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Portables (Games) Technology

Sony Admits to PSP Button Flaws 77

Posted by Zonk from the but-i-thought-it-was-a-feature? dept.
Apparently despite the original company line, there are indeed problems with the buttons on the PSP handheld. Sony has announced that they will repair the small number of units affected for free, and Tech Japan has the details. From the article: "The defect occurs in part of the initial shipment of PSP units and is caused by excess plastic not being completely removed during the molding and manufacturing process of the outer cabinet. As a result, when a button is pressed, it can become caught on the excess plastic and not return fully to its default position."
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Sony Admits to PSP Button Flaws More

Sony Admits to PSP Button Flaws

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  • Now if only Konami would take the same stance regarding its Beatmania IIDX controllers.
    • just use the controller mod and youre all set. besides. the iidx controller is only 5900 yen retail and must cost much less to produce.

  • Nip it in the bud (Score:5, Insightful)

    by boohiss ( 804985 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @02:42PM (#11746856) Homepage
    It's good to quash this kind of stuff as soon as possible. At the price they are selling, they need to take away any technical excuse to not buy a PSP in order to compete with Nintendo at the portable level.

    • Re:Nip it in the bud (Score:5, Insightful)

      by fwitness ( 195565 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @03:37PM (#11747613)
      Yep. I own a DS, and I put a $10 deposit on a PSP on a 'what the hell' basis. However, the dead pixels and bad buttons make me uneasy.

      Luckily for Sony, the DS lineup isn't ramping up quite fast enough. As it gets closer to US launch, we'll see who has the stronger platform. This will be interesting. Perhaps it's time for the 'Portable Wars', something we haven't seen since Nintendo won the battle of the portable 8-bits and declared itself supreme ruler.
      • Actually, Nintendo's Gameboy line has had many would-be challengers:

        1. Atari Lynx
        2. Turbo Express
        3. Sega Game Gear
        4. Sega Nomad
        5. Wonderswan
        6. Neogeo Pocket ...and a few more I am forgetting about at the moment. However, I think Nintendo has strayed too far from the pack with the DS. The double-screen thing is lame and most games don't use it for anything worthwhile. Typically it is used for horrible huds or even worse, one screen is useful and the other could be completely forgotten. The DS screams Vi
        • Unfortunately I have to agree with you, for the moment. The bigger, better SP that you speak of, however, would simply be a PSP. So I support Nintendo in their efforts to innovate.

          The touch screen is a definite improvement for a lot of games. The second screen is pretty useless for now. However, there is a lot of *potential* for *completely new* types of games there. The problem is, I think Nintendo wasn't ready to release the DS, but had to release something to compete with the PSP. There will be an
          • The bigger, better SP that you speak of, however, would simply be a PSP

            Uhhh, no. I said that the same size, weight, and battery life of the SP should stay, with improvements in screen size, speakers, and processing. The PSP is significantly larger, heavier, and has terrible 1-2 hour battery life. The Gameboy Advance SP's battery life is around 15-20 hours. One has acceptable battery life, the other has unacceptable battery life.
            • Well, you can't keep the size the same if you want a bigger screen size. (I also own an SP, a beautiful piece of hardware). The SP is just barely bigger than it's screen. Increase screen = increase size. Speakers? Nah. I doubt most people care that much. My DS true stereo is nice, but not why I buy a handheld. Processing power? As I said, that'll be for the new game boy. Don't forget that increasing 'processing power' probably means 3D, which means you're going to need new controls due to the comple
              • You said it yourself. The GBA's screen can get larger without increasing the size of the overall system. Sure it is not a huge increase, but it would significant when the screen is so small. The GBA SP has horrible sound and yes, it would be possible and important to improve it.

                Furthermore, improved processing does not necessarily necessitate new controls or 3D. Do all of the digitally controlled 2D games become not fun for some reason? Even with 3D graphics, a good control scheme can be accomlpished
      • I've had a PSP since early January and aside from the iPod-like "it's so pristine I don't want to touch it, but I cant' stop touching it" problem, I've got no real complaints. I do, however, have one issue which only bothers me in one game- the square button isn't as sensitive as the other 3 buttons.

        In my Minna No Golf game (????GOLF) the square button is used to do a super-stroke and when you leisurely press it like that, it doesn't always register. It's not a huge deal, but it can be a little annoying so

  • missing part of the quote (Score:5, Funny)

    by Fr05t ( 69968 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @02:45PM (#11746893)
    "The defect occurs in part of the initial shipment of PSP units and is caused by excess plastic not being completely removed during the molding and manufacturing process of the outer cabinet. As a result, when a button is pressed, it can become caught on the excess plastic and not return fully to its default position."

    "This is intentional, and in our oppinion a good design feature."

  • Sony has to get these little things right. The Nintendo handheld monopoly has got to go. It has had a firm hold in this market since the early 90s.

    It's funny that Nintendo released gameboy boy black and white lasting a decade, with zero motivation to improve. Then GB advanced, color and DS all launched in the span of 3 years under competition from Sony. It's not even real competition yet, just winding up.

    • Re:Sony get it right (Score:3, Informative)

      by kryogen1x ( 838672 )
      There was competition. If I remember correctly, the GameGear/Nomad was around in the 90's. None of that was Sony's work. Yeah, yeah, there was also the Wonderswan, but I don't think it made as big a splash as the gamegear did.

    • Re:Sony get it right (Score:3, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Nintendo did not improve on the early gameboys because the technology either wasn't available or just cost prohibitive for the portable platform.(Remember the Gamegear? That was expensive and had horrible battery life.)

      Instead they made incremental improvements on the gameboy as new technologies became available.

      Also consider the fact that the console market was currently focused on the technological arms race of tv consoles. One would understand why a lack of innovation existed in the portable market.

    • Re:Sony get it right (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @04:26PM (#11748276) Homepage Journal
      "The Nintendo handheld monopoly has got to go."

      Why? It's there because the market decided it should be there, not because Nintendo has a gun put to everybody's head. Frankly, if Sony isn't getting things right, like YOU said, then why on Earth would you want THEM to be in a monopoly?

      "It's funny that Nintendo released gameboy boy black and white lasting a decade, with zero motivation to improve."

      0 motivation? I suppose you forgot Nintendo's innovation attempt called Virtual Boy. Tee hee giggle snort. Anyway, the main reason why Nintendo hasn't had a serious competitor is because the 'innovators' destroyed a key factor that made their units worth having. Usually it was battery life, although sometimes it was size. The Game Boy had the right balance to pleae a lot of customers, and the technology didn't allow much wiggle room here. It wasn't that Nintendo didn't have motivation to innovate, it was that Nintendo wasn't stupid enough to destroy the successful formula.

      "Then GB advanced, color and DS all launched in the span of 3 years under competition from Sony."

      The GB Advance (no d.) was out long before Sony was 'competition' in the handheld market. Additionally, it was in development long before Sony released the PS1. I don't think there's any doubt that Sony kicked Nintendo in the rear to innovate, and I agree that competition's good, but your impressions about Nintendo are a little skewed.
      • The GB Advance (no d.) was out long before Sony was 'competition' in the handheld market.

        You are correct. The GBA was a response to growing popularity of the NeoGeo pocket color in Japan.

        Incidentally, the NeoGeo pocket is notable for having the best handheld controller ever, a reflective color screen that you could actually see, and battery life that rivals the GBA, all in a similar form factor. That's in addition to getting Nintendo to realize it couldn't rest on it's Gameboy Color laurels for as long a
        • "Incidentally, the NeoGeo pocket is notable for having the best handheld controller ever, a reflective color screen that you could actually see, and battery life that rivals the GBA, all in a similar form factor."

          Not really an argument, but something to point out: The Neo Geo Pocket had inferior processing capaibilities to the GBA. SIGNIFICANTLY inferior. (Both audio and graphics.)

          "You're just plain wrong to assert that they push their technology to the limits without the pressure of competition thou
          • Not really an argument, but something to point out: The Neo Geo Pocket had inferior processing capaibilities to the GBA. SIGNIFICANTLY inferior. (Both audio and graphics.)

            Something also to point out is that the NGP was released 3 years earlier than the GBA, of course.

            What I 'asserted' was tha destroying Nintendo's monopoly is not necessarily a good move. Competition's fine, but when the market says "we like this", then taking it down just because of the big M word is not always the right approach. Ninte

        • Re:Sony get it right (Score:1, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward
          I happen to own a big-type NGPC, and have played with NGPs.

          The controller is prone to breaking, just like the NGCD pad. That's the price of the tactile click that people calim to love so much. Personally, I prefer real d-pads and good analog sticks like the GCN's left analog stick.

          But, as someone else mentioned, the NGPC was barely better than GBC, and was nowhere near GBA in terms of power or capabilities. Just compare the graphics of fighting games on both systems and you'll see it right away; even S

      • Re:Sony get it right (Score:3, Insightful)

        by aeoo ( 568706 )

        "The Nintendo handheld monopoly has got to go."

        Why? It's there because the market decided it should be there, not because Nintendo has a gun put to everybody's head. Frankly, if Sony isn't getting things right, like YOU said, then why on Earth would you want THEM to be in a monopoly?

        The poster is simply asking the market to change its decision. From where I sit, the poster is free to ask, even 1000000 times, if the poster feels like it. Your kind of reply is not any more valid, or legitimate, or de

    • Re:Sony get it right (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @04:27PM (#11748285)
      Nintendo had a good solution for the time and they marketed it better than others. The Lynx, originally a creation of game publisher Epyx, came into Atari's hands when they ran out of money. Even though the Lynx debuted at almost the same time as the GB, and had great technology and decent battery life, Atari(once again) failed to market and distribute it successfully. Similarly, the Game Gear was good(not as good) tech but was marketed poorly, coming at the time when Sega was also dividing itself between the original Genesis/Megadrive, the 32x, the Sega CD, and finally the Saturn.

      Because cheap and small technology for portable devices didn't really advance until the late 90s(remember that's when cell phones took off), the Game Boy didn't. They did the Super Game Boy for the SNES but that was different. When portable tech finally improved, they opted first to slim it down with the GB Pocket. Then they made a few incremental steps in technology for processing power and graphics. But none of this was really provoked by competition.

      As soon as "real" competition appeared from the likes of Sony, they broke the mold of technological improvement and moved to the DS which is definitely very unique. They probably plan the same thing for the Revolution.
      • Gamboys monopoly was perpetrated by one thing, The U.S. market was too stupid to appreciate the wonderswan. End of Story.

      • Re:Sony get it right (Score:3, Insightful)

        by cgenman ( 325138 )
        Don't forget, the Game Boy focused on Cheap, Rugged, Lasting. The Lynx was more expensive than the game boy, and the battery life was pretty poor. The Game Gear had a color screen with about 1 degree of LCD visibility, and it ate batteries like nobody's business. The Turbo Express Portable was great, but also sucked down batteries and cost a mint.

        The Nomad was quietly released post Genesis. I was always sad that system didn't make more of a splash. Now you can emulate a Genesis pretty easily on a GBA.

      • Re:Sony get it right (Score:4, Insightful)

        by NeMon'ess ( 160583 ) <flinxmid&yahoo,com> on Wednesday February 23, 2005 @02:17AM (#11752989) Homepage Journal
        Aside from the fact that the CEO of Sega America made some incredibly retarded decisions, by far the biggest mistake Sega made was releasing the 32X. Support for the Sega CD declined. Then a few games that used the Sega CD and 32X came out. Then only a year after the 32X came out, the Saturn was released. Gamers and publishers got burned all around. The Saturn was hard to program, but potentially more powerful than the Playstation. If gamers and publishers hadn't sworn off Sega, the console would have had higher sales and games available.

        The Game Gear was released in 1990. The Sega CD was 1991, but the 32X wasn't until 1993. The Game Gear failed because of poor battery life and a higher price. Solving those would have increased sales and publisher support, which would have raised sales. Also, I don't think the Game Gear was a failure. Games were made for it for at least three years. The Jungle Book and The Lion King were some of the last games for it in 1994. It didn't unseat the GameBoy, but I'm sure it made money for Sega and the publishers who released quality games.
    • Uh, I'm sorry, Mars Base, your signal is breaking up.

      The GameBoy went through three black and white iterations, two color iterations and three SNES console iterations before the GBA was released. It faced competition from the Jaguar, Lynx, Game Gear, Nomad, NeoGeo Pocket, NeoGeo Pocket Color, WonderSwan/WS Color/WS Crystal, TurboExpress, Game.Com (tiger electronics, not a web site,) NEC TurboExpress, GamePark/GamePark32, etc. This is the least competition in the handheld market Nintendo has ever had.

      The

  • [] button? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by redpawn ( 794471 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @03:20PM (#11747373)
    This doesn't seem to affect the fact that the square button is not right over the sensor. Are gamers still expected to "have to deal with it" or is this being addressed as well?

  • Free repair (Score:2, Insightful)

    by FidelCatsro ( 861135 )
    " Sony has announced that they will repair the small number of units affected for free, "

    Reading that part of it , it seems to me sony are trying to dress this up as a small favour they are doing for the people who bought those units, Ive seen many companys using this aproch .Trying to make people Feel lucky because
    *Company* has said they are kind enough to repair a faulty product they sold you.
    Its a right in most countrys , i would have alot more respect for these companys if they just said "Sorry , we sc
    • Normally I'd say that that's pretty much how business works, and I'll settle for getting my stuff fixed (If I had one anyway). In this case, though, this comes as kind of sour news to me after Sony decreed that this wasn't a problem but an intentional feature and that the users have to get used to it. I've yet to see Sony say anything about the shuriken drive. It seems to me that that could cause a lot more damage to the device than a stuck key. I pried the A button back up on my NES controller with a scr

      • In this case, though, this comes as kind of sour news to me after Sony decreed that this wasn't a problem but an intentional feature and that the users have to get used to it.

        Except they're offering here to fix the few models that have sticking buttons due to a manufacturing defect, not the problem you're referring to. The "most beautiful thing in the world" line -- referring to the fact that the sensor is placed off to the right of the button instead of in the center where it belongs -- remains a prob

      • Re:Free repair (Score:3, Informative)

        by MaineCoon ( 12585 )
        I believe the "Shuriken drive" is a hoax. For one, the disc ACCELERATES in the video... and appears to be falling straight downwards. Second, my friend bought a PSP and brought it into work, and we examined it:

        1. Theres a bar in place to keep it from just popping out
        2. It has no spring mechanism to push the disc outwards; it has a spring to move the disc slot outwards from the unit (it doesnt insert into the top, it inserts into a slot which then pushes into the PSP)
        3. He couldn't get it to eject without
  • the actual reason the buttons stick is because of a sloppy worker at the assembly line working while eating fast food on his lunch...

    if you lick the buttons, you can almost take the burger king secret sauce

  • Square Button (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Elranzer ( 851411 )
    So this has nothing to do with the Square button being too close to the LCD inside so that the pressure point it sort of off center? Hmmm. I think Sony (and president Ken in particular) are way too full of themselves with this one. They think they're going to take down Nintendo DS as well as the iPod, and in reality it's not even going to take down the Gameboy Advance.
    • Taking down the DS would be ALOT eaiser then taking down the GBA
    • I take it you haven't used both of them. Speaking of the hardware (and there's really nothing very good software-wise on either at the moment):

      DS: Crappy-looking screens that are pretty much the same as the one on the GBA SP. Expect washed-out colours all the time. Using the stylus to control most games is iffy at best.
      PSP: Beautiful, huge screen, and better graphics as well. Controls are natural, and the system feels pretty good in your hands.

      If Sony gets the quality problems fixed, I know which one I

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Funny)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @04:27PM (#11748290)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • News for nerds? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hey! ( 33014 )
    Seriously, what kind of nerd would return a device for replacement if it had a fault like that, instead of taking it apart, filing off the excess plastic, then posting pictures and a rant to his blog?

    For shame.
    • Absolutely! And I'm sure someone will post a link to just that in a couple of days! Heck, why just stop at repair? I'll bet we'll soon be treated to some sweet PSP button mods!
    • Or keeping it as-is for 10 years and then selling it for big money on e-bay.
    • Seriously, what kind of nerd would return a device for replacement if it had a fault like that, instead of taking it apart, filing off the excess plastic, then posting pictures and a rant to his blog?

      Those who wish to maintain their warranty.

  • blame it on the controller (Score:3, Funny)

    by thebra ( 707939 ) on Tuesday February 22, 2005 @06:16PM (#11749601) Homepage Journal
    Finally when I mess I can say the button stuck and I won't be lying!
  • the real problem is that the button is positioned too close to the screen, and therefore can not be pushed squarely down! also, what about the problem with when you are playing and the disk randomly ejects and goes flying across the room? Sony seems a little silent on this one, unless it is an unsubstantiated internet rumor like most of this stuff usually is.

  • NOT the major of the two button flaws (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hi folks,

    As I understand it, there are two problems with the square button on PSP:

    1. It sticks.
    2. It does not register easily when pressed.

    This fix that everyone is talking about now only solves problem number one. It does nothing for the fact that the square button is not properly aligned with the contact beneath it. (And also note that it is only the _second_ of these two problems thet Sony has tried to write off as an intentional feature of the design). As a matter of fact, both of these issues were a
    • The square button placement is a design consolation or design tradeoff not "an intentional feature" as you call it.

      It was _designed_ to be different than the other buttons to allow them to to fit it all within that form factor and still manage to get the LCD in there. If they had expanded the button area so the square button was built the same way the others were, either the overall PSP size would have to be bigger or the LCD screen would have to be smaller to accomodate. This was the tradeoff and yes
  • am i out of luck since i bought mine on the black market.........hey at 89 american dollars it sounded quite dandy ....

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