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PlayStation (Games) Sony Games

Sony Says PSP2 "As Powerful as PS3" 267

Posted by CmdrTaco from the believe-it-when-its-in-my-hands dept.
Jason writes "Sony is reportedly pitching the PSP2 as a high-end portable equivalent to its PS3. The gaming content on the platform will clearly differentiate the handheld from Apple's and Google's mobile products as well as the games found on the App Store and the Android Market. The company will reveal the first concrete details regarding the handheld in Tokyo on January 27. This is a month before Nintendo's 3DS platform goes on sale in Japan. Sony is already planning to reveal more at GDC and E3 after the initial announcement this month."
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Sony Says PSP2 "As Powerful as PS3" More

Sony Says PSP2 "As Powerful as PS3"

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  • As powerful? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shikaku ( 1129753 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:22PM (#34864210)

    OK. But what's the battery life?

    • Re:As powerful? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by elysiuan ( 762931 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:34PM (#34864394) Homepage

      This is a good question and I think it speaks to a larger trend in the handheld market. Nintendo, the undisputed leader of the console handheld market for many years, has traditionally always made their handhelds a but underpowered with respect to the technologies of the day. One of the driving factors of this was battery life which they have excelled in.

      Now with the advent of the 3ds they seem to be bucking that trend with a 5 hour battery life.

      Now that the push among handheld makers is to provide higher fidelity experiences it seems users of the next generation of handhelds will have to get used to much shorter battery life times.

      Battery technology is lagging behind a bit. I'm curious to see how this all plays out in the next 5 years or so as our love of powerful portable devices continues to grow.

      • if you think gameboys had excellent battery life, try a neo geo pocket color, games/graphics superior to a GBC, superior 8-way digital pad/stick and a 40 hour life on two penlite batteries

        awe-fricking-some!

    • Yes, it can play MGS:3, but at 340x240 resolution..... which is just as powerful as the PS3, they both play the same game content, and display it at 30 frames per second....

      • The 3DS will have two screens. The top will be a 3D screen with a 800 x 240 px (effectively 400 x 240 WQVGA per eye) at 238 ppi resolution.

        My iPhone 4 has a 960 x 640 px resolution.

        I doubt the PSP2 will only have a 340x240 resolution.

  • Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Yvan256 ( 722131 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:23PM (#34864218) Homepage Journal

    And of course, because of magic, nobody can remember the over-hyped "PS2 emotion engine" and the "PS3 is so powerful it's going to last 10 years" marketing.

    If the PSP2 is as powerful as the PS3, why is the PS3 Slim still so big?

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by lavacano201014 ( 999580 )
      Hard drive, Blu-Ray drive, ethernet, I think there might be some Bluetooth in there...

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by m50d ( 797211 )
      nobody can remember the over-hyped "PS2 emotion engine"

      Hmm? I remember, and it seems to have fulfilled it. The PS2's graphics look good enough that I don't care about better. Or rather, while I do care, it doesn't get in the way of games - in the N64 or anything earlier, the graphics are always obviously unrealistic, wheras IME the PS2 is as convincing as modern games or even movie CG. And as for the "players feeling real emotion" part, well, for me that's been true since at least Chrono Trigger. I don't e

      • in the N64 or anything earlier, the graphics are always obviously unrealistic, wheras IME the PS2 is as convincing as modern games or even movie CG.

        In Katamari Damacy and We <3 Katamari for PlayStation 2, Namco had to stylize the objects down to N64 levels of detail because of the sheer number of them on screen.

      • How can you fit that many fallacies into a single paragraph? With strenuous effort I might be able to approach your level of trolling, but I fear I could never reach it.

        Bravo, sir.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sznupi ( 719324 )

        http://www.kyon.pl/img/18407.html [www.kyon.pl]

        You don't remember well enough. The above is really not even a particularly strong example. It should be possible to find screenshots and videos from the time of announcement of the console.

        They were insane. Sony did exaggerate strongly the capabilities of this one. And probably with "good" reason - to draw attention away from the Dreamcast.

    • Re:Of course (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tapo ( 855172 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:33PM (#34864380) Homepage

      Because you're rendering at 720p-1080p on a PS3. When you're rendering at 320x240, you can pull off a lot of neat tricks without needing that much processing power. Aside from that, you have the blu-ray and hard drive taking up valuable space.

      The PSP came out during the PS2's lifespan, and easily looked just as good.

    • Perhaps worked pretty well to harm Dreamcast (in case Sega itself wasn't enough). Probably won't work too well this time, didn't really work with PSP1.

      Though I can believe PSP2 will be perceptually pretty close to PS3. Not only it has been half a decade - the screen is smaller, likely much less pixels to push, less need for texture resolution, etc.

    • Over-hyped? Don't get me wrong, I'm not a fan of Sony because of their antics w/ rootkits, removing other OS, and a handful of other stupid PR stunts - but the things you are trying to refute make no sense.

      PS2 over hyped? It's STILL selling games! More than the other consoles of that generation. the PS3 was released Late 2006. It's already gone through 4 years and its still selling.

      And in your final statement, you are comparing a brand new mobile device to a console created 2 years ago. Take a look at high

      • No. They are not remotely close in power. The 1GHz Cortex A8's in almost every high-end phone are *maybe* equivalent to lower-end models of Pentium 4 - so you're looking at a low-end chip in 2003 or so.

        • not even that i would say, ARMs are nice, but they lack loads of features we take for granted on modern x86 cpu's

          Stuff like windows and other bloatware makes us think any cpu older then a few years is dog-slow, run optimized software on the same thing and it will FLY, that is the way smartphones work

    • Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jokermatt999 ( 1536127 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:37PM (#34864442)
      "PS3 is so powerful it's going to last 10 years" It may not last 10 years (I can't see 5 years into the future), but it seems like it's going past the usual 5 year lifespan for consoles. That's pretty noteworthy, in my opinion. I think there's probably a liiiittle bit of marketing hype in claiming a handhold will get the same power as a PS3. Like others have said, I can't see a way to do that and have any meaningful battery life. I'd imagine there would be heating issues as well. In a closed room, a PS3 turned on for a while works almost as well as a space heater (yes, I've actually used it like that before. Don't judge me).

      • In a closed room, a PS3 turned on for a while works almost as well as a space heater

        Yeah, I was having a lot of problems with that - the fans kick in and roar like an engine (DVD play back seems to trigger it pretty quickly). Fixed it by balancing it on 4 empty beer cans. No joke - works like a charm - only side effect is that the beer cans get slightly warm...

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by seebs ( 15766 )

      Consider that the PS2 is very close to lasting 10 years at this point -- not as the only console, or the flagship console, but still on the market because it's still worth buying. I don't think "10 years" implies "10 years as the fastest console we ship".

      And yeah, I don't believe for a minute that the PSP2 is going to be as powerful as the PS3. No one's gonna go for a handheld that needs a 70 watt power supply.

    • Re:Of course (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Zelgadiss ( 213127 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @02:02PM (#34864918)

      "PS3 is so powerful it's going to last 10 years"

      Oh it will last 10 years alright.

      Not because it so powerful that no one wanted an upgrade, but because both MS and Sony blew a huge amount of money this generation and the next generation will cost just as much to develop.

      They can now either:
      -sit back and collect money
      or
      -risk several billion launching a new console

      I think it's obvious why they are in no hurry.

    • Going on 6 years in and I, for one, haven't heard a peep out of anyone concerning a PS4. So assuming rumors lead product by 2 years or so there won't be a PS4 until at least 7, possibly a solid 8 years into the PS3 lifetime. 2-3 years of support on the PS3 would be totally and completely in line with the level of support the PS2 got. I mean, there were still some 20-30 games released last year for the PS2. I have little doubt that you will be able to buy quality games for the PS3 in 5 more years.

    • in all fairness, the PS2 did actually last ten years

      where they get the nerve to still ask 100 euros for the thing AND require you to seperately spend 20 bucks on a few Meg memory card though, is beyond me.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )

      Bevause they don't go into your home and magical change the size of the old devices? Also, the Blu-Ray player and ports might be part of the reason.

      And the PS2 will last 10 years. Don't confuse cutting edge with working. Meaning there is no reason to think peoples till wont' be making really kick ass games for the PS3 in the next 5 years.

  • Does it run Linux?

    • Yes, but only until you pay for it, at which point that feature is automatically disabled.

  • First thing that came to mind..... (Score:3)

    by Raxxon ( 6291 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:29PM (#34864316)

    "And just as secure!"

  • Funny (Score:2, Insightful)

    by DaMattster ( 977781 )
    Then I have no real incentive to buy the PSP3.
    • Damn! That was a stupid post. :P
    • Because if you change your mind, you might not be able to get all the features. I'm envisioning this as limited edition PSP2, for a limited time only, you can use all the features that we're promising before we dickishly decide to stealth remove them.

  • All this has happened before, (Score:5, Interesting)

    by PhrostyMcByte ( 589271 ) <phrosty@gmail.com> on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:32PM (#34864362) Homepage

    and all this will happen again. Anyone who's been around long enough will remember that Sony has a history of exaggeration when it comes to their consoles.

    My guess is that it'll have a modern programmable GPU with even more features than the PS3 has. Some guy in marketing heard that, and suddenly it's more powerful than the PS3.

    • Not even that, it is just how Sony does things. I don't think it is some marketer misconstruing things, I think it is just the company's general tendency for overstatement and their figuring that the consumers will believe any bullshit they spout off.

    • Re:All this has happened before, (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CaseM ( 746707 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:59PM (#34864838)

      Just like the PS2 has "Toy Story" graphics and the PS3 will deliver a "4D" experience. Yep, I remember.

      • Except that Sony never said it had Toy Story graphics, It was all built up in the press, but they never once mentioned Toy Story itself.

    • What we at Sony try to say is that the PSP2 is as good running a 720p game as a PS3 running a 1080p game. That is to say the PSP2 is 50% as powerful.

      Of course, that's still impossible, everybody knows that. What we really mean is that the psp2 can run the kind of games that the PS3 runs, so the power of the psp2 is "in the ballpark", basically it's 25% the power of a PS3, kindof.

      I hope this clarifies it for you.

  • Figures (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Simmeh ( 1320813 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:32PM (#34864364)
    Figures the first 4 posts sum up the /. crowd.

    - HATE Sony
    - Laugh at hype
    - Panic over battery life
    - Linux support

  • Is this literally possible? Can you build a device with powerful enough (but still very power efficient) cpus and gpus to have the same power as the PS3? And ideally, be instruction set compatible?

    With an adequate battery life? I would guess that 4-6 hours is the realistic minimum battery life for a handheld console with a rechargable battery back. And it has to not be too heavy for a japanese girl to hold, and it has to have reasonable heat dissipation levels.

    Any engineers in the mobile phone industry

    • Is this literally possible? Can you build a device with powerful enough (but still very power efficient) cpus and gpus to have the same power as the PS3? And ideally, be instruction set compatible?

      With an adequate battery life? I would guess that 4-6 hours is the realistic minimum battery life for a handheld console with a rechargable battery back. And it has to not be too heavy for a japanese girl to hold, and it has to have reasonable heat dissipation levels.

      Any engineers in the mobile phone industry reading this who can comment?

      It's physically possible, but not with today's technology. This might be true if the PSP2 came out in 2021-2025. In terms of actual performance of the real PSP2, it will be an order of magnitude slower than the PS3 if we're absurdly optimistic.

    • No, you can't. The PS3 has a reasonably fast in-order PPC970-derived core at 3.2GHz with several external vector units. You just can't put that kind of oomph in a portable device right now. I think the absolute best they could do is one of

      -PPC4xx - Dual core, clock in the low GHz range. Faster than most or all smartphones that currently exist, but not normally going to match up to the Cell.
      -A Tegra2 or OMAP4. Dual core, 1-1.2GHz, integrated (rather slow) GPU.
      -Intel Moorestown. I think this is unlikel

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ecuador ( 740021 )

        If you stretch it a bit (@18W) you could put in an AMD Zacate. And you know what? The Zacate GPU is rated @ 80 GFLOPS, when the PS3's RSX, while probably faster in many aspects, seems to be rated @ 44 GFLOPS (I am seeing listed 10 FLOPS * 8 pipelines * 550 MHz).

        So, there you go, while your post is correct, you can't put something that is actually faster than the PS3 on a portable device, the above is an example where you could *claim* to have something faster.

        Since the Zacate is a bit too consuming for a po

        • according to wikipedia, the numbers you pulled out are just for the vertex pipelines, it also has 24 pixel pipelines. i have no idea how those rate exactly on the GFLOP scale, but suffice to say, there is NO WAY zacate has more powerfull graphics then the RSX (which is basically an nvidia geforce 7900GT)

          Interesting idea though, zacate would be a high end netbook, while the ps3 in gaming terms would be equivalent to a high end amd64 x2 with a 7900GT, now go to any computer forum and ask which system you woul

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by Ecuador ( 740021 )

            You are right, I did not notice that, the 24 pixel pipelines should be pulling the most FLOPS, so even in that metric it must be much faster. I did not doubt of course that Zacate is slower in CPU and GPU than the PS3, and it really is the upper limit (with current technology) of gaming on a netbook, the PS2 has to be slower than that as well.

            But, yeah, the marketing dept must have found something they could "use".

    • The dual-core ARMs do not have CPU performance better than the PS3, and while there are mobile GPUs that outperform the PS3's, they're pretty power-hungry (the higher end ATI/Nvidia parts). You could make a handheld with an i5/i7 and higher-end mobile GPU, but yeah, lots of heat generation and poor battery life.

      Even the 45nm Cell CPUs are very power-hungry for a mobile part (as they... aren't), and I don't think compatibility with the PS3 would be possible.

      Of course, the interpretation of what Sony means

  • I hope it re-uses some PS3 code (Score:5, Funny)

    by zepo1a ( 958353 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:38PM (#34864468)

    you know.. to save money..like

    getRandomNumber()
    {
    RETURN 4
    } :)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by glwtta ( 532858 )
      But is it guaranteed to be random?
      • Knowing Sony, they tested 50 dice for 5000 rolls to find the fairest one, and paid a highly-trained "entropy engineering specialist" to roll it to generate that 4.

        Never underestimate Sony's ability to blow wads of money to completely miss the point.

  • Concerned about future PSP2 developments (Score:3)

    by Crash Culligan ( 227354 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:39PM (#34864492) Journal

    I admit, I'm concerned about this product.

    I mean, look at when the PS3 came out. It had a number of connectivity features like a memory card slot, and a lot of promise for future development. And as it matured and newer versions of the console were released, those features were progressively taken out and kicked to the curb in order to provide a more simplistic, a lesser, a (dare I say it?) downgraded user experience. Similarly, things like the Other OS option were taken out of the menus, further limiting this box as either a game player, a lobster trap for your purchased music and movies, or if all those fail, a doorstop. A very large doorstop, at that—you could use it to prop open the garage.

    I have reservations about the PSP2. Has Sony included enough bells and whistles in this device that, a year or two down the road, they can yank the popular features willy-nilly and still have something that's viable in the marketplace?

  • I don't care. Gimme games. (Score:3)

    by RyuuzakiTetsuya ( 195424 ) <taiki.cox@net> on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:40PM (#34864514)

    The PS3 was in my greedy hands when MGS4 dropped. The Wii was in my greedy hands with the announcement of well, quite a lot of pretty good stuff. Virtual On Oratorio Tangram/Force made the purchase of a 360 a no-brainer.

    Gamers largely shouldn't care about the number of triangles or how many shaders a console has. Yes, it's true, better graphics can enable developers to put together a deeper experience. But don't spew CPU/GPU bile to me about how powerful a machine is. Show me the games first. And if the device is really up for the task, the games will be amazing.

  • mini Cell (Score:3, Informative)

    by oh-dark-thirty ( 1648133 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:42PM (#34864552)

    Rumor is that Sony has developed a mini quad-core Cell processor for PSP2.

    http://www.pspworld.com/sony-psp/news/mini-4-core-cell-processor-is-feasible-for-psp-2-012424.php [pspworld.com]

    • Doesn't solve the problem of the CPU itself - which in the PS3 is a rather power-hungry 3.2GHz PowerPC 970 - taking up an enormous amount of power. The Cell's "cores" are just vector units.

  • even garmin is trying to retailor their gps receivers for the consumer market (not the specialty market, professional gps will always have a niche) as a telephone

    http://www8.garmin.com/nuvifone/ [garmin.com]

    nintendo ds and psp are dead, killed by convergence into the smart phone market, unless they try convergence like garmin is. otherwise, the only future these guys have are as trinkets for the toddler set, before the kid gets a smart phone for his birthday. nobody cares about framerate and pixel count on a goddamn han

    • nintendo ds and psp are dead, killed by convergence into the smart phone market

      Let me know when smartphones have 1. a physical directional pad and action buttons for game genres that need them, and 2. a selling price that isn't three times that of a DS or PSP.

      • i addressed that issue already: hardcore gamers. a group apart

        the truth is, 90% of people are casual gamers, and there isn't a lack of anything in smart phones that doesn't adequately satisfy them. as the wii shows, playability and fun are all that matters, and issues like yours that you bring up only matter to a vocal 10% of hardcore gamers

        the reality is, you and that 10% can be safely ignored. let sony or nintendo build a portable gaming platform that suits your needs if sony or nintendo wants to. but sa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by h4rr4r ( 612664 )

        1. get a game gripper
        2. subsidized prices are all that consumers care about, and those are in the DS range or lower.

        • get a game gripper

          How well do phones whose keyboards have been inserted into the Game Gripper accessory handle multiple simultaneous key presses?

          subsidized prices are all that consumers care about

          Only if the consumer can afford one of the luxury plans associated with these subsidized prices. Mommy won't buy a $70/mo smartphone plan for each of three kids.

  • This is fucking brilliant. (Score:5, Funny)

    by seebs ( 15766 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:44PM (#34864598) Homepage

    I think Sony has finally figured out Nintendo's weakness. When Nintendo comes out with something that fundamentally changes the nature of interaction with the gaming device, Sony needs to hit them, hard, with something more powerful that doesn't try to change anything else. This has never been tried before and is sure to result in immense profits and market domination.

  • What's the point of a portable console as powerful as the PS3 if the display is smaller than a playing card?

  • Does it matter? (Score:3)

    by Stone316 ( 629009 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @01:46PM (#34864634) Journal

    I have had a PSP Slim for a couple of years. Other than God of War and maybe 1-2 more games, i've barely touched it. My son uses it most of the time now since he got Invisimals for Xmas. I have to give them credit for that game, its a pretty cool game. Maybe its me, but I don't find many games on the PSP appealing...

    If they actually come out with some decent titles, then i'll buy it.. but I have a feeling I won't be.

  • I really wanted to like the PSP, except I want something closer to a PS2/PS3 controller. I want dual analog controls that feel comfortable.

    I game more on my iPhone than perhaps any other device at the moment because it is convenient and always with me. I don't want to carry a second dedicated device for gaming.

    The Playstation Android phone intrigues me. If they had downloadable Playstation games, plus an Android phone in one device, I'd definately look at that. But again, the controls become a huge factor.

    So where exactly is the niche for a PSP2?

  • 1. Acquire Nintendo 3DS
    2. Determine it's features
    3. Hold press conference announcing even better features
    4. ?
    5. Profit!
     

  • Yes, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Syberz ( 1170343 ) on Thursday January 13, 2011 @02:03PM (#34864924)

    Yes, but will it have more than 2-3 games that are actually worth playing on it?

    I mean, there must be a reason why for every PSP I see someone using, I also see 10-12 people with a Nintendo DS?

  • Meh (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pizzach ( 1011925 ) <pizzach@gmail.EULERcom minus math_god> on Thursday January 13, 2011 @02:56PM (#34865904) Homepage

    I am slowly falling out of love with modern games. I value quietness over loud fans. I value battery power over slightly better graphics. I value gameplay over quick time events. I value playing a game over waiting for load time. I don't mind realizing that I am playing a game when I am playing a game.

    I know a bunch of people grew up with these things I mentioned above and think it is normal and "the way it should be" (tm), but it just isn't my cup of tea. As with the PSP, it looks like the PSP2 will bring more of the same. There is a growing gaming culture pigionholing the definition of what a good game has to be.

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