E3 - Sony Drops PS2 To $149, Shows PSP, Hints At PS3

JSDopefish writes "Not much of a surprise, but Sony announced today at their E3 press conference that they're lowering the price of the PlayStation 2 console to $149, including the network adapter. That matches the already in-place $149 price of the Xbox system. The GameCube remains at $99." Elsewhere, jasoncart writes "Sony has just unveiled their Playstation Portable specs to the enthralled masses at their pre-E3 conference in LA. The result is the first photographs of the new device (alt. link), confirmation of the impressive specifications (Wi-Fi ahoy!) and hints on the games we'll be playing on the PSP, including 'clips of Gran Turismo... Wipeout [and] Metal Gear Solid'." 1UP also discusses mentions of the PlayStation 3 in the press conference, including "some rather grand predictions for the future of Sony's game console efforts."

Familiar?

[bizpile]

Reminds me of the Sega Game Gear of so long ago.

WHY! Why does a portable system have so many ports

[DarkFencer]

I know the financial reasons for it, but why must every damn portable system have so many ports from their non-portable cousins?

Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo... make some new games for launch! Don't just sell the system with "play your console games that you've already paid for on your portable!".

I don't mind a few ports, but if you look at the GBA it seems like a majority of the games are ports/remakes/pokemon. If the PSP will be the same I will great it less then enthusiastically. At least the GBA is $100

where?

[AresTheImpaler]

Ok damn it.. maybe a stupid question, but where is the best place to get all the e3 news? thanks!

Workstation

[leandrod]

Not playing games, I was still interested in the workstation. As it seems the Cell processor is some variant of PowerPC, and given the current state of GNU/Linux in both Sony entertainment and IBM, it seems like a sure bet that this workstation will mark one more step by IBM in trying to validate GNU/Linux on the PowerPC as a general purpose platform rivalling Wintel.

Were I still in Europe I would hopefully already have an IBM POP-based Pegaso or A1 system running Debian GNU/Linux on the PowerPC. Sony seems to base their PS2 port of GNU/Linux on Red Hat. Perhaps the Sony Cell workstation will reach my country before the POP systems do.

While a port rivalling Wintel can only be a good thing, and perhaps may help validate GNU/Linux as a platform and give it a better competitive advantage agains MS, it still remains to be seen how much freedom will benefit, given the doubtful records of Sony (DRM, crippled PS2 GNU/Linux) and IBM (soft patents).

Re:More info on the PSP

[VooDoo999]

What mainly killed the other challengers (in no particular order):
1) lack of (good) games
2) battery life
3) cost
Seems like 1 and 2 are taken care of - tons of devs signed and 10 hrs of game support from the li-ion battery. No mention if it's proprietary or not, it's handy to be able to grab some AAs in a pinch.
Curious what the cost will be.

ps3 workstation

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Article states that IBM and Sony are collaborating to develop a workstation, which will be used to develop games for the PS3. IBM will supply the OS, Sony will supply the development tools, etc. Seems like the emphasis will be on game-development, but will have other uses like movie editing etc (and who will develop applications for that process remains unsaid--Adobe? Avid?)

Question is, why redevelop the wheel? Why not use G5s from Apple? Or, G5s from Apple with a "PS3" personality PCI card? Wouldn't that be a whole lot cheaper?

Re:where?

[NanoGator]

"Ok damn it.. maybe a stupid question, but where is the best place to get all the e3 news? thanks! "

I went to news.google.com, typed in the part I was curious about (Nintendo DS) and set it to "show stories from the last hour"... Not too shabby.

Re:Familiar?

[jawtheshark]

I still have my Game Gear. I bought a battery pack so that I could play longer. Recently I removed the dust from my Game Gear to show it to someone who thought that the backlit Game Boy Advance was the best thing since sliced bread. I could show him that I had the same thing ten years ago. Yeah, I know the games were more primitive, but still.

I wonder what would happen if I tried using those high-power NiMh AA batteries thought for digital cameras. The Game Gear lasted about 2 hours on normal NiCad batteries back in the day. Perhaps now I could squeeze 4 hours out of it ;-)

Re:Nintendo DS

[NanoGator]

Won't it be cool if you were able to sit on the recliner with the DS, connecting on-line, playing multiplayer wirlessly, and using the touch screen as an OSD to chat? I can't believe how overwhelmingly cool that is compared to what Sony's shown today.

Hmmm

[ndogg]

I wonder what the battery life will be like. That's been a major factor in Nintendo's dominance and if Sony doesn't get that right, they're going to be squashed in this area like everyone else.

Battery life

[SuperKendall]

Nintento right now is probably chortling with glee that SOny did not include bluetooth support for the PSP, which the DS has (as well as WiFi).

That should equate to better battery life for the DS, which Nintento has always been very careful about.

PS3...P.S. Three

[hawado]

The PS3 has been out here in Japan since about Christmas and I have had the chance to take a close look at it. The design of the two levels of machine is, as would be expected, is impecable. Sony did a great job turning a black plastic gaming box into a beautiful, if not white, piece of home entertainment worthy of a place above your top end home theatre setup.
I find the prices for the two levels of units to be a bit high for my taste... the lower level machine coming in at around 70,000 yen and the top unit priced at around 90,000 yen. You get all the bells and whistles on either unit with a slightly larger hard drive on the top end unit.
It appears to me that with these units, Sony is not so much trying to put a gaming machine in every home, they have near done that with the PS1 and PS2, but rather they seem to be trying to redefine the home entertainment idology. Sony creates all the hardware needed for a full home entertainment system, from TV to 5.1 to speakers and now to networked gaming. Add to that their portable devices and their top knotch work in mobile phone tech and all the sony entertainment content provided by sony picture and sony music, and you have a hard time believing that thier last 10 years of positioning has been anything but planned for the future.
Whether Microsoft, or any other company releases a game unit that one day might blow away the PS3 in ability, Sony still commands a huge lead in the interconectivity of "entertainment". They seem to be doing for the whole home entertainment areana what they did with the Sony Walkman... They are defining the vernacular that will become the cornerstone of future entertainment. When, 10 or 20 years from now, someone says, "lets get a home entertainment unit hunny. (HEU ;))" it will be like saying, "I am going to buy a new walkman this afternoon.", of course it would make no diference if it were a sony or a panasonic or a sharper image unit... The walkman vernacular was defined and like Q-tips or Jet-Ski the brand name will define the iconography and ideology.
Back to the PS3. I think I will wait until they hit the same price as a good DVD player or provide a more streamlined interface with other standard home theatre parts before I shell out my hardly earned cash for one.

Whoa flashback!

[los furtive]

Am I the only one who thought this looks just like the Atari Lynx [atarilynx.com]?

Oh how I miss my Lynx.

Some thoughts...

[Hellasboy]

Battery life has always been the killer on portable systems. The turboexpress had a color screen before any other portable and rivaled the systems of the time (basically a shrunk down tg16). but it was expensive and drained batteries quickly. The atari lynx had a color screen but ate batteries even worse than the game gear, and of course the game gear. all superior systems to the game boy of their respective eras and all dead within a few years.

Rumors have it that the PSP has 2-2.5 hours of game playing time. How much time with the audio turned up? How much less with 802.11b enabled? Also, it's not too portable considering its size. If the dpad and buttons areas would have folded up to protect the screen, well, it would be an improvement in portability. (I expect a check from you, sony).

The DS seems nice but looks horrible. What's up with the extremely rounded edges? The top screen that utilizes the ARM-9 chip should have used a larger screen. If I was a designing student, this would be something I would crank out the night before it was due. The buttons are tiny. Sizewise it looks to be about a little smaller than the PSP.

Overall, the DS will have backward compatibility, 100$ cheaper, no region encoding, graphics just slightly less than the PSP. No word on battery life or media type of the new format.
The PSP will be able to play movies, mp3, horrid battery life, region encoding, 100$ more expensive, and slightly better graphics.

Other portables have offered to do more than the game boys of their generations and they've all failed. I think that the outcome will really depend on the DS. If the DS has a strong start and really takes advantage of the 2 screens, then I don't think we will see the PSP last long.

Eye Toy

[mi]

Is there anything like EyeToy [eyetoy.com] for anything but the PlayStation2? IMHO, this is the greatest entertainment device ever, and just might put most aerobics instructors out of business -- you play with your entire body and an hour or two provide quite a workout...

Re:Nintendo DS

[RickHunter]

Even just looking at the pictures and reading that it supports Bluetooth gave me high hopes for it. Unlike Sony's PSP, this device actually looks nice, and even though the screen's smaller and the CPU is less powerful, the touchscreen and backwards-compatibility seem to seal the deal. I'm sure the Sony fanboys are going to prattle endlessly about how Nintendo's doomed, but I think the DS, especially since its going to be parallel with the SP, has a real shot at success.

Especially since Square's already confirmed to be making games for it, among others...

And that the Bluetooth support means that you could, in theory, play multiplayer against GB games ported to PDAs, Apple laptops, or even some mobile phones! If Nintendo has their act together there, that could be a massive advantage for them.

Re:ps3 workstation

[Wesley Felter]

A volume system (Power Mac) plus Apple markup is still cheaper than a low-volume exotic workstation.

The article says that the Cell workstation is not the PS3 developer system.

Re:Not Likely

[Short Circuit]

1. Take two sheets of tin foil
   
2. Place them on top of each other
   
3. Cut them into identical 10x10 grids.
   
4. Now attach a wire to each piece.
   
5. Place a soft insulator (e.g. plastic wrap) between the two sheets of squares
   
6. poll the pairs of wires for a change in capacitance
   

Voila!

You've got a pressure-sensitive touchpad that will register any number of identical presses on an XY grid.

Repeat the process with transparent conductors (e.g. saltwater) and you'll have a touchscreen you can see through.

Make it a little more advanced, and you can measure the distance between the conductors by sending a signal to only one of the two conductors in a cell. (for example, measure the current flow in an AC signal of sufficient voltage.)

BTW...I claim this as prior art for patents.

Re:Whoa flashback!

[Anonymous Coward]

I still have a working Lynx with about a dozen games. People give the Game Gear a lot of honors, but they forget that the Lynx had much better games and capabilities and was there first. When I was young I really wanted a portable game device so I went to the store with the intention of buying a Game Boy. However, after playing the Lynx demo unit for a few minutes, I realized how much of a better device it was. Unfortunately the Lynx is another one of those examples were a good product dies because of poor marketing. Oh well.

Alpine Touch Screens Have Tactile Feel.

[albieomoss]

although i pretty much agree with you, there are touch screens now that use a technolgy called PulseTouch(TM), it uses vibrations to simulate the effect of pushing a real button. Here is a link to one model [alpine-usa.com] that incorporates the technology.

Re:This will sell like acid at Woodstock . . .

[pzycho]

Have you thought about the cost situation? The lowest estimate right now for PSP is $250. That is the lowest estimate. That is way too much for almost any gamer to spend on a portable. Also, the standard estimate for DS is $150. That is right in the sweet spot for launching a handheld.
On top of this, think of software. People expect their portable games to cost $30 bucks, but when you have a system that runs up with the PS2 it is going to see almost exclusively PS2 ports. This is going to make games cost $50 because you can't ask for GT4 on PS2 to cost $50 then GT4 (which has been announced) for PSP to cost only $30. It wont work. Even original games will have to follow suit because of the high cost of developing on such an advanced system. I am not saying that it couldn't be the same for DS, but at least it isn't set in stone at this time.

Just a final note, how much graphical power can you really appreciate on a 4 inch screen anyhow? I am really surprised there was no video out for TV support.