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PlayStation (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

Sony Presentation Reveals Further PSP Details 97

Posted by simoniker from the lecture-notes-plus-plus dept.
Thanks to PSPInsider for pointing to a Sony Technology Group information page, where they've recently posted the slides for a presentation on developing for the Sony PSP (PDF) given at the Australian Game Developers Conference last month. The slides re-iterate Sony's claim that the recently announced PSP will be "the Walkman of the 21st Century", and note the UMD optical disc format is "cheaper and faster to manufacturer than ROM", and thus "publisher-friendly". PSPInsider has extracted several of the more interesting slides, including an example of the hardware-assisted surface tessellation the handheld will be capable of, and pictures of the PSP emulator/debugger alongside some sample code.
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Sony Presentation Reveals Further PSP Details More

Sony Presentation Reveals Further PSP Details

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  • These ambitious specs... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by suyashs ( 645036 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @08:47PM (#7656683)
    may not really make it to the final product...remember when Sony announced the PS2? They claimed progressive scan support....and that has finally been delivered...a few years after the original machine was launched... take the PSX for example, no MP3 support and other crippled specs make it to the final machine under the guise that they will be added later through a firmware update...same thing they said for the PS2 (progressive scan support via new firmware), yet now Sony wants you to buy a whole new PS2 (Model 5000).... I won't beleive the Sony's specs till I see the final product...this may just be marketspeak for PocketStation 2...
  • Or did anyone else wonder why Sony was concerned about Program Segment Prefixes?

  • Mmmm....NURBS... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by voice of unreason ( 231784 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:03PM (#7656994)
    What I'm intrigued by is PSP's hardware based support for Nurbs. Traditionally, a lot of processing in games is devoted to high polygon counts in order to simulate curved shapes. If the support is really there, this could lead to some really interesting effects. It could also mean that the graphics wouldn't be as bad as the processor speed implies. If NURBS are done quickly, and they cause a reduction in the polygon count, you could see pretty good performance, particularly when the system has to show lots of organic looking objects, like people.

    • Re:Mmmm....NURBS... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by neostorm ( 462848 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:02PM (#7657279)
      Sony successfully raised a lot of press about the inclusion of NURBS compatible hardware with their original PS2 announcements (Ooh! Such a powerful machine!) and are just trying to recreate the same hype around the PSP.
      The PS2 supported them all this time as well, but NURBS are inefficient and not the best for real-time 3D. I still have yet to see/hear of any PS2 games that use NURBS either, but correct me if I'm wrong.
    • "What I'm intrigued by is PSP's hardware based support for Nurbs."

      Don't get too excited. This system doesn't push enough polys for NURBS to be interesting.

  • Mindshare matters (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BortQ ( 468164 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @10:16PM (#7657068) Homepage Journal
    If Sony wants this thing to be a big success they should put all their focus on making it developer-friendly. The easier it is to develop for = more games = more sales = more money...
    • I disagree. While having a developer friendly system will help, the developers will follow the userbase first and foremost. No matter how easy a game was to code, it wont make a difference if noones there to buy it. Kaine
    • "f Sony wants this thing to be a big success they should put all their focus on making it developer-friendly. The easier it is to develop for = more games = more sales = more money... "

      The cost of the system is more important. If the system retails for $300'ish, then game developers are going to have a 'wait and see' approach. The rules of making a portable system are quite specific. It doesn't help that Nintendo has a de-facto monopoly in this area. However, if Sony gets the machine down to $150, th
    • If Sony wants this thing to be a big success they should put all their focus on making it developer-friendly. The easier it is to develop for = more games = more sales = more money...

      Dude, the year 2000 called, they want their console-war argument back.

      Back when nobody knew who would win, everyone predicted that Sony would be the big loosers because their console was harder to program for, and therefore the pc-ina-box would have tons more games and the "here, we've done most of the work for you" nintendo
      • Dude, my 11 year old brother called- he wants his brain back. Turns out that lazy devs who go for the easy machines are also too damn lazy to make a product that's worth buying. PS2 won hands down. Ha! So that is why the PS2 won huh? Not beacuse it was out first or because it had backwards comatibility with its hugely widespread platform that came before it or the ability to play DVDs- when the PS2 first came out most US and Canadian homes still didn't have DVD players. Do you know nayone who bought a PS
        • Dude: <BR> and <P>.

          Use them.

          Might want to throw in some <I> and <BLOCKQUOTE> too...

          Then maybe I'll read your lil' opinions.
          Until then, I'm not parsing through your huge block of unformatted text.

  • "The next walkman" (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:07PM (#7657296)
    I used to work for Sony Electronics doing development for the Sony CLIE. The "Walkman" phenomenon was referred to quite often and the CLIE was frequently referred to as "The Walkman of the next century" by our overseas counterparts.
    Since that didn't boil over the way Sony had planned I guess they're going to give it another shot with the PSP, but I really hope Sony has some other gameplan in mind rather than trying to recreate a success story from ~15 years ago. (That seems like a trend best left to washed up pop-stars).
    I'm looking forward to seeing what this system can do, but it all comes down to reminding yourself not to willingly believe the hype, and don't wow yourself with their fancy numbers (unless you really know what they mean).

    • Well, they desparately need another Walkman (Score:5, Interesting)

      by HotNeedleOfInquiry ( 598897 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:22PM (#7657350)
      They are phasing out all CRT manufacturing, cheap Chinese CD-RW drives are more reliable than theirs, their Broadcast division is in shambles because what once took $1,000,000 worth of Sony equipment now can be done with a $1,000 camcorder and a PC.

      Sony is in a world of hurt, with massive layoffs in progress and on the way.

      The next Walkman myth undoubtably helps Sony execs sleep better at night.

  • Wrong Question (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Guppy06 ( 410832 ) on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:18PM (#7657338)
    "and note the UMD optical disc format is "cheaper and faster to manufacturer than ROM", and thus "publisher-friendly""

    But is it more important that the media be more publisher friendly, or more crush-test friendly? What about media that's jiggle-friendly? I know it's been said a million times before, but is Sony really going in the right direction media-wise on a device you're supposed to be able to use wherever, whenever? This isn't something that's supposed to sit on a shelf somewhere and collect dust.

    There's also the fact that optical media can be easier to pirate/crack. Nintendo seems to have done it right with the GameCube, but is Sony going to be able to do that as well or is there a rude Nokia-esque wake-up call for them in the future?

    Oh, and one more question about Sony's handheld all-in-one media device: Are we to expect a device that plays movies about as well as a PlayStation 2?

    • Re:Wrong Question (Score:5, Insightful)

      by bigbigbison ( 104532 ) * on Sunday December 07, 2003 @11:49PM (#7657449) Homepage
      Remember that sony has had a lot of experience with portable media as a result of the minidisc. Those are loved by a great many as being jog-proof and in a hard plastic case and pretty durable.

      One would have to asssume that they are taking a lot of that tech and applying it to this new venture

    • Re:Wrong Question (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by Inda ( 580031 )
      GameCubes have been chipped. Games can be copied to [many] little 210MB CDRs (8cm). Nitendo made things hard but not too hard.
      • "Games can be copied to [many] little 210MB CDRs (8cm). Nitendo made things hard but not too hard."

        How many 8 cm CD-Rs? Would you say $30.00 worth? And what about the aggrevation of changing discs a bajillion times, how much is that worth? I'd say they made it hard enough...
    • I don't think "doing it right" by anyone's definition falls under, network with computer, download game image, play through the network. Less work than all the X-Box hacking going on.

  • Cheaper for us? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sofakingl ( 690140 ) on Monday December 08, 2003 @01:17AM (#7657725)
    It may be cheaper for the publisher, but will it be cheaper for the consumer, or will they use a comparable price to GBA games (or more)?
    • I don't think it will be a problem of media. Seeing the specs, the PSP will be much more powerful than the GBA, and thus will have games with a much more ambitious scope, which will cost much more to develop. Besides, even if it is a great success, the PSP will have a much smaller user base for a while, which means lower potential sales. It is likely that the unit AND the games will be more expensive than the GBA and its games.
      • Yeah, I kind of expect the games will be similar in cost to current home console prices ($50) instead of the portable prices ($30). Am I bothered? Only if the games aren't worth it. But if I can get a home-console experience portably? I would pay up, sure.
    • Well, this is up to the publishers. However, I can say right now, standing atop my ivory tower, lord of all I survey:
      No.

      They will cost as much as any portable game ever has. Lowered manufacturing costs do little to affect prices. The great transfer to optical media kicked prices down by $10 in some instances, but the market showed that a $50 price point was acceptable. $40 for portables is where they'll stay.

  • Dev Kit includes a software emulator? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by blincoln ( 592401 ) on Monday December 08, 2003 @02:46AM (#7657973) Homepage Journal
    Did I misread that PDF, or does the development kit include an emulator for running PSP games on the developer's PC workstation?

    If so, was something similar included with the PS1 and PS2 dev kits? That would have been fun to play with.

    • Re:Dev Kit includes a software emulator? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Judging by current amateur PS2 emulators, which barely scrape 5 FPS in the BIOS on the latest hardware, I consider it unlikely that even Sony managed to produce a software emulator for the PS2 which ran at anything approaching a usable speed on the hardware which was available back when the thing was released. Back when the PS1 was released, meanwhile, PCs didn't even have 3D hardware, and software rendering was dog slow even several years later when the first usable amateur PS1 emulators appeared.

      On the
      • Judging by current amateur PS2 emulators, which barely scrape 5 FPS in the BIOS on the latest hardware, I consider it unlikely that even Sony managed to produce a software emulator for the PS2 which ran at anything approaching a usable speed on the hardware which was available back when the thing was released.

        That's true, but my interest isn't really playing PS2 or PSP games at full speed on my PC. It would be really cool to have one that ran at all and let you use debugging functions though. I like to ma
      • these ev kit emulators were meant for the ulta-high end work stations though.
  • This is sounding like a product that will be inferior to the GBA overall, but I'm willing to bet it makes a lot of money regardless...

    The GBA never has EMPHASIZED graphics as its selling point. True, they tout its 32-bit (NOT 16-bit, people) architecture, but nowhere near the level that Sony is touting the PSP's specs. They emphasize fun gameplay. Look at the best selling GBA games: Wario Ware, the Mario Advance games, Pokemon, Advance Wars. These are all pretty low on the graphics scale (Hell - Mario Advance 1 and 4 are ports of 8-bit nes games!), yet together these games have sold millions of copies.

    That being said, PS2 has a great namebrand and this will likely carry over to the PSP. We'll see...
  • I kept thinking about what a previous poster said before... how PSP will cost $300 yet the GBA will cost $100. I knew it made me think of something, yet I couldn't pinpoint it. You see, I disregarded that argument because the $100-cheaper price of the Gamecube never really helped it much, so I figured that people are willing to shell out money for a handheld the same way. Then it hit me...

    Anyone ever know anyone with a Turbo Express? Those things were awesome. Amazing graphics (possibly rival GBA's graphics, not hardware-wise but overall result-wise), but the one thing I remember about anyone I ever knew with one - they were petrified to bring it anywhere! They were so scared they were going to break it that it always was stored in a lunchbox-sized foam case, if they even brought it anywhere (2-3 of the them just used it at home - why not just have a turbografx 16 then?). A $300 toy for a 12 year old is a fortune.
    Not that anyone "tried" to break their gameboys, but i mean, people left them on the side of the gym during recess, they threw them in their backpacks without cases, even today I put my gameboy SP right in my pocket a lot of times.

    I just don't see a $300 handheld being truly embraced by the avg american elementary school child the same way their gameboys are casually handled. Who knows...
    • I won't pay $300 for a handheld. I'll buy it when it hits $100 though.

      But that's not the problem I see with the PSP. The problems I see with the PSP are as follows:
      1. The disc format means moving parts(which reduce life-length), it also means anti-skip tech is going to need to be incorporated. Even the best anti-skip tends to die if you move a device around a lot over a prolonged period. Which is precisely what you do with a handheld. A handheld I need to hold as still as possible and probably can't
      • "Many PS2s burn out under heavy use rather quickly. The laser-assemblies are cheap and just die."

        quick, tell me why my launch PS2 runs perfectly fine, even though i've spent countless thousands of gaming hours on it, and i've never sent it back to sony for anything. not to mention the fact that none of my Friends have had any problems with any of their PS2s. the Problem really isn't as big as the media likes to hype it up to be

        "Neither Nintendo or MS have this reputation"

        i've heard just as much co

        • You got lucky. A lot of launch PS2s(and other PS2s) die. They had a lot of problems with them.

          I'll be on my 3rd whenever I get around to replacing my burnt one.

        • Re:One big problem (at least how I see it) (Score:5, Interesting)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Monday December 08, 2003 @06:22AM (#7658521) Homepage Journal
          "quick, tell me why my launch PS2 runs perfectly fine, even though i've spent countless thousands of gaming hours on it, and i've never sent it back to sony for anything. not to mention the fact that none of my Friends have had any problems with any of their PS2s. the Problem really isn't as big as the media likes to hype it up to be"

          You got lucky. If your machine broke down, Sony'd find a way to tell you it was your fault, and charge you for them to fix it.

          Piece of advice: When people start saying a machine is commonly defective, the lamest thing to do would be to go defending them. People don't just get up and say "I hate Sony!" and then start spreading stories that their machine broke down. If the machines are breaking down, then you should be paying very careful attention. Why? Because you need to think about what could happen when you buy your next system from them. I can't speak for the PS2, but the original PS1s were crummy pieces of garbage, and Sony treated their customers like shit over it. They just refused to admit they built faulty machines. Do you really want to gamble $300 of your hard earned money with a company that behaves like that? I won't, and I didn't. I'm personaly boycotting Sony over it. I'm not telling you to go do the same. Far from it. What I am telling you, though, is to not ignore people's complaints. Caveat emptor.
          • "People don't just get up and say "I hate Sony!" and then start spreading stories that their machine broke down."

            Actually they do. The same as people get up and say they hate microsoft or any other big company. They'll hear about a few folks or even a thousand folks having a problem with a device that sold 10s of millions and assume that it is a defect in the overall device instead of just bad luck in getting a broken one. I've had one since launch also and have had zero problems.

            People complain much l
          • Yeah, but anyone who has ever done any sort of support knows that generally speaking, the only people you hear from are people who are having a problem. The vast majority of people who don't have a problem and probably never will have a problem don't usually pop up to go "Hey, just to report, my PS2 is running fine 2 years later!" Saying "commonly defective" requires numbers from Sony.

            Does it matter if the failure rate is only say 0.1% or lower? When you have a product that has sold tens of millions of
          • eople don't just get up and say "I hate Sony!" and then start spreading stories that their machine broke down

            As a slashdot reader you should know better. =D

            People say some pretty weird things about consoles they don't even own.. It's a strange phenomenon in the gaming industry. Those of us who are happy with the systems we buy know enough to ignore the people who say things like that and move on. I've never had any problems with my PS2 and I'm not worried about it failing. The original Playstation ne
          • YOu had me until you said "hard earned". Then I just started laughing.

          • 1-800-345-7669
            and sony will fix it for free even if it's out of warranty.
        • quick, tell me why my launch PS2 runs perfectly fine, even though i've spent countless thousands of gaming hours on it, and i've never sent it back to sony for anything.

          I'm wondering the same thing, as I've never had a problem with mine, but I've heard enough to worry about it. My question, though, is do you have a DVD player? I'm guessing that most of the problems have been coming from people that are using their systems for more than just gaming, and I'm obviously worried because instead of just buying
        • 3 of my close friends own PS2's. 3 of them had problems. Mostly with reading DVDs. One would just stop intermittently and another would not play them at all. The third just stopped working altogether.
      • Portable CD players, portable MP3 CD players, portable MiniDisc players, portable DVD players...Portable consumer-level optical media readers are nothing new.
        • And none of it works well under sustained movement. Hold a new-era portable CD player like you would a handheld, move it around a lot. A good analogy would be jogging with it.

          Listen to what happens. Or try listening to a CD during sustained turbulence on an airplane. Anti-skip has limits.

          See also: the popularity of solid-state media players because they are never affected by movement.
          • See also: the popularity of solid-state media players because they are never affected by movement.

            The interesting thing about this, imo, is that I have an MP3 CD player that I bought specifically to use in my car, and it is completely useless for normal CDs (my car is not exactly a smooth ride), but has never had a problem when playing back MP3s (it uses something like a 2MB buffer, which is quite a bit for an MP3 file, but is ~1/10th as effective for standard CD playback). I've certainly used much better
            • Yeah, I suspect a lot of it will boil down to how large the cache is. If it is constantly streaming data off the drive, it might be a problem, sure. But if it has a 32meg cache, the only time that skipping might be apparent would be, say, during movies.

              Additionally, physically speaking, the disc is only what, half the diameter of a CD? Less? That helps because any sort of shock doesn't get to be projected across a 5" disk, amplifying the original shock.

              Something else that's being overlooked is that, a
          • Portable CD players are completely different from minidisc players which this new sony device will resemble most as far as the game medium going.

            I've run, shaken, flown, and driven with my minidisc player with zero skips. Skipping will not be a problem with the new sony portable.
      • > Sony does not have a reputation
        > for making gaming hardware that
        > has a long life.

        Indeed. I'll tell you how crappy Sony's hardware is...

        Where I live we use 220V electricity, so anything imported needs a voltage converter. I once used my Sega Saturn without it; it worked well for a few minutes, then it'd get real hot and the image would get distorted. I wondered if it was broken, until I realized the converter was not plugged.

        I've plugged it correctly and had no problem with that machine, ever
        • Sony, on the other hand... the lady at the local game rental store told me what happened when she plugged a PSOne without a converter: *POOF* It stopped working immediately, and black smoke came from it. Pathetic!

          Two points. First, it was her own fault that she plugged it into the wrong type of outlet. If you live somewhere weird like that, BUY CONVERTERS FOR EVERY OUTLET IN THE HOUSE AND NEVER TAKE THEM OUT. I did it when none of the outlets had a ground, so you can do it too.

          Second, you seem to be am
    • as far as i can tell, sony has pretty much conceded the kids games to nintendo, they have a strong presence in the late-teen to adult range and I think thats where this device is going to be focused. Kids dont mind playing games w/ cartoony graphics, so the 100 device is perfect for them.. many adults want realism in their games, so they can go the sony route... of course, Im an adult now, and have no problem breaking out the GBA in front of others :) but it helps that all my friends have their geek side a
      • ...Kids dont mind playing games w/ cartoony graphics, so the 100 device is perfect for them.. many adults want realism in their games, so they can go the sony route...

        I must disagree with this. As an adult who's played games through a good 80-85% of my life, I must say that realistic graphics are the least of my concerns. It would, in fact, be more accurate to say I don't give much weight at all to the graphics in handhelds.

        Warioware Inc is a perfect example. The graphics are, for lack of a better word

      • Re:One big problem (at least how I see it) (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        >Kids dont mind playing games w/ cartoony graphics, so the 100 device
        >is perfect for them.. many adults want realism in their games, so they
        >can go the sony route...

        As far as I can see, it's just the other way around. Kids need to proof how tough they are by playing realistic, bloody games. Adults are above that and play what's fun.

    • Well, in Europe at least, there's evidence that such cost-driven fear can be overcome, viz the mobile phone market. The cost of such hardware, often several hundred Euros, is offset by the revenue it generates. Consequently we see a surprisingly high number of children carrying (and not being particularly gentle with) small digital devices of high value.

  • Sony has basically revealed nothing new or interesting about this new gadget. Calling it "the Walkman of the 21st century" is like calling Phantom "the M2 of the 21st century". Just because it's really fucking awesome doesn't mean people will use it.

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