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Sony Unveils Portable Playstation
Filly-O-Fish writes "Sony has made an official announcement, and released pictures of its online Playstation. You can go head to head by plugging your mobile phone into it. It's out this month in Japan, and in the UK in September. Full story is at Games online."
One of my main concerns is power source with these... Somehow I don't see people willing to run the LCD version for about 3-5 hours maximun, "Average Laptop battery in my experiance" especially with games like FF7 taking 70+
Other alternatives would include those laptop base batteries, but that would be too heavy and destroy the purpose of portability
and the other option is through and AC adapter, though who would really want to haul around an adapter, wouldn't that be much like carrying around a regular playstation.
My thoughts is that you should just get Playstation emulation software for your laptop for several reasons: Longer battery life (iBook 5-6 hours), larger screen (15.1"), and all the other benefits of a laptop. The only drawback to that option is cost though and you would need to buy a controller.
...and I'm not sure we should trust this Kyle Sagan either.
I've always noticed, as I've wandered down the console aisles of my local gaming establishments, a fairly good amount of products aimed at taking your N64/PSX/DC on the road. I've seen carrying cases for the consoles, extra carrying cases for the games, even controller carriers that look like Batman's utility belt, and now, this mini playstation. My question is what is this market?
A market obviously exists, hence the products. Or is this a case of products trying to create a market? I've just never seen it in action. Is it the lucky kids on the block who tote their hardware around to the homes of those less fortunate? Is it a strictly sleepover audience? Or is it weary little Rex Jr. stuck travelling the world with his parents armed against boredom with only his Dreamcast, a tote bag, and a shoebox full of voltage adapters?
The circles I run in are mostly convenience console players. Nobody is going to go to the trouble of fiddling around behind their entertainment center/cardboard box to unhook the thing, packing, and then slinging their machines over their shoulder for a night out. But if we settle in somewhere and somebody spies a Dual Shock dangling out of a pizza box, we'll play a few rounds of Bust-a-Groove or what-have-you.
Since children and their games have changed a wee bit since I used to go to my friend Mike's house and hint relentlessly about how cool his Intellivision was and how much fun it was, hoping to score a few more minutes with Nightstalker, I was hoping a parent out there might shed some light onto the kids of today and whether or not they pack console before they hit the streets.
Peace. Sway
Peace. Sway
Almost an extremely cool idea. With PSX2 backwards compatible you could snap up a load of old PSX games and own both that and this "portable" device and play them on either. Sadly Sony seem to be under the impression that we want a largely unportable device to hook up to our mobiles. Sorry but I have a land line for use at home and wouldn't want to pay the call charges for playing online games using the phone when there was a cheaper alternative. As an on the move gaming and easy email access box (if they provided that service) it would have been high on my shopping list. Seems to me that all this really is is a cosmetic upgrade to the slightly old looking grey box, altho it is pretty damn nice :)
maybe i'm missing something here, but what multi player PS games are available currently? and who's going to write more with the PS2 coming out so soon?
Here is the official Sony announcement in English.
One interesting note from that page is that it seams as though the LCD panel can ONLY be run from AC power:
*Requires appropriate AC Adapter
Yay! So pointless!
-AP
Hooking it up to a cell phone may seem strange to us, but according to TheGIA:
Concurrent with the PS one confirmation, Sony announced a special adapter cable that connects to PlayStation products (PlayStation, PS one, and PlayStation 2) and lets users go online via a mobile phone. The cable will be available this winter and, according to Sony, permit users to "download information, entertainment content and software programs in addition to exchanging data with other users." While this may seem odd, more people in Japan go online via their cell phones than any other communications medium, so cell phone compatibility is a feature many new consoles are eager to implement.
They also have an interesting article on the PSX2's hard drive...
-- Dr. Eldarion --
A special adapter cable, available this winter in Japan, will enables the entire PlayStation platform - including its 128-bit successor - to be connected to mobile phones,
Does any else think it's strange to connect a 128-bit processor to a 9600 baud modem!?
First of all, in .us cell phone usage is more of a luxury than not. Many people (like me) don't own a cell phone and could care less about having one. Interesting that it hooks up to the controller port, though.
.us homes. (And even without broadband, one could always hook up to a masqueraded dial-up gateway.)
I'd have been more happy to see Ethernet access instead, what with the ability to network anywhere, *and* the growth in broadband (DSL/CTM) in
As for the screen, it's damn cute, but like the old Jaguar CD, it makes the machine look like a toilet. More so since it's white. Although with the screen in the lid like that it also looks a bit like a make-up kit with a mirror.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
The smaller size and weight of this system is a real boon to those designing missile guidance systems. The attached phone also makes remote operation much simpler
Just dial 3210 launch.
134340: I am not a number. I am a free planet!
it's a tradition for electronics companies to release "updated" versions of their old consoles when a new platform is released. they are trying to squeeze every last dollar from their investments in the technology.
nintendo released an updated nes when the snes was released, and an updated snes when the n64 came out. sega made a portable genesis when the saturn came out.
it's also a hook of theirs; they hope that if someone get hooked on the cheaper old platform, they will spend the cash to get the current model afterwards.
it is interesting that it will be out before the ps2 though.
--
Looks like an interesting gizmo, particularly if it supports mobile phones with Bluetooth (gives you a few Mbps to the phone) and GPRS (always-on packet-switched connection, designed for IP and not charged by the minute). Even though GPRS will only go at 25-56 Kbps typically, it should be enough for interaction between games on two or more consoles.
Perhaps the initial connection will be via IrDA, which typically goes up to 115 Kbps but can be faster - not sure if any phones implement the fast version.
GPRS (Generalised Packet Radio Service) is based on TDMA (time division multiple access) mobile phone standards such as GSM (whole world and some parts of North America) and the North American digital one whose name I forget (IS-136?). It's just a software upgrade to most base stations and expected by end of this year in Europe (although BT has just announced a business only service starting this month in the UK).
For more info on GPRS, see http://www.mobilegprs.com/ - sibling sites also have good info on EDGE, 3G/UMTS, WAP, and other horrible mobile phone acronyms...
its so CUTE... i just wanna pinch its smooth little corners and general aerodynamic design...
It's not just a matter of deregulation - in the UK, there has been competition in the mobile phone market since it started (Cellnet and Vodafone, then after a few years, one2one and Orange), yet we use a single international standard (GSM) operating on 2 frequencies.
The result is that I can take my dual-band phone to almost any country in the world (except Japan, US, Canada, Mexico and some South American countries) and have it work seamlessly. I can even do short messages (similar to text paging) and data calls (e.g. sending email from my Palm device) from abroad.
I'm not sure why this didn't happen in the US - perhaps the vendors thought the market was big enough for them to go with proprietary standards (e.g. D-AMPS, CDMA) as well as GSM. In the US, GSM is available from Omnipoint and some others, operates on a 3rd frequency, 1900 MHz, but you can get tri-band phones that work on all 3 global GSM frequencies).
Just as with most technologies, standards are a Good Thing...