PSP Launch Coverage

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?"

Gamestop

[superpulpsicle]

I went to Gamestop earlier today. Some poor guy pre ordered a PSP and got the system. When he asked for games, the store guys said "Too bad, every PSP game has been either sold or are on reserve".

I cannot remember the last time a system launched and 100% of a store's inventory is gone.

Re:Because it's never been done is not a reason...

[exley]

Yeah, considering Sony's and their partners' ability (at least in the past) to get certain things right -- media format, game selection, etc. -- they've definitely got a shot. I have no intention of picking up a DS (the dual-screen, while it may be purposeful, strikes me as gimmicky), but if they can deliver on the game titles front, I'm all for the PSP.

Another selling point is that, from what I understand, PSP games aren't region-coded in any way. As such, I'll be totally stoked if I can play some anime-related and dating sim titles that are sure to come out over in Japan that will never be sold domestically.

I just wrote my local paper about this

[yagu]

I just read about this in the Seattle Times, and wrote a letter to the columnist (the article is: PlayStation Portable: Sony's new handheld does a lot more than play games [nwsource.com]):

Hi Mark,

Long time Seattle Times reader here....

Liked your article on Sony's new playstation... a few thoughts though...

I too have long considered Sony to be a great innovator but here is what has frustrated me for sooooo long and here is why I probably will NEVER buy a Sony product again unless and until they change some of their practices.... I'll illustrate by example:

• long ago, after a few years of owning one of Yamaha's very first digital receivers with no remote control, I decided to "move up".... and fell in lust with a nice Sony unit at the local electronics store (this was in Omaha)... The Sony boasted 100 watts per channel to my Yamaha's 50 watts per channel AND it had a remote control. I excitedly told the salesman how much I looked forward to having a remote control unit and the doubling of the power would be a nice bonus. When I told him I was "replacing" my Yamaha, to his credit, he stopped me and told me if I took the Sony home I would be SO disappointed. He said the 100 watt Sony in a side-by-side comparison with my 50 watt Yamaha would be pathetic, the Sony wouldn't even stand a chance. Whaaaa? He also showed me how when you turned the volume all the way up on the Sony when it was set to phono input (yes it was in the day of LP's), you could hear bleed over sound from the FM tuner, ick..... He told me to try that with the Yamaha, I did, dead silence... He explained Sony sold sizzle, but no steak.... by skimping on things like shielding on wires to block induction of adjacent signal sources. Okay, lesson learned.... but my Sony radar was up.
• Skip to the mid 90's or so. I was absolutely infatuated with Sony's new Minidisk format -- what a cool way to have such great sounding music in such a small form factor. Granted, the recording unit I purchased was $700, but I was willing to pay the bleeding edge price knowing from experience technology prices drop steeply and when I would be ready to buy additional units I could get a comparable recorder for less than half the price I paid then. I watched for 2 years.... no price drop.... mentioned to a salesman at Magnolia (now I'd moved to Seattle)... He explained the minidisk technology was Sony's own proprietary format, and Sony had refused to license the technology to anyone else for any reasonable fees and thus maintained a lock on the market and the pricing... and that was the reason the price never came down. Shit! My original unit has long since broken and I have long since abandoned Minidisks.
• Then came digital cameras. Again, Sony jumped in with THEIR answer to the evolving standard storage media at the time, their memory stick.... proprietary, expensive, and non-standard. This time I didn't bite, but watched the same behavior... the memory stick, while adopted by some never came down in price and never was released from the Sony control. (Their prerogative of course.)
• Now they've introduced their UMDs (Universal Media Discs), a proprietary new medium , yet ANOTHER proprietary format?!? It's almost unbelievable -- they're kind of like the Microsoft of the electronics industry except they don't have near the control and monopoly. No thanks, I don't need their proprietary solutions that are incompatible with anything else I own....

  Come to think of it... I'm not so surprised, or maybe it's a lucky thing Sony's Beta never became the standard, while I wasn't really there to be part of that decision in my purchasing power... but maybe VHS was the better choice after all (even though it wasn't quite as good technically).

  Just my $.02

  Anyway, thanks for the article, a good read....

what about battery time on these?

[xutopia]

I can't seem to find any benchmark on this.

Re:shoot me

[radish]

40 GB of Memory Stick Duos is over $10K

A 1gb MS Duo is $110, so 40GB would be $4400. Sure it's a lot, but you are out by more than 100%. PSP is not an iPod, plenty of people use flash mp3 players with less than 1gb on them. It might not suit you, but it might suit others just fine.

I can get a portable DVD player, and have all my DVD extras (because I'm fairly certain all the bonus features I buy DVDs for won't be on UMDs), and not have to buy my movies all over again.

Or you can rip your exising DVDs to mp4, and watch them on your PSP for free, just like I do.

Sony really hopes that they can sell tons and tons of Memory Sticks.


Given that they overcharge for MS versus what others (like SanDisk) charge, I don't think they'll be selling many.

So, yeah, it's a gaming device

It's a FUCKING good gaming device. And you're right, that's what's important.

Re:hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

Given Sony's track record of easily breakable hardware for the first 2 Playstation systems, and the numberous cries of "dead pixels" surrounding the launch of the PSP...I think Nintendo will stay on top for a while. People enjoy a name they can depend on...especially in the hands of children.

Re:shoot me

[ZephyrXero]

yeah...screw the iPod, get a Neuros [neurosaudio.com]!

Thoughts from a retail drone

[Gadzuko]

I work at Gamestop, and I can tell you that there is a lot more buzz about the PSP than there ever was about the DS. We had extras of the DS, we have plenty of them lying around now that we can't get rid of as a matter of fact. The PSP? Nope. First and second shipments, both reserved out. There's a lot more interest from consumers, and Sony has been hyping this (at least to the retail outlets) a lot less than Nintendo hyped the DS.

Ahh but is it playable?

[RiotXIX]

I'm a big fan of sitting down in a *proper* armchair in front of a giant flat screen television with a controller in my hand (maybe even a little high), but that's not the quite the same as wincing at a high defenition graphics on a bumpy car/train journey, is it?

The other day I bought a snes controller from ebay, & a snes adapter. To be perfectly honest, the idea of reliving a bunch of *hard* hand/eye reaction platform games from 1996 got me a lot more excited than I was when I received the latest GTA clone (as great as that game is)...some games are designed for long hours in comfortable conditions (high res rpg's) - others are just quick, skillfull and fun. In an era where platform games are becoming extinct thanks to every console manufacturer bragging about their console being better soley on the basis of hardware specifications (before a games line is even released), I took solice in the fact that, as good as the latest armchair console gets, I could always go retro with some hardcore platform/strategy games (has bomberman even been ported to the X-box/PS2)??

This might not be such a good thing. There's no way I'd consider completing (and hence for that matter starting) half the games in my PS2 collection on a portable device.

Maybe im crazy too, but I loved that quote

[sjwt]

"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?"

WTF? If MS had done to the PC what Nintendo did to the hand held gaming market, it would make the current and past antitrust cases look like a walk in the park.

remember the Sega game gear or the Atari Lynx?
Those other hand helds that are also dam close to a decade and a half old.. remember colour screens and the ability to watch TV on them(well i only remember the GG having a TV adapter but i never liked the lynx)

Imagine MS having held us back at Dos 5 for 10 long years as the default desktop OS, and Linux and Mac having systems of today to compete with Dos 5 and 386's, but still losing?

Not so fast

[bonch]

Nintendo is announced a new Gameboy later this year. That's right, the DS isn't the official successor to the Gameboy. It remains to be seen how it will actual be improved over the previous Gameboy and DS, though I have a feeling Nintendo has rejected using optical discs for their portable systems due to load times (and as a result, more wear on the batteries).

Plus, there's been a huge game library built up for the past Gameboy systems, and I'm sure backwards-compatibility will, again, be built in. It's hard to be the huge library available. We shall see. I think this will be as popular as Sega's color handheld was back in the day (that damn thing even had a TV tuner, remember?). I saw a few people with one here and there on the schoolbus back then, and it was the technically better system, but for some reason, Nintendo's ugly green-and-black just won out.

/. circa Sept 1995....

[iamhassi]

if it were Sept 1995 this is what you'd be reading:

"Sony's Playstation 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 Playstation is a far superior machine to the Super Nintendo. It's a powerhouse device, capable of displaying modern graphics, playing robust sound, and can even replace a CD player. Nintendo has been doing it right for over a decade, why should we think the Playstation can just waltz onto the scene and take over? Can it even be done?"

I think we know how history played out...

Re:Not so fast

[PhoenixFlare]

but for some reason, Nintendo's ugly green-and-black just won out.

The Gamegear had (compared to the Gameboy) horrible battery life, small game selection, a screen that tended to blur/look washed-out, a propensity for overheating, and so on.

Its death isn't quite as suprising if you actually used one for an extended period. Not that the Gameboy didn't have its own flaws, but I think it was just more balanced with good vs. bad.

Re:hmm.

[Anonymous Coward]

"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?"

What exactly it is that Nintendo has supposedly been doing "right", I don't know. I've looked and looked, even wanting to be convinced, but simply found nothing that would make me want to buy a GBA or SP. I expect much the same from the DS.

The PSP is already a different story. There are already several games that appeal to me, and more soon to come. Then there's the audio and video playback from MemoryStick. If Sony does something about the video resolution limitation, PSP would be a killer app for me, and I would buy one as soon as I could for that alone. As it is, I plan on waiting until I can get one without getting the "value" pack.

I think Nintendo and Sony are aiming for two different markets, and Nintendo doesn't understand Sony's target market as much as Nintendo claims Sony doesn't understand theirs. The scene Sony is going to "waltz onto" is one currently left high and dry by Nintendo's current offerings.

IMHO, PSP will be a big success, but not necessarily at Nintendo's expense. (I also expect Nintendo to point to it's continued success as evidence of Sony's failure.)

Re:PSP and DS not comparable

[Eccles]

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, but it's not just the games. The DS has kid-friendly features like a clamshell design (harder to damage), cartridges (disks scratch, we've had gameboy games go through the washing machine ok), the resulting quick cartridge game-start time, and lower prices.

The PSP is getting plenty of attention, though; I think it's actually making a new market as much as it is taking potential Nintendo customers.

Must Have Games?

[Paradox]

You want Must-Haves? Let me tell you what you Must-Have.

1. Ridge Racer : This game is an awesome arcade racer. The multiplayer is terrific. The graphics are practically PS2 quality.
2. Lumines : This game is the puzzle game I've been pining for for years. And it's drop-dead beautiful.
3. Metal Gear Acid : A tactical/strategy game? Metal Gear Franchise? Card-based mechanics that don't suck? I may not be as eloquent of Tycho about strategy games, but I'll still try to say what I feel: Gimme! GIMME NOW!

You may not like these games, but I sure do. Ridge Racer is a high quality racer with fun multiplayer that's also on a handheld! What more do you want from a racer? Whatever it doesn't give you, NFS:R will.

Metal Gear Acid is an awesome strategy game. You know, strategy? Where you have to think? Occasionally?

And for puzzles, which are a big portable genre, Lumines is a big deal. It's fast, fun, has a good multiplayer, has a good soundtrack, looks good, and has good short-session playability.

You can wait as long as you like, and that's prudent. But don't assume these titles aren't must-have just because you don't like the genres. For anyone who's into these kinds of games, the PSP has some kickass titles.

It's like a friendlier PS2.

[Paradox]

Surely it does. The PSP's specs actually slightly exceed that of the PS2, and the PS2 can emulate most of those late 90's games-with some exceptions relating to devices, of course.

But remember, emulating those old games is much easier on a portable because the screen, large and beautiful as it is, is still smaller. You can get away with less detail and let more things slide because people just won't be able to notice. Much like the free anti-aliasing effect consoles enjoy when displayed on televisions.

Oh, and I've talked to someone with a PSP developer kit. Heresay, so take it with a grain of salt, but by all accounts the PSP developer experience is not the painful ordeal that PS2 development is.

More powerful, more portable, better networking, AND easier to code?