PSP Launch Coverage 461
Sony's handheld console has launched with great fanfare, and already there are plenty of places to get opinions and reviews. Shacknews has a nice hands on with the player itself, Gamespy has reviews of the launch titles, and Gamespot has coverage of just about everything on its PSP Launch Center page. From the Shacknews hands-on: "Technically speaking, the PSP is a far superior machine to the Game Boy Advance or Nintendo DS. It's a powerhouse device, capable of displaying modern graphics, playing robust sound, and can even replace a portable DVD player. However, many of its launch titles are just watered-down versions of PS2 games and Sony has no experience in portable gaming. Nintendo has been doing it right for a decade and half, why should we think the PSP can just waltz onto the scene and take over? Can it even be done?"
Because it's never been done is not a reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
hmm. (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe I'm crazy, but it looks to me like Sony already has experience in the whole "beating someone after over a decade of dominance" thing.
Watered down? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yeah because it's not like the biggest appeal of the GBA/DS games are all the SNES ports/rehashes.
Market Dominance? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think this is kinda like when the XBox came out:
Microsoft has no experience in console gaming. Nintendo has been doing it right for a decade and half, why should we think the Xbox can just waltz onto the scene and take over?
While these are not quite the same scenarios, both MS and Sony have advantages in these new markets: MS had a hojillion dollars and Sony has the console market by the balls. PlayStation fans will probably pick up the PSP, and that could really make the PSP turn up in the black (not to pun the PSP's color)
A problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact, playing these games on the GBA is almost an excuse to return back to the simpler, yet highly addictive, 16-bit era where pixels were the rage and polygons only existed in arcades.
When I think of Sony, I think of Gran Turismo and realistic RPG's, not quirky sprites with catchy music that makes me want to play my GBA.
Maybe if Sony could get something like Bubble Bobble or another old franchise, PSP would have more appeal.
Just my two cents.
Re:hmm. (Score:3, Insightful)
Hhhhm... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know a single person who's even considering getting a PSP. Sure, we all agree it looks like a great little machine, but it seems that almost all it's selling features are just so... limited. The comment from the post is right on. Do I really need another Wipeout or Ridge Racer game? Wasn't I playing those on the first Playstation, like um, ten years ago?
I can play more music on a dedicated mp3 player, and for less money. A 4 gig iPod Mini costs 199, and this is 249 + another 119 or so for a gig of storage. That's not very good. I can also use an iPod for days before it dies, when a PSP will probably wear out in about five hours, which is shorter by far than your average work day.
Oh, but it can play movies! Yeah, but I'm not going out and buying the same movies I already own just in case I randomly want to watch them on a 4 inch screen (assuming they even come out), or spending the time to convert a movie to the MP4 format, then copy it to a huge memory stick, only to erase it again if I'd rather take something else on the go, well, that just seems like a pain in the ass to me.
So, I'm left with games, pretty much. Games that I played and got sick of ten. years. ago.
Re:Lag... (Score:2, Insightful)
Sounds like rushed software.
Re:I guess... (Score:2, Insightful)
The only thing Nintendo has is the handheld market, and with Sony's might in the console market they will be bringing a whole lot of people who would never consider a handheld into that market. Since the PSP has so many more features than anything Nintendo has, the outlook isn't so rosy for them. They will be in the unusual position of playing catch-up even though they are the dominant player in that area.
Re:Gamestop (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:shoot me (Score:2, Insightful)
but seriously, you can put any movie you want on a gigabyte memory stick, and considering there's always new music, I always preferred flash memory for mp3 players. I can play my favorites on my home stereo if I need to.
And I don't even know where the hell you pulled that stupid 40k figure out of. ZipZoomFly had a sandisk memory stick pro duo 1gb for 67 dollars a couple of days ago. I even got myself one. Too bad it's sold out now.
http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp
The question is age... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is obviously some bleed in the age around the edges, but it is my understanding that it's been roughly the same age group that's been following the gaming industry along all these years. If this is the case, a lot of these older gamers now have jobs. And $200 is a lot cheaper to a 20-something than a 13 year old with an allowance.
Especially since the PSP is capable of so much (music, videos, photos, etc), the older crowd that's been following for so long can now get a fancy new hi-tech device that serves a lot of their purposes. After all, why have an iPod, portable DVD player (I know it doesn't play DVDs), and a GameBoy when you can have all in one? Personally, I'm rooting for Nintendo, as I don't really care for all these extra bits (I just wanna play some games), but frankly I believe Sony's got the market on this now.
Finally, the system doesn't have to rely on excellent titles to make it work all the way, because they have some backup with the extra features included. And even so, we all know Sony's track record with title quality... Sorry Nintendo. It was nice knowing you.
Re:shoot me (Score:5, Insightful)
"Technically speaking". (Score:1, Insightful)
Yeah, whatever. The Game Gear is technically speaking a far superior machine to the Game Boy, as is the Atari Lynx. The Nomad is technically speaking a far superior machine to the Game Boy Color. Come to think of it every single handheld ever released by someone other than Nintendo has been technically speaking superior to whatever Nintendo was selling at the time. But the Nintendo system's always sold better, and frankly, except for the case of the Neo Geo Pocket Color the Nintendo system's always been the better buy-- as it is now.
Corporations somehow just don't get this. Technical superiority isn't what makes a handheld good. Portability is. Pretty polygons aren't a big deal if your total battery life goes down to two and a half hours on the wrong game, all the games have loading times, and you're always worried about the unit being unpaused or scratched up by your keys while it's in your pocket because the face is exposed.
I don't want my handheld to be a ps2 only smaller, with fewer games, and nearly twice the price. I want something portable.
Re:2D ban (Score:5, Insightful)
2D games like Guilty Gear X (and sequels)? Alien Hominid? DDRMAX? Contra: Shattered Soldier? Gradius?
(OK, at least with the last 2 they're rendered with 3D, but they're still 2D sidescrollers.)
What can a Gameboy play? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:shoot me (Score:2, Insightful)
But, seriously, the PSP isn't meant for people who are going to be having 40gb of music. It isn't meant for people to backup their harddrive onto. Its meant for people to buy 2gb of memory and put some music on it, and fill the rest with movies. And when you're done with those movies and bored of those songs, you swap them out for new ones.
You can't really compare an iPod, a music-only device, to only the music function of the PSP. It would be like me saying the DS is way better than iPod because the games on the iPod suck.
By the way, you can reencode your DVDs down to 300mb each and play them from your Memory Sticks without having to buy a UMD.
Re:A problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Personally, what I most want on the PSP is MAME. The default 32Meg Memory Stick will hold approximately 1.37 metric buttloads of old arcade ROMs.
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
Just my thoughts, but (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, no, that isn't it at all. The only reason Sony got anywhere with the original Playstation was everything else at the time fucking sucked. The Jaguar and Saturn were jokes, the N64 wasn't what consumers wanted and only had like three good games max (all by Nintendo), and Nintendo was such a jackass in the mid 90s under the old CEO that nobody wanted to work with them.
Sony's takeover of the video game industry in the mid 90s and their capable defending since of the ground they took shows an enormous degree of business saavy. What it doesn't show is skill. Sony grabbed the market in the startling way they did less because of what they did right than because of what everyone else did wrong; all their competitors were either incompetent or, in Nintendo's case, incompetent and repulsive.
Well, the handheld and media player markets that Sony is trying to slip somewhere indeterminately between right now are a good bit different from the video game industry when the Playstation was released. The media player market is extremely rich right now, and on the video game side the PSP (unlike the Playstation) actually has a viable competitor; Nintendo is no longer particularly repulsive to developers, and they're even doing things lately that you could almost call competent, sometimes. Meanwhile, frankly, looking at the Playstation, the Playstation 2, and the PSP, the first two of these are just plain good products. The third... how shall I put this... seems to me rather lacking, and doesn't really seem to serve any utility at all unless you really want a Video iPod and don't mind spending lots of money on memory sticks. This seems likely to be a bit of a hard sell given alternative systems with a fair degree of quality really do exist.
I'll agree the person you quote is being silly; I don't think there's any reason to think that Nintendo can magically and eternally defend itself from all challenges to the Game Boy. But if you look at the products on the market right now... meh, I think it's pretty safe to say they can defend themselves against the PSP.
Do one thing... (Score:1, Insightful)
... And do it well!
The original Gameboy was a hit because it was great at playing games. Not because it had the best screen or because you could do stuff like listen to music or watch movies.
I haven't tried the DS or the PSP yet, but I think the one with the best games will win, not the one with the most more or less useless features.
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason... (Score:5, Insightful)
When the Genesis came out, sure it was a better system, but Nitnendo had the bigger names and more titles. Not neccessarily better titles, but more. The same thing holds true back with the NES.
When the PS1 came out, though, Nintendo was in a different position. They had aging console hardware out, new titles were slowing down, and most of those big core names they had (Metroid, Mario, Zelda) hadn't had a major, successful release two to three years.
Not only did Sony come out with new hardware, new names, new titles, but even stole some of the big Nintendo names (Squaresoft, Enix, etc).
On the same note in handhelds, the Gameboy has always had several things in its favor: It's had the major game franchises, it's had far, far more games. In some cases, it didn't even have better games, just more. It didn't have a hardware advantage. Most of the other handheld challengers have been superior hardware, but they've all lacked a solid lineup of games. (The N-gage had the extra strikes from marketing and design issues).
However, things have changed now. Nintendo does have new hardware out, but it doesn't have the titles behind it. It's got a few good games, but Sony just plain has a lot of games. One of the Gameboy's selling points was the massive library of games.
The DS is Nintendo's mistake, I think. They brought it out, they made it the focus of their handheld strategy, but they didn't (and still don't) have the games behind it that it needs. Imagine if the GBA came out and all we had were a handful of games? A lot more people would have stuck with their GBCs rather than spend $80 on new hardware to play mostly the same games. The GBA had a very strong launch list, though.
The DS didn't, and a lot of people I know (myself included) stuck with their GBAs. Have you heard much from Nintendo about the GBA lately? Seen any GBA commercials since the DS came out? I haven't. I've gotten a few new games for it, but the push is behind the DS, not the GBA.
Sony has some hardware issues, but let's face it: So did the GBA. Bad screen, annoying buttons, too big. It still did great, even before the SP came out. The hardware issues are something people should know, but did they kill the GBA? While we're at it, did they kill the PS1 or PS2? Nope. It's going to come down to the games yet again, and this time, the PSP has them.
The GBA could win it with the PSP. It's cheaper, and Nintendo can probably afford to drop the price even farther. Throw in bundled games with the hardware like they used to, make it something like Super Mario Advance or Zelda or something with more or less universal appeal. It doesn't have the graphics, but it does have the games.
But, Nintendo's pushed the DS too much. I'm afraid of it ending up like the Visual Boy. At this point in the game, that would be far worse for Nintendo than the Visual Boy was - at the time, the Gameboy wasn't up against any serious competition. Now it is.
Re:I guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sorry. But I don't class:
* Analog sticks
* movie-playing ability
as a whole lot more features. Nintendo has one feature this doesn't have. Dual-screen. So PSP has 1 more feature then the DS.
Re:what about battery time on these? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just my thoughts, but (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:What can a Gameboy play? (Score:1, Insightful)
"Every single portable gaming device ever made" didn't claim to be a media center that would let you watch movies on the move. You don't have a collection of PSP games already, but I bet you have a DVD collection. Planning to buy them all again on UMD? Thought not.
Re:I guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
The DS can do a lot more than the PSP as far as unique features go. I just hope people realize that. And I hope that Nintendo can improve their game lineup for the DS in a hurry.
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason... (Score:2, Insightful)
So I can't watch hentai [wikipedia.org] anime movies while riding the subway? Forget about it.
Re:PSP and DS not comparable (Score:4, Insightful)
I do think the fallout will be pretty minimal, though. The PSP is going to be big, oviously. It looks like it'll be bigger than the DS by far, and challenge the GBA.
But, something that people have largely stopped pointing out is that Nintendo and Sony target different groups for the most part. Nintendo targets younger gamers more than older ones. Yes, they sell to older gamers, like me, but Sony's games and systems have appealed to me more for a long time.
Sony doesn't have the "kids" games that I've seen. Nintendo doesn't have the "grownup" games. Both of them will be able to have solid places in the market without wiping each other out.
Re:I guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
You think that touch screen is not an extraneous feature? If Nintendo was going to do something with it, they had a chance at launch.
Because the DS has so many more games! Wait, that's wrong. You realize how few games the DS has, right? The PSP has some strong launch titles and some good games are in the pipe allready. The DS, on the other hand, seems almost stagnant.
We're still waiting for Nintendo to release that darn Metroid game that has been demoing since launch, and I've tried using the DS's screen as an analog controller. It sucks!
I can't look into the future and say that the PSP wins out, but I sure hope it does. It really is a superior console, and the games its offering fill out genres and franchies I'm far more interested in.
Re:I guess... (Score:3, Insightful)
Can't argue with you about the lack of games, yet. Nintendo really needs to get moving on that.
Most of the PSP's launch titles, from what I've read, are pretty lame. Lots of PS2 rehashes. They seem to be in the same boat with Nintendo on that.
Personally, I think the DS is a much better handheld gaming platform. But that's just me. The whole battery life thing helps out a lot, too. When they get some good games out, I'll buy one. Probably next Christmas.
Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Got a PSP, need more puzzle games... (Score:2, Insightful)