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Predictions Of Further PSP Release Delay Floated
Thanks to CNN Money for its article discussing the possible further delay of Sony's PSP handheld. According to the piece: "Activision CEO Bobby Kotick told investors yesterday that his company does not expect the PSP to launch in North America until the second quarter [of 2005]." It's explained: "The PSP was originally scheduled to go on sale worldwide this holiday season. In February, Sony pushed back the U.S. launch of the system to the first quarter of 2005, but said it still planned to launch on schedule in Japan." The article also comments on possible PSP battery life issues, suggesting "...those putting games together for the system say Sony has urged them to avoid streaming game levels from the Universal Media Disk, to lengthen the system's battery life."
One thing that worries me with optical media on a portable is that reading from it will be unreliable. I know my fancy MP3 CD player doesn't fare well on a bumpy subway ride, not that I'd flash my $300 PSP on their anyway. I know MD players rarely have this problem, and technology continues to advance, but it seems like a huge potential problem.
Considering the entire disc-reading assembly consumes far less power than the display.
IMO, the PSP is sure to suck on the battery life w/o some serious revisions. Prove me wrong Sony, you have no choice.
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Oh, come on... Everyone knows that they should just release around 1000 of them this holiday season, with plenty of copies of all the shipping titles, so that, when Christmas comes around, there will be an artificial scarcity, and people will think they are more popular than they are. This will be be a feedback cycle that will keep pushing hardware sales, and allow them to sneak into the market. Hey, it worked with the PS2, didn't it?
Of course, if they'd gone with cartridges, the power draw and loading times would be significantly less.
This has the feel of Sony knows that the PSP is initially going to be quite exspensive ($300+ range). So, they are delaying until:
1. Some required PSP components drop in price (to bring it in as cheap as possible)
2. Get lots of "Gotta Have" titles at launch to drive sales.
3. Build up a feverish demand so that avid gamers will pay the outrageously high price.
I'm voting for 3 personally.
Sony is not going to win the handheld war if the DS can debut at around half the PSP price. Parents are not going to buy the kiddies an expensive handheld that will be destroyed in a matter of weeks. And, right now, kids are the majority buyers in the handheld market.
Political correctness is the newest form of slavery.
I don't know where you've been for the past 15 years, but nobody does low level programming for games anymore.
p ment-tools are suffering would be laughable. I'm laughing right now even. They are the highest profit games companies on the planet you fool!
Everyone uses Renderware . Just look, over 500 titles released or in development use Renderware and it's not that old. That's 1 in 4 titles (I'm reading this from the site). Grand Theft Auto 3 Vice City uses Renderware. Peter Molyneux's The Movies uses Renderware. Broken Sword 3 Sleeping Dragon uses Renderware. Everyone friggin' uses Renderware. And you know what? They aren't all the same game. Hell, even SEGA, Sony, and Konami and featured clients of Renderware.
Oh, and lets not forget Epic Games or id Software . And don't forget, these are not just for first person shooters. It's a 3D engine with underlying network code. I don't even want to think about how many games used the Quake engines over the years.
To say these development-houses-that-rely-on-high-level-develo
But not in Japan of course. I guess it just falls in line with Sony's record of making non-Japanese and non-importers wait about 6-9 months before the system gets released outside of Japan.
I'm sorry, but all the games you mention, and all the games listed on the Renderware site would fall into my category of uninspired cookie-cutter games. To be fair, as would 90% of the titles on offer at the moment. Britney Spears' music sells particularly well too, doesn't mean it's not pap. Slick advertising and well managed licenses does not an innovative game make.
You originally talked about "half-decent" dev houses - innovative games weren't even mentioned. What is your complaint exactly?
(And why would Renderware be advertising all the niche games that their engine is used for? They are trying to sell their engine to developers as a product that can be used to make successful games in a variety of genres. The existing list does that perfectly. Sports games, action games, adventure games, strategy games, platforming games... They don't mention racing games, but hopefully any serious dev would already know about GTA3 and the awesome Burnout 2. Besides, it is obvious that most development houses using Renderware don't seem to allow their games being used for this PR, or games like GTA3 would be at the top of the list.)
Regardless, most innovative games leverage either some kind of existing technology (a modified previous game engine perhaps) or a design with the ability for lots of higher level game editing (various Brian Reynolds games like Alpha Centauri do this well). Those are really the only reasonable ways to do iterative (and hence innovative) development nowadays.
And I would love to know what your standards are for an inspired, original game. If something like The Movies doesn't fit them, I can't imagine a game that could.
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon