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PSP Opened up and Exposed

Posted by CowboyNeal on Sat Dec 11, 2004 11:50 AM
from the cracking-the-case dept.
Portables (Games) Entertainment Games
Pascal writes "After delivering some classic first impressions of the PSP last Tuesday, including some interesting loading time tests, the happy thugs at Lik Sang have now respected their tradition by opening up the PlayStation Portable. If you ever wanted to know how Sony puts such a powerful hardware inside such a small casing, there is a huge picture gallery of the guts over at Lik-Sang.com"
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  • Overheard (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 11 2004, @11:52AM (#11060497)
    "I feel so naked!" -- PSP

  • If you .. (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 11 2004, @11:54AM (#11060508)
    If you view the photos in reverse you can see him put it back together.

  • Still no indication of battery life (Score:5, Interesting)

    by z3021017 (806883) on Saturday December 11 2004, @11:57AM (#11060527)
    I think we can safely say the PSP sports graphics and games equal or greater than what the Nintendo DS offers.
    However, the deciding factor for many would-be buyers (myself included) is still the battery life, and not one article says anything about it.
    • Absolutely. The loading times in the article seem a bit poor as well. 15-20 seconds of disc activity can't be good for the batteries.

    • Re:Still no indication of battery life (Score:4, Informative)

      by Jeff DeMaagd (2015) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:01PM (#11060547) Homepage Journal
      Here's one indication:

      http://forums.gamespot.com/gamespot/show_message s. php?board=909100112&topic=17948788&page=0
      Battery Details
      What will the battery time be?
      4-5 hours for Video watching through UMD.
      4-6 hours average for gameplay through UMD.
      4 hours with headphones and 50% volume, no WIFI and highest screen brightness (180 cd/m2).
      6 hours with headphones and 50% volume, no WIFI and lowest screen brightness (80 cd/m2).

      • Re:Still no indication of battery life (Score:5, Interesting)

        by El Camino SS (264212) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:36PM (#11060742)

        4-5 hours for Video watching through UMD.
        4-6 hours average for gameplay through UMD.
        4 hours with headphones and 50% volume, no WIFI and highest screen brightness (180 cd/m2).
        6 hours with headphones and 50% volume, no WIFI and lowest screen brightness (80 cd/m2).

        It has been my history that manufacturers usually exaggerate and say that the battery life of anything is double what it really is. This is true for gameboys to flashlights. With that little piece of knowledge, this battery life is not as good as everyone thinks it is.

        I would say that I would be taking a book along with me as well, just in case.
      • I have seen those numbers too, but they are based on proto-type versions of games, not the final retail games. This is probably the reason why most news outlet sources are holding back from giving actual battery life stats, until the final version of the games come out.

        Still, when you also factor into that preliminary figure of 4-6 hours of game play the 10-20 seconds of load time, various other second of load time (game menu, etc), and in between game load time, the actual time you get to control the acti
      • Actually, for most prospective handheld customers, battery life is not going to be the deciding factor if they're thinking "Should I get a Nintendo DS or a Sony PSP?" For most people, the deciding factor is the fact that the DS is available right now (sort of) with 400,000 more units on the way. It's already been revealed that there will be a shortage of PSP systems at launch, which isn't going to happen in America for another month or so anyway. This gives the DS a nearly 1,000,000 unit head start, with
        • A caveat: I'm a Nintendo loyalist.

          Remember that the Dreamcast had a good head start over the PS2 (I bought mine on release day and have a bright-orange T-shirt to prove it), and ultimately it was for naught.

          But then again, Nintendo has had a long history of supremacy in the portable arena. Their dethroning from the console top-spot isn't as telling as you might think -- the SNES and Genesis had a long-fought, bitter rivalry.

          I know who I'm cheering for, but admit that the victory is up in the air. Could

      • Re:Still no indication of battery life (Score:5, Interesting)

        by rsmith-mac (639075) on Saturday December 11 2004, @03:34PM (#11061928)
        Speaking of the PSP's battery life, I'm getting a bit concerned about heat from the unit. The first thing that caught my eye is that in one of Lik Sang's PSP photos, you can clearly see what resembles a heat vent on the top of the unit [lik-sang.com], which throws up an orange flag immediately. Then when today's article came up, they had a picture of the battery [lik-sang.com] which is rated 1800mAh@3.6V. Already being an owner of a GBA SP, I wanted to see how it compared to that and the DS, so Lik Sang has a picture of the GBASP and DS batteries [lik-sang.com] which come in at 600mAh@3.8V, and 850mAh@3.7V. So all things considered, the PSP's battery is roughly 3 times the power of the GBA SP, and a little over 2x that of the DS.

        That taken in to consideration, this is where I really start to get worried about heat. If we take the 4-6hour battery life at face value, we'll say that the PSP runs about half as long as the GBA SP. But when we also take in to consideration the battery differences, we're talking about the PSP effectively burning though power at (2x3=6) times the rate of the GBA SP. Obviously there's a huge difference between the two with that large LCD(so not all energy leaving the system will be heat energy), but still, doesn't all this energy it's burning through have to go somewhere? I doubt Sony has created a hand-held laptop in terms of heat, but after an extended play session, are we going to have to worry about the PSP being warm to the touch(i.e. will it be warm enough to discourage long play sessions)?

        As someone interested in buying a unit later on, this has me seriously concerned that the PSP is going to be the first mass-market portable game device where heat is a concern.

    • I think we can safely say the PSP sports graphics and games equal or greater than what the Nintendo DS offers.

      Can we? Have you played all the PSP games?

    • Why I'm getting the DS instead of the PSP: (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GFLPraxis (745118) on Saturday December 11 2004, @01:12PM (#11060941) Homepage Journal
      While the PSP has better hardware, the Nintendo DS has:

      1) Better battery life (10 hours vs 4 hours in game)

      2) Game cards (Who wants to spend extra money on a memory card, and who wants to carry a bunch of disks in their pocket? I perfer to be able to save to the game media)

      3) Touch screen. Without joysticks, how can you possibly play FPS on the PSP? The DS has the touch screen, which works like a mouse on Metroid Prime: Hunters (near-perfect control- I love the touch screen).

      4) Cost. DS is $150, PSP is $200. Add to that the cost of the memory stick ($30 minimum) to the PSP, and the fact that an extra battery costs $50 (to equal the DS's battery life), means you get a much cheaper system with the DS.

      5) Stability. That exposed screen must be very easy to damage. The flip-open DS design is a good protection. Plus, the PSP has a CD drive, you know how easy it is for those to skip with a little bump, and break with a good drop.

      6) Nintendo games rule :)

      Just my opinion. I've done some research into the topic.
      • I finally got a bit of hands-on time with a PSP, so I'd like to add a few more entries:

        (7) The PSP is a brick. Honestly, the thing is really heavy, I felt like I'd need weight training to use it for any length of time. It feels bigger than it looks.

        (8) The control scheme is kinda sucky, despite the presence of an analogue joystick. The analogue joystick seemed poorly placed (rammed way down in the lower corner), and very touchy to use. Furthermore, since the controls are clearly not directly compatible with the dual-shock anyay, my god, why on earth did they retain the same enormously crappy digital pad they've been using since the PSX, and why did they give the digital pad the "prime" location?!?!? It's not just annoying to use, it's downright painful after extended use.

        The screen is definitely very nice (especially the amount of unit real-estate devoted to it -- makes the DS look almost primitive), and it's clear that Sony is really pushing the the technical envelope with the PSP, but it's also starting to seem like they forgot to include good user-design among their list of criteria for the PSP. It's pretty dissapointing to see a market-leading company with so much money -- and so much to win/lose -- making such silly mistakes.

  • Removable Wireless Antenna (Score:5, Interesting)

    by GameGod0 (680382) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:01PM (#11060546)
    It looks like that antenna attached to the wireless chip can be removed, I wonder how long it'll be before we can wardrive with a PSP?

  • I've stopped predicting things (Score:4, Insightful)

    by grungebox (578982) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:03PM (#11060561) Homepage
    I assumed the DS would tank since most people who like handhelds already own an SP, and the DS just seemed sort of awkward and gimmicky to me. But lo and behold, it's actually selling pretty well. So I'm just going to bite my tongue and let what happens with the PSP happen. I would imagine it would not sell that well since it is high-priced and faces a market that is already heavy in Nintendo handhelds (especially since it will come after the holidays and the new DS entry)...but what do I know?

    • Re:I've stopped predicting things (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy (12016) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:21PM (#11060668) Homepage
      what you fail to notice in the DS grasshopper is that the DS will play all the Advance games without a problem.

      therefore if you buy someone the DS and there are no DS games available for them they like they can start playing it the second they open the box with their advance games.

      and yes, the advance games on the DS are much smoother and certianly more playable.

      super monkeyball in particular is much more playable on the DS. it almost seems that the game is taking advantage of the higher speeds to give me smoother gameplay. I can finesse the ball with greater accuracy now.

      and yes, I instantly yanked the cartridge out and ploped it in my SP... there is a definite playability difference between the two.

      the PSP has a ton of distance to catch up to the DS. they did not come out of the gate with hundreds of games that will work on the unit from the older platform.

      my SP is now deligated to playing my old gameboy and gameboy color carts.

      the only thing I pray for.... they do NOT bring the nightmare that is pokemon to the DS.

  • Price Hike (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PixelSmack (837457) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:03PM (#11060562)
    As per usual with the release of a new console we are going to see a huge price hike in the first few months... who can be that desperate to get there hands on the system they are willing to pay a few multiples of its actual value. It will come out internationally before long so we won't have to wait to long and lets face it the games shipping at lunch will not be the ones remembered on the system.

  • This suprises me. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by thegoogler (792786) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:03PM (#11060563)
    In one of those pictures, they show a Sharp brand LCD display.. its actually a medium sized display too.. how are they selling these for almost less than just the display costs(I would think anyway..)
    • Like the Rio Carbon sells for less than the individual hard drives. Buy a large stock and the cost per unit goes down...same thing here.
    • Suppliers can cut special deals to be featured in the latest popular consumer item, and cut special deals for very high volume purchases where both companies go direct to each other rather through distributors. Also, retailers mark up the price of individual parts much more than they can for a console.

      I thought Sony makes small LCD panels too but maybe they decided to outsource that part. It is also possible that Sony and Sharp panels are being used. I'm sure there are a lot of trade-offs used to decide
  • "I tell ya, back in my day, when you linked to a picture gallery from the Slashdot homepage then you went down hard, you stayed down hard, and you damn well liked it. Nowadays, these servers just take it on the chin like it means nothing to them. That's just not proper or respectful. It reminds me of the time when..."

    Seriously though, kudos to the guys at lik-sang.com for having not folded like a house of cards in a hurricane as soon as this story was posted here. I always wonder when people take apart these toys if they ever manage to put them back together in anything like working order.
    • "I always wonder when people take apart these toys if they ever manage to put them back together in anything like working order."

      I do, but there's always exactly 2 screws extra. No more, no less. Oh, and maybe an extra gear (like when I took apart my Perfection game when I was a child).

      They always still work afterwards, though. I wonder if engineers add a few extra screw just so people like me can remove them. ;)
  • I'm really starting to reconsider buying a PSP now with the support for MP3/MP4 playback as the previous article (there's a link on the website) suggests. Although I don't know much about Sony's Memory stick format, how much data can be held on one stick? I'm guessing there are sizes such as flash drives right?

    I'm also considering buying one of these [thinkgeek.com] to charge the thing if it'll work properly. Will need to look into this.
  • $450-$600 for the value pack? I guess some people have to have the latest and greatest I guess.
    This is a pretty cool little device though. MP3 playback and JPEG support should allow for minutes or even hours of quality jackage.
  • A format that doesn't travel well, long load times, a giagantic screen (prone to scratching in backpacks?) and short-ass battery life. This isn't aimed at the mobile gaming crowd, it's aimed at the "Gotta have the latest device" crowd. The kind of people that own mobile phones to play java games, music, light up dark alley ways but never actually make any calls on the damn things.

    Nice to see other people looking at the portable market, shame Sony got it so very, very wrong.

  • Ideas to think about in the new "Portables War" (Score:5, Interesting)

    by El Camino SS (264212) on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:24PM (#11060680)

    -Sony has won the adult part of the portables market with its sleek styling and functionality... question is, is there even an adult market for these things to begin with?

    -Do we need yet another proprietary media format? When can we burn on it? When can we buy it?

    -Are audiences really going to want to buy their media on a proprietary format when a portable DVD player is so cheap these days, and works with your home disks? Saying that smaller is better was important in the 80s... I don't think that holds today. Matter of fact, is anyone going to buy a movie on this thing? Will they be offering anything besides FF:The Spirits Within and Akira for the otaku?

    -The interactivity of the DS is well known, the interactivity of the PSP not so much, why?

    -It's obvious that Nintendo knows where it is going, but I am not so sure about this. Their primary point is that it is "sleek." I am not sure that being sleek is my main desire to having a portable.

    -I am not really excited about a disk drive anything in my carry around equipment. It may be an unfounded fear these days, but still, it is there.

    From what I have seen from both Nintendo and Sony, they are trying to make a quantam leap in the portables market, and right now, my money is on Nintendo. Still, they need to do something before I buy either one. They both have side features, but shiny and features is a seriously Japanese thing, and Nintendo has held its own with their focus. So I go with 'Tendo.

    After all, who uses their Xbox to play movies? Anyone? Who will use their PSP to play the ten songs that their memory stick can hold or look at digital pictures when the camera already has a screen, and shows them without running it through a PC? Picto-chat? Honestly Nintendo, if you are close enough to picto chat you are close enough to chat for real. That is more fun.

    Some of these things on both machines make no sense. Maybe they make sense if you are Japanese. I don't know what some of these things are for.
    • -Do we need yet another proprietary media format? When can we burn on it? When can we buy it?

      Actually it looks like UMD is a no show so far [com.com]:

      While the PSP game roster is sure to grow--with dozens of titles in the works by Sony and third-party publishers--promised music and video support is less clear. As of yet, no music or movie studios, including the major ones owned by Sony, have announced plans to release content on the new Universal Media Disc (UMD) optical media format the PSP will use.

      Meanwhile Sony

    • I'll take the big one first: After all, who uses their Xbox to play movies? Anyone? That would be me and hundreds if not thousands of others. Not dvd's, oh heavens no. Xbox Media Center on a modded Xbox is about all I use my Xbox for; not more than a couple of games on the Xbox I care about. $150 and a little soldering brings me the best bang for the buck in a home theater unit.

      -Sony has won the adult part of the portables market with its sleek styling and functionality... question is, is there even

    • question is, is there even an adult market for these things to begin with?
      I don't think so. I am a HUGE fan of games, but being an adult, I have a real job. I drive to work. Unless I took public transportation (which doesn't exist to the place I go), I don't have time for this. I have a PS2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, and various older platforms. I have a GBA (1st generation with front light installed), but I hardly EVER play it. On the rare occasions that I get to go somewhere and not drive, I have a laptop I w
            • Nintendo has had patents on their cartridge form factor since the NES days, in addition to the connector arrangement, etc. That's how they were successfully able to sue Tengen for making NES-compatible games without paying license fees. Every single format we have today is proprietary, including DVD, Compact Flash, CD, everything. The only difference is who's getting your license fees.

              I wish everyone would stop beating around the bush and just say "I'm not going to buy it because I can't pirate games". Giv

  • Prices were reasonable before all the hype (Score:3, Informative)

    by jardin (778043) * on Saturday December 11 2004, @12:46PM (#11060790)
    On eBay, only 2 weeks ago I found a Japanese importer who had several PSP units to sell (pre-releases that would be shipped for 12/12). I guess he figured the demand would be huge and he would make big profit, so he started the bid at $0 to get attention. It turned out, most people had never even heard of PSP selling yet and thought it was a scam (many questions to the seller at the bottom of the auction included, "Are you selling a link?" "Why are you selling this 3-4 months before the release?." Or possibly people saw the retail value of $200-250 and felt if they paid more they would be getting ripped-off.

    Long story short, I managed to snag me one for just over $200US (and $25US shipping to Canada, which I find is fairly reasonable). The same unit on eBay as we speak is going for $600-$700US. I guess it pays to find these things out early ;)

    Even retailers, such as Lik-Sang are taking advantage of the demand by jacking up prices. They claim it is "out of their control," although Sony still claims to lose $250US on each unit (eep).

    A couple weeks ago before I managed to snag the eBay auction, I had going around trying to find short pre-order lines (or finding unethical ways of cutting in line). Everyone has their price, right? After several emails back and forth from goldenshop [goldenshop.com.hk], I found Ronald's price was $400US for the value pack. I told him I was interested, only because it may have been my only chance to get a unit before Christmas. We agreed upon $29 shipping, and things seemed to be settled. Well, that was until yesterday. I guess Ronald got quite a few of these "deals" once customers found out how limited the supply was. His "Buy-It-Now" price (so to speak), is now US$635 (followed again with the "this price is beyond our control" line). I immediately refused the offer. Only minutes later he responds back, telling me if I wait a bit, he might lower it. It sounds like a reverse-eBay method, starting high, and seeing how low he has to go before he can sell them all. Not a bad idea at all, but why not just auction them on eBay? For a slightly lower price, for around $584, you can get the Standard Pack from success-hk [success-hk.com].

    If you don't mind waiting a bit, I highly recommend play-asia [play-asia.com]. Even with all the pre-order hype, they had a very reasonable price (around retail). When they found they were accepting more orders than they could handle, they promptly closed their pre-order lines. They also had the very first review [play-asia.com] of the PSP, even though it was a bit stingy on many details.
  • I may get modded offtopic for this, but I noticed that some people who work in toystores and gameshops have been hoarding PSP's to sell on eBay.

    I was in a KayBee Toys yesterday at the local mall. The lady in front of me asked about getting a PSP and the guy working the counter said there was a great shortage and that they were going for over $500 on eBay. He said he was glad that he grabbed the 2 he got the moment they came in and is thinking about selling them for big bucks eBay because he knows that pe

  • how do they fit all that power in there? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Allison Geode (598914) on Saturday December 11 2004, @02:19PM (#11061438)
    the answer to that is "by taking out the battery."
      • You heard wrong. Even by Sony's inflated estimates, when they will even give an answer, it's 4-6. In reality it'll probably be closer to 1-2.

        A recent public showing of the PSP (at TGS) had Sony reps being caught swapping batteries on the PSP every 2 hours to avoid the battery warning light coming on.

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