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PlayStation (Games) Portables (Games) Entertainment Games

PSP Dated, PSX Convergence Plans Discussed 28

Posted by simoniker from the stork-coming-to-sony's-family dept.
Thanks to PlayStation.com for their feature interviewing new Sony Europe boss Chris Deering about Sony's portable PSP, the multi-purpose PSX, and more. Notably, the interview strongly suggests that the recently-announced PSP will be simultaneously released worldwide next year: "There's no official date for its unveiling, but it has been announced that the target date for its global launch is November 2004." Deering also explains why Sony's PSX 'media center', encompassing a PlayStation 2 with TiVo-like capabilities, is the first stage of their attempts to create an all-in-one entertainment device: "PSX makes that all very simple with a fun and easily understood navigation system, which is the core of it really. And once you have that in place, along with the sizable hard drive capacity, you can also do other things that make more sense in the living room than on the desktop."
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PSP Dated, PSX Convergence Plans Discussed More

PSP Dated, PSX Convergence Plans Discussed

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  • Well! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by obeythefist ( 719316 )
    It's interesting that Sony is working on a series of "convergence" devices like the "multipurpose" PSX. That would be the caused by the many sales of xboxes related to people wanting to use it as a multifunction entertainment device.

    Of course, people who use the xbox as a multifunction device tend to hack it and use linux or whatever to drive it. Not Microsoft's intention I'm sure!

    So will Sony release an equally "hackable" playstation, or have they missed the point?
  • Uhm, no component cables? Why spend so much for something that won't even look pretty?

  • Someone explain? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Sklivvz ( 167003 ) *
    From the article: "It's true that PSP is not directly compatible with PS one or PlayStation 2, but it may have several areas of compatibility, through the Memory Stick, with PSX. Consumers are getting smarter and more familiar with the digital era and the different ways to enjoy interactive entertainment.".

    So, PSP is barely compatible with PSX - but not with PSone or PS2. Not good. And then the next sentence: consumers are getting smarter.... right! So if I'm getting smarter I have to own a PSX?? I mean if
    • By compatibility, I would garner a guess and say he's hinting the ability to copy audio, and maybe even video, from the PSX and listen/watch it on the PSP, which would actually be quite cool.

      As for no backwards compatbility with PSone and PS2, think about the UMD disc size. They deliberately went with a small optical disc because it keeps the system small, while being able to store wads of data. If it had to hold a full size disc, the portable would be big and cumbersome to use as a portable gaming syste
      • What I'm wondering is how hard would a PS1/PS2 port be. Would it be a simple burn-it-on-a-UMD, or is the PSP actually different inside?

        BTW, someone has made a portable PS1 - http://www.classicgaming.com/vcsp (forget URL to the PS1 Portable, but click Systems, and then PSp)
    • I consider myself relatively smart and familiar with the digital era, and I couldn't possibly care less whether or not the PSP is compatible with anything beyond good PSP games. Some of the interactivity between the Gamecube and GBA is interesting, but if they had nothing to connect them I'd still own both devices.

      I read this as pure marketing drivel that exists solely to be commented on by enthusiasts and analysts. For any game console, I would paraphrase that famous Clinton campaign message: "It's the

  • Silly tech industry (Score:3, Interesting)

    by AvantLegion ( 595806 ) on Tuesday December 30, 2003 @04:52AM (#7833750) Journal
    The consumer electronics industry has pushed "convergence" for a long time, and the market has continued to support the modularity of separate devices over all-in-one machines.

    Of course, that doesn't mean that some multifunctionality isn't desired. Personally, I love the fact that my game consoles (minus the Cube) play DVD movies. That sort of convergence wasn't forced, but was just a natural choice, given the fact that Sony and Microsoft opted to use the DVD format for their game discs. Now, adding DVD to a console that doesn't use DVD for the game functionality would be a different story.

    At this point, though, I don't see shoving TiVO-like capabilities into game machines. In the future, when the standard hard drives are much larger, maybe it will be just a natural feature to add in. But I think it is ill-advised to add features that require equipment above and beyond what you're using for the device's primary functionality.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • well, for the bulk price of the xbox's 8gb drive in 2000 you can get a ~40gb drive today - so pvr-necessary capacity is quite likely. dvd playback already requires mpeg2 decoding, and encoding hardware is only ~$15 for the part itself.

        getting it to work together might throw a total of $30 in cost into the machine. while this might seem high, remember that the ps2 and xbox successfully launched at $100 more than any console before them. MS has already taken steps to dramatically reduce the xbox2's costs (cu
        • Umm... then why were games approaching 4 CDs on the PS1?
          • if they -had- to increase storage size for game developers then why didn't sony just develop a custom dvd-rom like nintendo to cut down on piracy and keep unit price down?

            they're sony after all - they already have all the plants and parts to do a custom optical drive. it'd have been even cheaper for them to do than nintendo.

            clearly they felt a multifunction device had more market strength than a single-function device.
            • I was saying that they DID need to increase storage size, because you were saying that the CD should have been enough.

              Also, a custom DVD drive couldn't play CDs, which was one strength of the PlayStation over the N64, and the drives WOULD be harder to make.
              • fair enough. i didn't own a playstation, and no-one i know had games that used more than one CD. (outside FF, but that seemed mostly due gratuitous fmv) maybe they did need to increase storage size. i stand corrected.

                but you're saying that playing CD's was a strength of the ps is kind of my point.

                Sony has always made decisions to compete against nintendo (and now MS) with multifunction devices.

                consider the PSP specs. it isn't just going to just do video games. they are intentionally specifying mpeg4 dec

    • Re:Silly tech industry (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iainl ( 136759 )
      The biggest problem with the PSX's idea of a Tivo capability in a games machine is that the cost savings of convergence come through using the same hardware components to do multiple things.

      Which means I can't record TV (in order to watch it later, skipping over the ad breaks, or just because its something my wife wants to watch when she gets home) and play games at the same time. Which would be really, really annoying.
      • That's why we have things like multi-tasking. There's no reason the PSX couldn't record shows and play a game at the same time.
      • Blackknight is right, any scheduled recording can still take place while you're playing games. Also, there's a pause button for games, but not pressing Start. It just freezes the game exactly how it was, something akin to an emulator.
        • Really? It has enough processing power to record and play games at the same time? That certainly wasn't the impression I got from reading the publicity stuff.
    • I was considering buying a PSX to have a second PS2 system to use AND to get the benefit of PVR abilities. I have a question about the later though. With more shows in digital and the handful of channels I get as HDTV will the machine have enough capability to reproduce recorded material with reasonable fidelity?

  • Nintendo's the winner here. (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I like their philosophy. Why should the consumer pay an extra $200 for a feature you can get from somewhere else cheaper and better? It's nice that it's all together, but I prefer one good console and one good Tivo and good DVD player for a little extra money and a little extra space over a single device that does it all, but only half as good of a job. Things like progressive scan DVD players come to mind.

    Not to mention you lose other features of a regular PS2 for getting this...

    • Exactly! I want my game machine to play games, my DVD player to play DVDs, and my pc to stay in the freakin office!

      That said, Sony would have been better off to simply repackage the basic PS2 functionality into what looks and acts like a standard DVD player. This would be a DVD player that just happens to play PS2 and PSOne games. Then from this point forward, _all_ Sony DVD players would have this capability into the future. That would be a real coup, so don't be surprised if this comes to pass sometime

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

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