to sound like the first iteration of Nokia's N-Gage handheld console, and we know how successful that was!

    If Sony goes through with it, expect to see som
    • Go is a no starter on the PSP. Multiplayer Go would be better served with the DS touchpad and a halfway good AI will suck the batteries dry -- computer Go is a CPU intensive problem.

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