PSP Delayed Into 2005? 254
Thanks to the numerous readers who alerted us to the Gamespot article mentioning that the PSP may be delayed until next year. This analysis comes from games industry analysts and is the result of Sony's game title weakness and battery issues. David Jenkins at Gamasutra has additional analysis as well.
I haven't been keeping up, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
Hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like Sony didn't think too far ahead when they planned on releasing this in Q4 2004.
DS (Score:2, Interesting)
2005 should be an interesting year for handhelds.
Re:There is a God (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:They can't wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
If it sucks, they're doomed anyway (Score:1, Interesting)
Look at the n-gage. The first one sucked the weenie. The 2nd one is better, but its too late. Perception is set.
Releasing something that sucks? MS has got that angle convered. Everybody else has to make sure its correct.
You can't win with the /. crowd sometimes (Score:5, Interesting)
And if you RTFA you will see: "the securities firm expects the handheld 'to launch later than the current March 2005 expectation". It was already going to be a 2005 launch, now it will just be a Christmas season launch. I'd rather have a good system a year from now than a poorly designed system right now. Of course, Nintendo chose the other route with the GBA, releasing a barely playable system as soon as they could and then a vastly superior GBA SP a year(ish) later.
Better product = We all win.
Re:ladies and gentlemen.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Reversal of fortunes (Score:3, Interesting)
So, will Nintendo's head start here give them the same benefits that Sony had from their head start? Or are the PSP and DS so different from each other that they aren't competing for the same gaming dollars? Or both?
Re:They can't wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I haven't been keeping up, but... (Score:3, Interesting)
But, since you're lazy and I'm bored of work... well, let's just say there are a very, very large number, many of which have already been seen in some sort of playable demo form, so it's less likely the release list the fact that Sony just hit all of their developers with this ( relatively ) last-minute "oh, by the way, this thing can do a lot of fancy graphics, but don't actually use those features or push the system, you have to keep your battery usage low" requirement, to which many likely said "uh, we have a problem...".
Here's just one list of PSP release games from SPOnG [spong.com]... use my generously provided Google link for others. The list generally includes all of the big-selling PlayStation2 games, plus a few new ( mostly handheld-oriented ) games.
Re:You can't win with the /. crowd sometimes (Score:2, Interesting)
GBC HAS THE EXACT SAME SCREEN! (Just fewer pixels).
So yeah, its definitely strange that so many people are complaining about it because it didn't really take THAT much light to get a good image. The reflective TFT in that sure beats the crap out of the transmissive TFT in earlier systems like Game Gear.
You may very well be right about the point on people assuming CotM was represenative of the system's contrast on the whole. I found it to be quite enjoyable, but if thats the only game you have you might be inclined to say "jeeze this sucks" and give it to your little brother/cousin/dog.
I've got Mega Man Zero and that game I think has pretty damn good graphics. I don't play GBA much and I don't have a lot of games, but MMZ was very entertaining (and fuckin HARD).
Re:Hmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not a Sony hater, but I would have expected people to have spotted the pattern by now..
Re:ladies and gentlemen.. (Score:3, Interesting)
There have been multiple stories on Slashdot in the past couple of weeks and I'm pretty sure all of them have been based on rumors and hearsay.
And people, you don't have to love one machine and hate the other.
Re:They can't wait... (Score:3, Interesting)
Is it not the most unbelievable thing in the world that the Minidisc is still on shelves? How much of a failure was that? Didn't the original players/recorders cost like $500? Is anybody even buying it now? Who knows, but for some reason you can still buy them and they are now down around $100 and have up to 56 hours battery life off a single AA. It's probably still a relative failure, but the fact remains that Sony has managed to keep those things on shelves for what seems like 8 or so years now.
Sony can do the same thing with the PSP if they have to. They will not let it die and disappear like so many Sega, Wonderswan or whatever the chuck handhelds. That thing will stay on shelves as the the Minidisc of handhelds forever if it has to, and that price will creep down and down and down until rather suddenly it's competitive. I'm going to guess it'll do better then the Minidisc because it won't suddenly find itself antiquated by something as simple as interchangable portable MP3 players.
Even more importantly, another aspect of it being Sony is that it has the potential to tap the adult market in the same way the Playstation 1 did. People were too embarrassed to buy nintendo/sega systems as they were basically completely associated with kids, but the Playstation rapidly became associated with more 'mature' content and games and unleashed a whole new wave of consumers. Sony is pushing this aspect even harder by making it an 'entertainment platform' capable of movies/music as opposed to just simply a souped-up gameboy. Quite a few people justified their Playstation 2 purchase because it could also play DVDs in a pinch.
Re:They can't wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
I think it is very important to note (Score:3, Interesting)