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Portables (Games) PlayStation (Games)

Top Ten Things About the Sony PSP 144

Posted by Zonk from the teeny-tiny-little-ps2 dept.
Hector Martinez writes "A very nice read on some of the features of Sony's portable device." From the article: "Simply put, the character models don't need to be as detailed, because you won't notice the difference anyway. That said, we need to keep in mind that these are first-generation PSP titles. Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it. "
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Top Ten Things About the Sony PSP More

Top Ten Things About the Sony PSP

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  • Bwahaha. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by maskedbishounen ( 772174 )
    The battery time issue is fixable. Everyone was worried about what kind of battery time we would be looking at with such a powerful system. Well as of now, you can expect even the most intensive games to last well beyond 3 hours of play time, while other less graphically intense games can reach up to 6 hours.

    Well beyond 3 hours! What is this, a joke?

    It was dead before it was even released, and this is why.
    • Since the battery is removable, it is conceivable that sony will release one from their 'stamina' line, like they do with the other consumer electronics they put out.

      The next few months are going to be very interesting. Competition is a good thing.

      • Re:Bwahaha. (Score:3, Interesting)

        by maskedbishounen ( 772174 )
        You're going to take a 12 hour flight. You can have, what, two carry on bags now? One? Remember, these things have weight limits.

        You can buy one of these, perhaps even later on shell out the money for an extended battery; or you can buy the rival unit that lasts for 2-3x times as long, natively.

        I don't know about you, but I'm going for the latter in a heartbeat. :)

        The point being, this is a portable device, yet with battery life like that, they're clearly not aiming for the portable market. It's insa
        • You are taking the issue that is apparently most important to you (battery life) and extrapolating it to be the most important issue to others.

          I think the DS is a cool piece of hardware, but if all they can do game wise is Mario rehashes and goldfish vomiting games, then I think they will struggle. I think the PSP, with its multimedia capabilities AND games will be the the portable system I buy (if I buy one.) But that's just me.

          I do think there are enough like me that the PSP isd not "dead in the water
          • Here's a thought - a lot of airlines are very uptight about you using laser devices on their aircraft. They make you remove DVD/CD drives from laptops, and some tell you not to use portable CD players. This will affect the PSP as well, won't it?
            • Name one airline that tells you to "remove DVD/CD drives from laptops." Bonus points if it's a US-based airline.

              There are dozens of people on your average flight that have either a laptop or a portable CD player of some kind. Airlines will not ask that you turn them off except during takeoff and landing, during which all electronic devices must not be used.

              Nice FUD, though.

        • Re:Bwahaha. (Score:2, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward
          You're going to take a 12 hour flight.

          How often do you go on a 12 hour flight? I am willing to bet the majority of the people in the market for this device don't go on 1 trip the requires a 12 hour flight more then once a year. I am sure you can deal with keeping yourself occupied for 12 hours with out a video game, at least I hope.
        • My Handera 330 was stolen on a business trip a couple weeks ago. It was a long flight home without it. I've gotten past denial and anger, and now I'm trying to decide what to get for a replacement.

          Color screens are nice, we can all agree. But I hate having to worry about batteries all the time. My little grayscale handheld could run for a month before I'd need to swap batteries.

          I think I'm just going to get another H330 off eBay. I want the damn think to work, whenever I need it. I play games with lush

    • Re:Bwahaha. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      These are the top-ten things about the PSP? This is it? The best the system has to offer?

      They sound more like excuses to me.

    • Re:Bwahaha. (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by superpulpsicle ( 533373 )
      People need to stop bashing the battery issue. You want to hear about battery issues? Look at the iPod's internal battery. Once that thing fries you can't recharge it, and you have to pay $99 to have Apple replace it for you. The PSP is nowhere close to that bad. If iPod can have a monopoly, so can the PSP.

      • People need to stop bashing the battery issue. You want to hear about battery issues? Look at the iPod's internal battery. Once that thing fries after about 2 years you can't recharge it (mind you, thats with any device sporting a rechargable battery) and any you have to pay $99 to have Apple replace it for you or go 3rd party for $49. The PSP I suppose in retrospect is close to being that bad if not worse. If I compare an mp3 player to a hand held games machine I'm making a lot of sense anyway. This is b
        • The so-called "battery issues" of the iPod are completely overblown.

          The iPod's internal battery often lasts much longer than they myths out there. A friend of mine and his wife bought the original generation-1 iPods. They are both still running with the original batteries.

          Every laptop owner knows that rechargables need to be replaced after somewhere between 1 and 5 years, and it's hard to predict when that will be. $50 for a battery that lasts a matter of years is a bargain, compared to what it would c
      • Of course, the only difference there is that you get about 6 hours of battery life out of the iPod initially and the battery only craps out quickly if you work only off of battery power A LOT (many have the iPod plugged in more than not, ie in cars, offices, etc). The battery life is complained about heavily with iPods, as it is the only real issue with the iPod.

        Then you've got the PSP that only functions at half of that. Optimally. Whether you believe it's an issue or not, battery life is clearly an is
        • 6 hours was last year's iPod. The current one goes for 11.

          I run off the battery for several hours every day, with the older iPod you are talking about, it's still going strong. The duration has not even gone down as far as I've been able to notice.

          The only reason you hear complaints is that people have unreasonable expectations about batteries. They think it should cost nothing, weigh nothing, take up no space, provide enough power to run a little hand-held computer with an internal HD (which is basica

  • That was pretty convincing... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Pacifix ( 465793 ) <zorp AT zorpy DOT com> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @04:10PM (#11202540)
    I am definitely going to spend a lot of time deciding where to plop my $150. It takes about six months to see where the best games are coming out for a system. The PSP looks to be more hackable than the DS - AVI playback built in? MP3? Gorgeous screen? Nice. Now, what about the games?
    • The PSP does not support AVI; it rather supports SVI, Sony's DRM-encumbered "replacement for AVI." Likewise, you must convert all your MP3s to ATRAC3, Sony's DRM-encumbered "replacement for MP3."

      Frankly, I would sooner urinate myself than spend $150 for a "MagicGate" equipped Memory Stick. How can you break the worst memory card "standard" even more? Add encryption.

      Oh, and I'm going to jail for violating the DCMA with this post. See you next year.

    • The PSP doesn't support AVI, it supports the UMD movie discs. It doesn't appear yet that you are going to be able to play your own movie content.

      However, Nintendo is releasing an add-on for the DS and GBA SP that will allow for playing of custom video and audio content that looks to be around $50.

      I'm still curious as to how much the PSP is going to cost in the US. As mentioned at the bottom of this article [yahoo.com] that appeared earlier on Slashdot, they said a straight conversion of the price from Japan woul


      • Totally disregard my first two sentences. I should probably RTFA.

      • The PSP does support AVI.

        Some things to note.

        Only 320x240 - it stretches the low-res movie to fill up the screen.

        Converting is a pain in the butt. Not easy. The article explains.

        Engadget wrote an article about it that said they had trouble fitting an hour of video on a 512 card. IGN writes that card transfer rates are slow. At that rate, it hardly seems worth it when my PDA or Phone can watch the same resolution video on MUCH CHEAPER SD cards.

      • OK, I'm not even sure where to start.

        (1) PSP does support AVI, and you can play AVIs straight off the Memory Stick Duo.

        (2) The Yahoo! article is wrong. The PSP costs sub $200 in Japan, and *may* cost just $150 when it is released in the US. It certainly does not cost $460 in Japan.

        Thanks,

        Robert

        • It sure is strange that when one corrects themself, there is still an influx of people who feel the need to come correct you still. :-)

          I already replied to myself correcting my statement about the AVI's. As for the Yahoo! article, I thought that sounded wrong.

  • unbias'd! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by chill182 ( 591443 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @04:12PM (#11202563) Homepage
    That said, we need to keep in mind that these are first-generation PSP titles. Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it.

     Signed,
    Hector Martinez
    Sony PSP Marketing Dept.

    Seriously though, the guy gets his own article posted on Slashdot and it is a "nice read". More like PSP love fest. The article failed to mention all the complaints that have been reported about discs popping out, bad pixels, etc. Why didn't he just title the article "The Top Ten Ways to suck Sony Off."

    • Re:unbias'd! (Score:2, Insightful)

      by generic-man ( 33649 )
      So if you don't parrot the same "why X sucks" line, and instead post "why X is good," that makes you a shill?

      Reminds me of how Slashdot posts "why Linux rules" articles all the time, but posting a "why Linux is bad" comment automatically makes you a Microsoft spokesman.

      Sometimes it's good to read both sides of the issue. I thought it's important to hear multiple viewpoints of everything, not just the viewpoint you agree with.
      • The problem with the "why X is good" in this case is that the X's he chose are what make the PSP not good right now. Half of the points basically tell you to wait a couple years or to spend more money, it'll get fixed, it's worth it, there'll be better games.. I'm not holding a smudgy black brick.. really!
        • Perhaps we'll see the "PSP II," much like the way Atari fixed the early Lynx products with the Lynx II.

          In any case, I agree that there are still a lot of problems with the PSP that people have commented on. However, I still think that there are enough people to support at least a minority market for the PSP (I) as a platform. The system is already off to a fast start in Japan.
          • If Sony plans on fixing things, then why did they bother bringing a sloppy device to market? Didn't they learn from Nokia?

            For that matter, who will buy it if they are waiting for V2?

            • About 200,000 people bought the PSP to start, and as many as 500,000 have by now. [gigex.com]

              Not like it matters too much, but it already looks like the PSP will outsell the Xbox in the Japanese market. That's total sales, not weekly sales.
              • I'd be interested in seeing the sales numbers and the ratio of PSP/DA/GBA SP sales to see how they stack up and see what people are really interested in.

                While I know they sold out of the PSP, they also didn't make all that many to begin with. Even fewer if you consider the number of defective units.

                • Plus shipping 500,000 is not the same as selling 500,000. Sony is notorious for using the numbers shipped to retailers as a stat, while the others use sell-through as theirs.
                  • Nintendo too... I went to three gamestops on Christmas Eve (looking for Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance for GameCube) and every one of them had at least two DSs in stock. They were sold out of PS2s and Xboxes. Even used ones.

                    I wish people would just chill out and see what happens rather than turning on their obnoxious inner fanboy and going to bat for some company that doesn't give two shits about anything but their wallet (Or their parent's wallet as seems more likely to be the case). These silly flame wars c
                    • You saw at least two DSs at these three Gamestops, but when I went out with my cousin to Walmart, EB, Gamestop, Best Buy, Circuit City, and Kmart, there was absolutely zero on those shelves. It's just a matter of location.
              • That's not hard - the DC is currently outselling the X-Box in Japan...
    • the article was just salivating at what the PSP *MIGHT* be, once they fix all the current issues. i don't buy it.

      Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it.

      whaaa? no. Gran Turismo A-spec was one of the first games released for that system, and it's sti

      • Re:i agree actually (Score:3, Insightful)

        by GTRacer ( 234395 )
        Gran Turismo A-spec was one of the first games released for that system...

        Bzzt. GT3 didn't hit until July '01, 9 months after launch (11 months if you're going by the Japanese dates). IIRC, Smuggler's Run was a launch title, for comparison. And you obviously haven't seen ICO or MGS3 if you think GT3 is the pinnacle of PS2 poly-pushing prowess.

        The PS2 is the weakest of the three in terms of raw potential, but there are excellent teams that can wring more out of its silicon than average teams on GCN and

      • Besides your ignorant comment about GT3:A-Spec (I as waiting for the game expectantly and had a PS2 before it came out) your battery life comment is plainly stupid. Of course Sony wants to add battery life, as they will sell more PSPs. Also, 3-6 hours between charges is just fine for almost any use. Just staring at that thing for three hours will cause eye strain and isn't good for your hands, either. Take a fucking break, addict.
    • Agreed, this lovely spiel right here seems rather wishful thinking

      Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it.

      This isn't an apples to apples comparison at all. The PS2 is a notoriously hard to exploit platform, and I'm sure many have heard of the wails of de

  • Call me negative... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by RegalBegal ( 742288 )
    but I can remember a great handheld coming out by a company called Sega that was everything the game-boy wasn't and I haven't seen a game-gear around since 96. weird.
    • I wouldn't call you negative. I was of the same opinion before reading this article. If everything this guy says is true, the PSP looks to be a mighty good competitor. And if the PSP can't give Nintendo some competition, then noone can :P
    • I have one of those!
    • You cant compare the psp to the gamegear. The gamegear took 6 AA Alkaline batteries and lasted 1 and a half hours. thats a lot of cash. how many kids can afford that much batteries, i know i wasnt able to.

      If the gamegear came with a rechargable battery like the PSP I am sure it would have been much much more successful. much more.

  • exchange rates? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Thrakkerzog ( 7580 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @04:49PM (#11203042)
    Live mid-market rates as of 2004.12.28 21:36:07 GMT.

    20,790.00 JPY Japan Yen = 201.768 USD United States Dollars

    They still claim $186. The 20,790 includes tax. How much is tax in JP? The dollar has been falling a lot lately. I wonder how much more of a loss Sony will be taking, or how much they will have to raise the price in the US.

    It may have been $186 back in October, but it is getting more expensive every day.

    • Sales tax in Japan is 5%, so the pre-tax price is 19,800 yen. According to xe.com, that's about $192 US. It's definitely gotten pricier since October due to the exchange rate worsening.
    • The dollar is weak right now. Sony will adjust the price to specific markets as necessary so taking the price from another market and converting it to dollars isn't really a valid approach for guessing the US retail price.

      $186 is still a tad steep for a handheld though.

  • 1 Graphics
    Sony kept telling us that the PSP was a mini-PS2 in your pocket. Now that we have screen shots and movies we see overly-simple character models with fewer polygons than characters on the PS1 and games that skimp on textures like Wipeout Pure. Thats okay though because on a tiny screen you wont miss the extra polygons or textures. Just buy our crap and I promise well make better looking games in the future. Honest!

    2 Battery
    Okay, the battery thing isnt an issue. Really! If you a

    • Re:Top Ten Things! (Score:4, Informative)

      by ag0ny ( 59629 ) <javi.lavandeira@net> on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @09:52PM (#11205728) Homepage
      You're obviously a troll, but I'll bite. Oh, and I DO own a PSP since the day it was released. Here we go:

      1 Graphics [...]we have screen shots and movies we see overly-simple character models with fewer polygons than characters on the PS1[...]

      One of the games I own is Ridge Racers. The graphics are comparable to Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2, as is the framerate.

      2 Battery [...]If you are in the middle of a game and the battery runs out, just plop in another $45 battery[...]

      If the battery starts running out, you'll know at least half an hour before, because the battery LED will start flashing.

      [...]make sure to keep your spares charged and in a huge bag[...]

      The PSP battery is quite small, so even if you're freak enough to want to carry more than the one on the console, it won't be a problem.

      [...]make sure to save your game cause those rumors you heard about the game being suspended while you swap the battery were spread by Sony fanboys and arent true.

      The suspend function works. I use it all the time because I use my PSP mostly on the train when commuting. And replacing the battery when the console is suspended works too. That said, I have been playing Ridge Racers for around 6 hours with one battery charge.

      3 - Music playback [...]1 directory of music with no ID3 tag support[...]

      The PSP supports directories and ID3 tags. I have a 512Mb MemoryStick with several directories of music on it. The PSP media browser displays the name of each directory, and inside of each directory it displays the title and artist of each song. You can also click to display more information on each song, that is taken from (guess where?) the ID3 tags.

      [...]No album art cover[...]

      Neither does the iPod, and I don't see you complaining.

      4 - Wireless too [...]you have to manually turn on the wireless capabilities or your battery will loose juice[...]

      The wireless switch is to lock/unlock the wireless functions. If you're not using wireless, it won't be sucking juice from your battery, regardless of the position of the wireless lock.

      5 - Sleep mode [...]

      This is only flamebait, doesn't deserve an answer.

      6 - Movie playback. The PSP plays back MP4-formatted movies, right off the memory stick.[...] you need at least a couple pieces of software to make the movie conversion. One is Decrypter[...] and you will need 3GP Converter[...]

      You'll need Decrypter only if you want to rip a DVD. Not only on the PSP, but also on any other case when you want to rip your movies to a hard disk. You'll need the MP4 converter if you don't have the movies in that format. Of course, there's the possibility of a firmware upgrade that includes other formats. Both my cell phone and camera save movies in mp3 format.

      [...]you can only play 320x240 movies[...]

      You're lying again. It can play movies at full screen.

      7 - Strong third-party support. [...]

      This is only flamebait, doesn't deserve an answer.

      8 - The price is going to be right [...]make sure to grab a few added necessities[...]

      Or get the Value Pack.

      [...]Memory Card - $49[...]

      $25, to be exact [yodobashi.com]

      [...]Extra Battery - $49[...]

      The PSP already comes with a battery. I don't think you'll need an extra one, unless you're a freak.

      9 - The screen is a marvel [...]the screen is bright and ghosts like a 1 st generation LCD monitor.[...]

      This is not true.

      [...]For something that is intended as a movie viewer[...]

      It's not a movie viewer, it's a game console.

      [...]we could have made a screen that didnt blur when there was motion or action on the screen[...]

      The screen doesn't blur. Ridge Racers and Armored Core Formula F
      • "Both my cell phone and camera save movies in mp3 format."

        I fondly think back to all my .MP3 videos. They had TOP NOTCH sound quality... :D
      • "[...]discs that act as ninja stars[...]

        These videos are fake. The eject mechanism isn't strong enough to throw discs out."

        So GameSpot is also in the conspiracy on this?

        http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/12/17/news_61152 93.html [gamespot.com]

        "[...]poorly placed buttons[...]

        They all work correctly."
        Which unfortunately isn't true for everyone.
      • "It's not a movie viewer, it's a game console."

        Um, somebody might want to tell Sony that at some point, since they're marketing folks have been pushing it as an all-in-one media handheld, hence the name "universial media disc."

        That's a Nintendo argument, not a Sony one.
        • A DVD is a Digital Versatile Disc, but an ordinary DVD player only plays DVD-Video from them. (Even most DVD players with support for mp3, jpeg, vcd, etc won't play them from DVD, inclusing my panasonic DVD-S80.)

          That's a lame argument, not a reasonable one. The PSP is a game console first and all that other shit second.

          • " A DVD is a Digital Versatile Disc, but an ordinary DVD player only plays DVD-Video from them(...) The PSP is a game console first and all that other shit second."

            Your analogy is flawed: DVDs were not developed by Sony solely for the PS2. Considering that the UMD was developed expressly for the PSP, then why didn't they call them "PSP game discs?"

      • Re:Top Ten Things! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @12:15PM (#11210279) Homepage Journal

        Heh, if the original poster was a troll, you're obviously an astro-turfer.

        One of the games I own is Ridge Racers. The graphics are comparable to Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2, as is the framerate.

        I've seen movies of Ridge Racers running. No, it isn't comparable to Gran Turismo 3. It's graphics look better than the PlayStation, if only for the bilinear filtering, though. Textures on the PlayStation looked fugly, it's good to see the PSP isn't repeating that. So I'd say that the both of you are exagurating, the PSP is in between the PS1 and the PS2 in graphics capability - about what I'd expect, really.

        Battery

        I've heard figures of 1.5 hours to 6 hours life. Regardless, that's way too short. If you're correct that it's around 6 hours life, then it may be acceptable, but if it's around 3 hours average which seems to be the most widely agreed on figure, then that means that after every play session I'd have to recharge it. How hard is the charging process anyway? You can play while charging?

        Depending on the answers, you may need an extra battery. One of the things I'm planning on using my GBA SP for is plane trips, and sorry, but 6 hours battery life isn't good enough for one battery. (Of course, I never travel, though, so it doesn't come up much. But it almost came up a while ago.)

        I could honestly care less about the PSP's media capabilities, since I can't imagine it being comfortable to watch a movie on a portable game system unless you can place the unit in front of you somehow. I've already got an iPod mini, so I've already got MP3s covered.

        These videos [of throwing-star like PSP discs] are fake. The eject mechanism isn't strong enough to throw discs out.

        They aren't fake, exactly... They just aren't honest. The PSP really does have a flaw where you can get the disc to eject by twisting it in just the right way. However, the disc just kind of pops out, and isn't at all like a throwing-star. That's a massive exageration. Most of the videos of the PSP disc flying out at things have been taken with the disc flying straight down, so it was gravity helping with the speed, not the PSP itself. From what I've been read, it's really hard to do this by accident while playing, too.

        Ultimately, though, it's the games that matter. I'm not going to be getting a PSP on launch. If titles I want to play come out for it, then I'll consider. Right now, even if it were technically flawless, I'd rather get a Nintendo DS - it has games I'm actually interested in.

        • Which games do you want for the DS? Super Mario is okay, but I'm just lost as to what to buy next. My host father (I'm an exchange student in Japan) gave me a 5000 yen note and send me into Toys 'R' Us to get a game, but nothing really seemed interesting. Maybe that Kimi no tame ni wa shineru game (something like XX XY Feel the Action in the English version, IIRC) is fun. Reading this article kinda made me interested in the PSP, but, meh, I don't have anther 20,000 yen to spend; I'm poor. (-_-)

          I've pretty

      • As a PSP owner myself I thought I'd just chime in and say everything you've mentioned is in line with what I've observed using my own PSP. I really don't understand the fanboyish bashing of either of these handhelds (I own a DS too), they're both great and they both currently have such different games (we'll pretend Ridge Racer DS doesn't exist ;) ) that I don't currently see much overlap between them.
      • [...]No album art cover[...]

        Neither does the iPod, and I don't see you complaining.
        It [apple.com] doesn't?

  • Compare the PSP to the Dell Axim x50v (Score:5, Interesting)

    by RzUpAnmsCwrds ( 262647 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @05:21PM (#11203418)
    I just got my Dell Axim x50v. It's a Pocket PC.

    It was $375 - quite a bit more than the PSP. Keep in mind, however, that Dell is making a profit on the unit while Sony is selling the PSP for a loss.

    It's clearly not optimized for gaming. But, here's the lowdown.

    The screen is VGA (640x480) with a 3:4 aspect ratio. It's quite a bit higher in res than the PSP screen.

    The unit has WiFi, like the PSP, but it also has bluetooth for connecting to a mobile phone.

    It doesn't need expensive memory sticks. You can use either CF-based (up to 8GB flash, or use a microdrive like the iPod Mini) or SD-based (up to 2GB flash) media. You can use both slots at once.

    The unit has a faster processor than the PSP (Intel PXA270 @ 612MHz) and it has a good 3D accelerator (Intel 2700G - based on the PowerVR core used in the Dreamcast, with 16MB of memory - 4 times more than the PSP).

    Battery life is only around 2.5 hours, but that's with wireless on, the processor set to full speed, and the brightness set to the maximum.

    The unit has 64MB of main memory - 8 times more than the PSP. It's an ARM core, like the DS, GBA, Pocket PCs, Palm OS devices, and 100s of other products.

    Thanks to the PXA270 and the 2700G, the unit has no problem playing back DIVX/XVID movies at VGA resolution. You can download the trailers off of the Divx website and play them right on the unit without conversion - and they look great.

    The Axim isn't really a Dell product at all - it's produced by a company called HTC. HTC also produces many of the iPaqs.

    Microsoft could absolutely own the mobile market. Here's how:

    1: Call up HTC and ask for a unit with these specs

    - VGA touchscreen
    - Intel PXA270 + Intel 2700G platform
    - 64MB SDRAM, 64MB flash, 16MB VRAM
    - 2 SD slots
    - WiFi
    - A game optimized case & buttons

    Since the device is based on existing hardware and could simply be a modification of an existing Pocket PC, design time would be short and the unit could be on store shelves in quantity by next Christmas.

    2: Develop an OS to run on the system based on Windows CE. Since similar hardware platforms already run Windows CE, there isn't a lot of work to be done there. Microsoft already has a compact DirectX framework that works with the Intel 2700G, they already have the OS, they already have a media player. All they need is a nice UI to tie everything together and a SDK to make development easy.

    3: Ship the SDK. Get game development going. The SDK should make it easy to port XBox games - not a huge problem given the fact that WinCE has a similar API to Windows and the fact that the unit runs a variant of DirectX.

    4: Launch. If Dell can make a profit at $375, Microsoft loses only about $110 on each unit at $200 (assuming that Dell's profit is $10, that Microsoft is charging $20 for the WinCE license, that the cradle costs $10, that the Bluetooth chip costs $10, and that Dell's "free" shipping costs $5.)

    Regardless, here's what we see:

    - Microsoft launches a product that is largely compatible with the XBox. Call it the XBox pocket.

    - The unit has comparable graphics to the PSP, plus a better screen, enhanced video/audio playback, a touchscreen, and better battery life.

    - Microsoft ships the unit with IE for Windows CE, plus an organizer that syncronizes with Outlook.

    - Microsoft ships the unit with Windows Media Player 10. The unit plays Windows Media files, MP3s, and even WMA-DRM files purchased online.

    - Microsoft ships a cable that allows the unit to link to the XBox. The device already has a USB client port (for connection to a PC) and the XBox controller ports are USB.

    - Users can download games from XBox Live or purchase them at a place in a retail store. Games have DRM (of course) and are loaded onto SD cards. A 1GB SD card holds 16 games (at 64MB each - plenty of space with careful programming) and is only around $80.

    Any thoughts?
    • Well, your Dell makes a MUCH better multimedia device. You make some interesting ideas for Microsoft. They wouldn't even have to make the device themselves, they could simply set out a list of specs and have other companies make the hardware like they do with Pocket PCs.
      It would have a touch-screen too so they could make DS-like games for it or even a DS emulator.
      Neat idea!
    • Tapwave [tapwave.com] is trying to do something very similar with a Palm OS-based device. They included two SD slots, some 3D acceleration hardware, and a button layout that's suited towards gaming. They're targeting it at a professional market where people could use their Tapwave device as both an organizer and a game device. Sales have been meager so far. PalmOne still controls most the Palm OS device space, which itself is about half of the total PDA marketplace.

      There's no integration with an existing device, but
      • "Tapwave is trying to do something very similar with a Palm OS-based device. They included two SD slots, some 3D acceleration hardware, and a button layout that's suited towards gaming."

        The Tapwave doesn't actaually have 3D acceleration - it relies on software.

        The Tapwave is a nice device, but it has failed because it's expensive and it doesn't have strong 3rd party support. It also doesn't have the weight of a company like Microsoft or Sony standing behind it.
    • Sony is selling the PSP for a loss.

      Says who?
      • Says the business model of every single video game console ever.

        When MS first sold the XBox they estimated that at the time the cost to produce was so much higher than the price it was selling for (I believe some people quoted this gap as high as $200) that MS stated on average everyone would have to buy 6 games for them to cut even.

        This is why companies are so anti-modchips. Because if you cut out the money they get from people buying games, the "Gillette Razor Model" doesn't quite work, now does it?
        • Says the business model of every single video game console ever.

          Again, says who?

          You're right about the Xbox, but you'll be hard pressed to find evidence of this for any other machine. Nintendo even claims they've made a profit or broken even on every system they've ever sold.

          Because if you cut out the money they get from people buying games, the "Gillette Razor Model" doesn't quite work, now does it?

          That model doesn't fit anyway. Games aren't disposable. Everybody but Microsoft understands that.
          • Youre right, games arent disposable but the profit margins are bigger. And the reference to the razor model wasn't to suggest that games are disposable, just they're something you need to keep buying in order to keep the product "usable" (from a consumer sense... have you EVER owned a system and only bought ONE game and have yet to play anything OTHER than that game? I doubt it.)

            And I've never heard Nintendo claim they make money on consoles. I would imagine they seem to be a bit better in the pricing area
            • And the reference to the razor model wasn't to suggest that games are disposable, just they're something you need to keep buying in order to keep the product "usable"

              Yes, I know that's what you're saying, and I'm saying you're wrong.

              You don't have to keep buying games to keep the console useable. Plenty of people are happy with their two or three EA sports titles for the life of the console. Plus, since games aren't disposable there's a used game market, a rental market, etc... There are plenty of ways t
        • Says the business model of every single video game console ever.

          Why state something like that instead of investigating it first?

          Here, I Googled for you [actsofgord.com]

      • Industry analysts. Look at the lik-sang pictures of the thing. Lots of silicon, lots of chips, beautiful and expensive screen.

        No way they can make, assemble, and distribute the thing at their current MSRP without taking a loss, says them industry analysts.
    • Yes, it would still be a Windows device with crappy games.
  • Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it.

    Too bad the developers of Dreamcast games never had the chance to become more familiar with the Dreamcast.

    • Re:Too bad... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Kamalot ( 674654 )
      The Dreamcast, in many ways, was more powerful than the PS2. Lots of Dreamcast games look better than modern PS2 games. If Sega had Sony's deep pockets, the Dreamcast would still be a contender.
    • The dreamcast, unlike the PS2, is straightforward to use, with one CPU and one GPU instead of one cpu and a graphics chip with two cores, each of which has two pipelines which are all different. Filling all those pipelines all the time is nigh-impossible, which is why so many PS2 games look like they could have been done on the PS1.
  • The PSP follows suit with a powerful wireless functionality that can work up to 100 feet away, even through walls. Someone get out the tin foiled hats! This thing is so powerful it will be able to get you through the wall. I can't wait until we see what other applications this "wireless through wall" technology will be put to.
    • Well, i think they need to specify cause the PSP also comes with "wireless not through walls" called Infra-red. In fact, I hear many games suggest you use this method of line-of-sight multiplayer since it uses less battery than the wi-fi.

  • 10 (Score:3, Funny)

    by Vampyre_Dark ( 630787 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @08:56PM (#11205392)
    1. 0h
    2. my
    3. gawd
    4. my
    5. batteries
    6. ran
    7. out
    8. again!
    9. and
    10. again

  • They Don't Even Have One! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CMiYC ( 6473 ) on Tuesday December 28, 2004 @09:17PM (#11205536) Homepage
    From TFA: "Here at Gear Live we're a little more patient, (okay, maybe just a little more broke) but that hasn't kept us from finding out all we could about the handheld. "

    The author doesn't even have a unit yet! This entire article is based on what they could "find out." This is not much different than the Nintendo Fanboy article posted not to long ago. (Just not quite as childish sounding).

  • DS Fanboys vs. PSP Fanboys (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Aggrazel ( 13616 ) <aggrazel@gmail.com> on Wednesday December 29, 2004 @08:12AM (#11208080) Journal
    Cripes!

    Buy what you like, no need to bash the other guys system. Nintendo and Sony are heavyweights, you don't need to promote their products for them, they'll still have the same libraries they were planning anyway.

    I for one own a DS and I plan to buy a PSP if it ever gets a game I want on it. (Yeah, I'm a 29 year old man who likes playing Super Mario 64 DS, laugh it up)

    First it was Atari vs. Coleco, then NES vs. SMS, then Gameboy vs. a ton of other portables, then SNES vs. Genesis, then Playstation vs. N64 vs. Saturn, then Dreamcast just plain fell on its ass, then X-BOX vs. Gamecube vs. PS2, and now this!

    If there is one thing that has ever remained constant across ALL of these fights, It does not matter whose hardware is better, whoever has the best software library wins.

    In terms of hardware, if I recall correctly:

    Coleco > Atari
    SMS > NES
    Gamegear, Lynx, and that Turbo Grafx 16 handheld > Gameboy
    Genesis somewhat > SNES (SNES had better sound and more colors, but Genesis had a better processor)
    Saturn > N64 !! Playstation
    Dreamcast = Nice hardware but only like 1 good game and the worlds worst controller design ever.
    X-BOX > PS2 !! Gamecube

    and just for fun:

    PSP > DS - Yes the hardware is better for the PSP. Only a Nintendo fanatic will argue otherwise. But as can be demonstrated throughout history. It does not matter whose hardware is better, it matters who has better games. (that, and with portables, battery life is a huge factor)
    • I thought this was a logical sounding post until you said this:

      Dreamcast = Nice hardware but only like 1 good game and the worlds worst controller design ever.

      Only 1 good game? Have you even seen their catalog of games? Unless you only liked quirky dating sims I find it hard to believe that you couldn't find a handful of games you liked.
      I purchased more games for my Dreamcast than SNES, PS, PS2, XBOX, and GC games, combined!
      What a great system.
      RIP Dreamcast, we hardly knew thee.

    • Dreamcast only 1 good game? Sorry my friend but the DC had the highest percentage of AA and AAA games out of any system in history. (including current generation)
    • Having the Saturn be more powerful than the N64 and PSX seems arguable to me. The Saturn had more memory in it, which is a reason why a number of Capcom fighters were ported from the arcade perfectly while their PSX ports had to be scaled down. The Saturn (and the N64) both had the ability to have their RAM expanded through the addons. In terms of 3D hardware, I'm not sure where the Saturn stands, but it was a pain in the ass to program for it and getting transparency effects to work was especially difficul
      • As I understand it, the Saturn had no real 3D hardware to speak of and it was mostly done in software. The Saturn however, had vastly superior 2D handling -- another reason the arcade fighter ports were so easy.
        • Actually, the 3d hardware in the Saturn wasn't bad. However, the Saturn was designed as a killer 2d system. Once they found out about the PS1, they slapped a 3d chip on the board and tried to engineer around it. For that reason, 3d programming was extremely difficult and only the Sega teams were able to get any real 3d performance out of it.

          It was a monster at 2d games, though :-)

  • From the article: " Better yet, the system can be charged while you play it," and " You can also play the PSP while charging the battery at the same time." What device with a rechargeable battery can't be charged while you play it? I know my electric razor can't (and it's annoying for sure) but I wouldn't say this is some super feature for the PSP.
  • PSP only plays 320 x 240 movies. You can stretch them to fill the whole screen. The video is the same resolution that most PDAs can play. newer PDAs have 4x the resolution for playing back Divx movies.

    File names have to be all uppercase and be formatted like this "E:\MP_ROOT\100MNV01" where E is your memory stick drive. Not intuitive. Even the extension has to be upper case or the PSP won't recognize it.

    You can find out more on the Engadget article.

    http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000980024404/ [engadget.com]

    "if

    • If you just drop the $10 on the movie encoder you don't have to think about it, just feed it an AVI. Making an SVCD from scratch is anything but straightforward (down to having to specify your MPEG frame sequence) but there are tools that spit them out with one click. This is a non-issue, or at least it will be within a week of the US launch if not sooner.
  • For photo viewing, GIF, BMP, and PNG files aren't supported by the PSP, but standard JPG ones are. When you have a full-sized 4 or 5 megapixel JPG file, the PSP takes a bit of time for it to load, about 3 seconds for a 1.8MB JPG file. It automatically crops the photo (most photos are in the 4:3 format), leaving white space on the sides of the picture when it is displayed.
  • You can store your files in multiple folders, although the system only allows your folders to go one level deep (so no directories within directories to organize your music).

    The PSP is lacking some of the nicer features of the dedicated music devices. There is no form of database support which, in portable players such as the iRiver, allows users to easily view all the music contained on the device sorted by artist, genre and album. The system does support M3U playlists, but it's very specific about where

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