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First Sony PSP Pictures Revealed
iamhassi writes "Pictures of the PSP concept design have shown up on The Register. I'm impressed: when I first heard the screen was 4.5" I was afraid the device would be unusually large compared to the GBA with its 2.9" screen. Obviously those worries were unfounded." Update: 11/06 15:28 GMT by S : A section-specific post from yesterday provided the concept pictures from a different source.
These pictures have no objects that would indicate exactly how big these things are. How big can we expect this to be? I honestly believe the GBA is doing so well mostly because it's so small..
but no raised pad or buttons is awful.
I thought that too when I first saw the pix, but then I realized that there is a translucent plastic cover over the front of the thing. Or at least I think that's what it looks like. Either that or the whole front has a glass/plastic layer with the buttons underneath (ala Mac Cube power button), I can't imagine that that is the case (literally and figuratively) though.
Also don't expect this thing to sell for under $300
Probably not at first, but don't be too surprised if it's not as far off as people expect. After all, if you think of it as a souped up Clie (similar feature sets, though different implementation of those features, the price savings of the smaller screen being offset by the optical drive), then it doesn't have to be a $700 unit.
It will be quite exciting to see what it REALLY looks like and how it's priced.
Taco must've borrowed the ring of duplication. Anyway, that was a sectioned story, this one isn't, more people will see it besides us game nuts. So I hope people realize this and don't bitch and moan about the dupe. I mean, not many have the ocular fortitude necessary to read the games page. =)
Anyway here's my comment from that story:
Disc format, which as I said elsewhere means moving parts. Also means certain tricks won't be easily doable(like rumble) and there's a chance the device will screw up during travel. We'll see if they can work around that.
New format, which means I'd have to buy all new games for it. Not that big a deal, and I haven't been following it, but the GBA is backwards compatable. How many people own gameboy games and gameboy color games?
Large size, just to accomidate everything.
Going to be high cost next to it's competition. Simply because it's more advanced and will be newer.
Probably memory cards, rather than on-cartridge memory.
Will need to swap expansions rather than just swapping carts. The neo-geo stayed in existance for years because of the amount of hardware you could shove onto the cart.
Slower load times, cart over disc usage. We'll see if they can work around that.
Sony's console hardware has a history of breaking, oh, around just after warranty. I don't expect this to be different.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."
The device (as the pictures show) seems to take the new Sony UMD media. This looks lke a mini-DVD sized thing, similar to the Game Cube discs.
Doing a search... reveals surprisingly little about what UMD actually is, other than a 1.8Gb DVD-like media, in a protective case.
The device in the top right corner is the PSP Universal Media Disc (UMD), a DVD-like dual-layer medium offering 1.8GB of storage. UMD comes with DVD-style region coding and copy-protection mechanism based on the Advanced Encryption System (AES). Each disc has a unique ID number too.
unless they are planning on making the discs even more expensive, this is nothing but FUD.
when you make CD's you have them pressed, and you cant make a sequential serial number in the discs as you press them.
they can do it in printing, and maybe have the laser read a barcode, but in the pressing process? no way.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They've advertised this so far as also being able to play movies. Add a digital out and video out and you have a portable dvd-like player.
Personally I think it's retarded that they spec'd a 664Mpixel/s. 33Mtriangle/s graphics core for a handheld with a resolution of only 480*272, at 60fps that means each triangle can be 1/4th of a pixel, or each pixel can be refreshed 5,000+ times a second, somehow I doubt their lcd refreshes that quickly! The one thing that would be cool would be streaming mp3's to the device over the 802.11b radio link, but somehow I doubt it would get decent battery life that way =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Speaking of proprietary disks, the description of the UMD includes this nugget (along with a bevy of crypto/parental locking/drm)
"Repeat ordering system"
So my money's on a system that only allows you to play the game for a set time, and then you have to pay again. Interesting. If the original price point was low enough, it might even be worthwhile...particularly for things like trying out games. Maybe they'll learn from those self-destructing DVDs - rights-managed content has to be really really cheap.