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PSP Dated, PSX Convergence Plans Discussed
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."
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?
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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.
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