Sony - PS2 Until 2010, First PSP Game Demo?

ack154 writes "Reuters has a good article from the Game Developers Conference in San Jose, explaining how Sony is planning to milk PS2 sales until 2010. They see a lot of potential still down the road. Also mentioned at the conference was that Sony has no plans to speed up PS3 development based on the next Xbox system. There was also an emulated demo of a game for the upcoming PSP handheld." Elsewhere, GameSpy has a more detailed write-up of the same GDC keynote, and 1UP.com has in-depth information on programming the PSP from another GDC lecture. Update: 03/26 14:31 GMT by S : 1UP has added a streaming movie of Death Jr., the PSP game demonstrated, to its coverage of the keynote.

Comments

Re:6 years in computer time is ages in real life t

[PainKilleR-CE]

6 years ago was 1998.

I was using a 200 mhz pentium, playing games on my Playstation 1, and surfing the internet on a 28.8 baud modem, and I think I had a Voodoo 2 graphics accelerator card.

6 years from now.. who knows what I will be doing. But there is no way I will be sitting around playing a PS2.

In 1998 I had a 400MHz P2 and was within a few months of stripping my Voodoo 2 cards out of my system (and had already replaced one that fried from the heat of the SLI setup). I had cable internet access, and had only been using 28.8 before that because my parents' ISP didn't support 33.6.

On the other hand, I still play PS1 games almost as much as PS2 games, though I play them on a PS2. I've probably bought more PS1 games since the PS2 was released, but I can't say for sure because I sold a lot of my PS1 games with my PS1 (most of them were pretty horrible games).

Bad move...

[Masem]

I don't have a problem if Sony wants to keep pushing the dev of PS2 *games* till 2010; there's still new PS1 games coming out, and they're still actually publishing new copies of these games in Greatest Hits format for easy access, and you have the PS1 unit. However, Sony shouldn't be dwaddling on the PS3 at this point, as in terms of system abilities, the PS2 is losing to the XBox and GC in terms of graphcis. Compariable games (e.g. titles released for all 3 platforms) just look so much better on the xbox and GC, typically thanks to more FPS and no slowdowns when the number of polys increases onscreen, and other aspects like that. (Sure, gameplay's important generally over graphics, but even as I play some PS1 titles I missed, I ache over how chunky everything looks).

Even if Sony doesn't push the PS3 faster, they should consider a PS2.5 box, no change to the CPU or GPU hardware, but have a build in HDD, network adapter, multitap, and/or better memory card system. Maybe update the firmware to fix some of the DVD viewing problems that also exist (esp. with multilayer DVDs). Heck, if they use a good size HDD (60g+), they could build a PVR unit easily off the PS2 base, sell this PS2.5 for $200-250, drop the PS2 to $150, and stay competive on hardware for the Xbox(2) and GC. Just give the consumer something that shows maybe a taste of what the PS3 will have and work from there.

Re:6 years in computer time is ages in real life t

[Ayaress]

Sold? Heck, the still get made, too, you know.

Nintendo still made profit selling the Famicom and Super Famicom in Japan until September 2003. Not much, but they didn't mass produce the console.

I didn't see anywhere where Sony said they'd sell the PS2 in the US six years from now, and Japanese gamers aren't as vain as US gamers. FDS games are still developed and sold there. Try selling an 8-bit game in the US and see how fast you get laughed out of the country.