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Sony to PSP Coders: Battery Life Your Problem
AssaultOnBattery writes "The fine folks over at GamesIndustry.biz are reporting that Sony has found a unique solution to the problem of battery life on the PSP - making their game developers solve it for them. According to the story, Sony is going to give devs a battery emulator which will tell them if their game is within acceptable power consumption limits."
And for just $350, the problem can be yours!
Ceci n'est pas un post.
I wonder if games will start being released with battery life predictions on the box.
If you can't access the disc often, that means only one thing. You have to load all the info off the disc into ram beforehand. That means, LOAD TIMES. Want to whip out your PSP in class for a quick game before the teacher gets there? Sorry, gotta wait a minute for it to load. Oh shit, times up! Not good for the PSP. Which was already looking bad with its much higher price tag.
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The PSP is a very complex machine(with a motor for the cd reader), and thus battery life will vary greatly depending on what you are doing(versus say a gameboy were battery life is easier to determine in general rather than per game) You want to load a lot of textures? That is going to kill your battery life. You want to have a lot of music? Going to kill battery life. A game such as quake will obviously take more battery power than puyo puyo pop. Sony did itself and it's devs a favor by providing this little kit.
Monstar L
This seems like the final nail in the coffin for the PSP. After all, what good is amazing, state-of-the-art hardware, if the developers avoid pushing it to its full potential for fear of draining the battery?
;^)
Remember the Game Gear? It was lightyears ahead of the original Game Boy. Color, backlit screen, processing power... The bastard took 6 AA batteries and lasted about 4 hours. (There was a trick where you could add a 7th AA to the section of the power supply that handled the backlight and get about 7 hours out of it, but that was little-known and difficult) It sucked batteries like a hoover, while the less powerful Game Boy lasted forever with it's ugly little brown-scale screen
Furthermore, what about load times? The PSP uses discs right? Power consumption concerns will put the kaibosh on streaming from the media, which means LOAD TIMES! That might be well and good on a console, but on a portable? These systems are supposed to be quick-on, quick-off, quick game before class or before the subway gets here.
It won't quite be an N-gage, but the PSP will definitly be "Game Gear 2"
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This doesn't surprise me at all.
How much advancement in battery technology has there been verses advancement in power conservation? We haven't developed fuels that get better milage; we've developed vehicles that use fuel more efficiently. We haven't developed better cell phone batteries; we've developed better cell phones and other electronic devices that use power more effectively.
Moore's law certainly doesn't apply to reserve energy resources.
This is why I find it frustrating that the government's solution to oil revolves around finding more/cheaper oil. It never has and never will be a solution. Just like it's not a solution to wear a battery belt pack to have a longer-living laptop. It's all about conservation and energy efficiency. At least the electronics industry knows this. Some other industries act like they don't.
Sony: Here is a handheld more powerful than the PS2. Developers: Hurah! Sony: But you can't use that power. Na-na-na-na-na. Developers: D'oh.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Sony is flying too high and it looks like they're about to get burnt. They're making all the same mistakes their predecessors have made in the hand held market. Battery life being one of the biggest ones.
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Sony: Here is a handheld more powerful than the PS2.
Developers: Hurah!
Sony: But you can't use that power. Na-na-na-na-na.
Developers: D'oh.
Analogies don't equal equalities, they are merely somewhat analogous.
Well the Nintendo fan-boy in me would like to predict doom and gloom for Sony's PSP. However, I think I'm missing the point of why this article is as negative about it as it is. It's not like Sony can put an optical drive in this thing and magically make it work forever on batteries. If Sony's trying to say "look, don't piss off our customers" I say more power to them. (no pun intended.)
"Derp de derp."
To me, it seems like a horrible answer to a (what should be) simple problem. Developers should be concerned with making a good game, not how much battery life their game will have. I'm sure this will eliminate or seriously affect entire genres. When building a portable, you would think that one of the first things you would focus on is battery life. Most companies hold off on releasing a product until it gets acceptable battery life. Now, I guess it won't be as bad as a Game Gear since you can recharge the batteries, but it shouldn't really be a concern either -- at least not for a (supposedly) $350 device. I think I'll save some cash, not worry about battery life, and pick up a DS instead.
SIGFAULT
If Sony is going to put the battery life problem off on Developers, then I think that having a battery life rating on the box, as accurate as possible, should be a requirement on each game. Maybe gamers only buying games that will give them a decent play experience will convince Sony that battery life is a HARDWARE problem, not a SOFTWARE problem.
This is why no one has wanted to use an optical disc in a handheld until now. Funny how much a simple spindle can drain a battery.
There are a couple of posters who have said this is a silly idea or its should be up to Sony to ensure enough battery life is available for its gear.
Well I think that you havent really got the gist of what Sony are saying. Sony can make the battery for the PSP as good as is possible (within the confines of cost and technology) for the PSP but if the thing is running say "Tetris" is going to use a hell of a lot less power than if it is running "Doom III". This thing aint a gameboy its basically a PS2 running off a lithium battery-powering a pretty damn big screen and some pretty powerful hardware.... just how long do you expect the battery to last on this thing?
Encouraging game developers to be careful about use of processing power and other parts of the hardware (eg optical drive motors/screen's/speakers) etc. Makes sense!
The more powerful these handhelds/portables get the more conservative use of hardware and resources is going to be an issue.
EG: imaging a game that streams shed loads of fmv off the optical drive... maybe there is a better way of acheiving this than having that drive constantly spinning. Howabout the use of audio etc ? having it constantly playing through the game? even on the title screens etc. There are lots and lots of legitimate reasons for Sony to encourage efficient use of hardware- I applaud them for that. It is Sony's job to ensure that the games that come out for the PSP are every bit as well engineered as the console itself. Cut them some slack 'cus they are only doing what is neccesary...
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I remember Sonic on the Game Gear in particular was wayyyyyy ahead of anything the GB or GBC could do, and not just palette-wise.
Well look, if every game on the ps2 used the same graphics engine, then they would all look like first gen peices of crap! But by allowing developers to develop(keyword develop) their own engine, it allowed for graphical masterpeices (relativly) like MGS2 et al. Perhaps this will prevent ho hum battry management from sony but instead lead to talented developers making their ownsystems that preform much better. Plus they can liscense it and make a pretty buck off of it. Anyways at this rate sony better pull a trump card becuase it sounds like they're loosing customersf fast!
Has anyone checked if the game gear will take 2300mAh NiMH batteries? It's pretty much the same problem with digital cameras: put new alcalines in... and cry
bundaegi is good for you
Ya know, people on this site talk an awful lot about how games these days are all about the graphics and 3D sound, and not enough about the game play. Maybe with all that processing power and limits on battery usage, the result will be a step closer to games that focus on being fun and having good game play? Maybe? ........Nah.
If I'm a PSP developer, do I try to make my game as pretty as possible by streaming media from the disk and suck the power, or make a less good looking but more power consumption friendly game? There is no choice - you have to make the best looking game you can and forget the long term effects on the consumer and platform. This is the same reason why big corporations don't naturally do environmently friendly things - the end customer doesn't care, even if the whole planet goes to pot.
While it's quite nice that Sony will be including a battery consumption utility with the PSP devkits, doesn't the whole disc thing add a whole new level of complexity. Isn't the idea for a video game system (to developers) is to make it as easy and efficient as possible to make games?
Based on the massive investment Sony just made on OLED technology, I wonder why they don't use those instead of LCDs.
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If the battery life on the PSP sucks, people will find out and not buy it. They can blaim the developers all they want, but the company that will get blaimed is the maker of the hardware, Sony.
Who knew the cartridge would ever come back and bite sony in the ass?!
WHEEEEE!
vk.
That would be a desaster. Handhelds see much usage during short wait times, wait for the bus, wait until your train arrives, wait in line, etc. If the shortest you could play the PSP for would be, say, 30 minutes, you could only use the system during very long breaks (like lunch break). Those rarely occur naturally and you'd be limited to long trips and time you take yourself for the PSP. Most of that allocated time is in your free time, anyway and most likely those parts of your free time you'd spend with gaming are spent at home. And at home there's no need for a handheld. And even less need for a proprietary movie format that only plays on the miniature screen.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Before the PSP, you just had to evaluate the battery life of the system.
;)
Now, with the PSP, you evaluate the battery life of(with) the game!
Think of it: Naw, I won't buy this game. It's great and all, but uses too much power.
WTG Sony
That 'price' was a hoax and *not* confirmed.... You DO realise that right? [NB: It may turn out to be true eventually, but until then, lets not pretend it is a 'fact' OK?]
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...is still unconfirmed as well.
It has a rechargeable battery and an AC adaptor? It's not like your going to be buying AA's every day or somthing.
;-)
;-)
;p
Sony did state the 'minimum' life to be 2 hours, which one would assume to be somthing that had constant disc access and GPU access (movie?). And on the high end, 10 hours.
Oh, and c'mon, we're all geeks here, 99% of the time we're no more than 5 feet from an electric outlet, and the rest of the time we are in a car, so put down the $10 for an car adaptor
And don't give me the whole 'it's portable I shouldn't have to use a power supply argument' as I see people playing their GBA's and GBA SP's plugged into the wall quite often, and they have signifigantly larger battery times.
And the DS is also said to have a 10 hour max battery life which is right in line with the PSP. Sure its not powering an optical drive or as fast a cpu, but 2 screens eat up power pretty well too
I think both systems will do just fine, as Sony will have people buying it who dont want to be associated with a 'kiddie' system as well as releasing ports of popular PS2 games like GranTurismo and Grand Theft Auto, and Nintendo will make a ton of cash the second they release mario/zelda/pokemon.
There is enough room in the world for 2 handhelds
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
And we've seen how well that one worked. Why develop for a platform when the competition is willing to do some of the work for you?
...an example of how programming consoles and handhelds are more of a challenge than the PC. It is a type of programming that computer science professors rally on about, as they recount like a drunken sailer how they had to wait in line for seconds of computing time, and how that bred tight efficient code.
Had Sony decided to build the system around their Memory Stick line, they could have had a system that was MUCH smaller and had a MUCH longer battery life.
Instead, someone got the bright idea to base it around discs. Why? Do you NEED a Disc to make a game system? Their current proposal of loading the game into the system memory says, "No". In fact, the disc based system introduces a whole host of problems such as: poor battery life, load times, moving parts to break, exposure of dirt to the laser / moving parts, etc.
Why make a such a poor design decision?
The ONLY reason Sony has decided to base the system around discs is so they can sell you movies.
This money-grubbing decision has introduced fundamental design problems into what otherwise could have been a great game system. Instead, it comprimises some core functions in return for making Sony more money by adding additional, potential revenue streams to the device.
Sony is trying to do way too much with this portable.
The whole idea of a portable gaming system is to have quick and easy access to games while you are on the go (fast load times, battery usage). We also don't want to pay an arm and a leg for the system and games because they generally don't get nearly as much use as our console systems get at home. So Sony has failed on two important "requirements" in my eyes. Handhelds aren't ready to move away from cartridge based games yet...so there goes fast loading and battery life. The technology just isn't there yet (well it's there it's just too expensive). And this system is way too expensive as it is. Who in their right mind would buy one of these. I guess the idiots that shelled out 400+ bucks for an ipod would be interested, but I digress.
You would think that Sony would of taken a look at the history of portable gaming systems and tried to get away from the tactics tried by Sega, Atari, etc. It didn't work then, what makes them think it will work now?
Hmmm maybe they'll sell you a BACKPACK with helluva batteries included. Hey, if it's in a backpack it's still "portable", right? :P
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By the time they release this, these batteries will be for sale at your local gas station.
And it isn't as cheap.
An OLED uses more power than a backlit LCD when more than 1/3rd of the pixels are on (non-black).