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PSP Developer Interview
zmcnulty writes "Over at TechJapan, we've finished our three part translation of Game Watch's interview of Mr. Izumi Kawanishi, one of the PSP's lead designers. New details revealed include a few about the USB interfacing (with both PS2 and PC), a small hint about the elusive battery life, and best of all, that game saves can indeed be copied from Memory Stick to PC by using the PSP's USB interface. Here's part one, part two, part three, and the original Japanese interview."
"Q: Getting back to the UMD - there isn't a cover on the read section on the reverse side and one section is completely exposed. Will the production discs be the same? Will the discs be OK?
Kawanishi: The production discs are the same. DVD and other media are already handled in an uncovered state. It will be OK."
dunno. strangely enough the cd's and dvd's i just have lying around on bags or in pockets seem to get pretty banged up(just imagine sand getting in there.. then you smack it in to the device *screech*)..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This baby is going to be great! Transferring saves with USB is cool, but have you read the specs? The gorgeous 4.3" widescreen (yes, 16:9!) LCD alone is worth buying it, let alone the extended battery life!
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
It seems as though their aim is at making the battery last about two hours... which I suppose IS an improvement over the previously reported 90 minute battery life, but it's still nowhere near the Nintendo DS' 11 hours or so.
Considering the biggest failing of the Sega Game Gear and the Sega Nomad were the pitiful battery lives, why on earth would Sony have such a relatively short battery life?
"If we let things terrify us, life will not be worth living."
- Seneca
Able to play a movie, and 'quite a bit longer'? Does that translates to something like 2hrs + 30 minuites of movie playing? hmmmmmmmm............. What do you think?
I just don't see this as a smart move on Soney's behalf. The PS had appeal because it tore down Nintendo's more chilidish marketing and development. Adults liked it. I do not see the same effect in a portable.
Sure, some adults will buy this thing, but I would argue, with no data to back me up, that adults by and large want nothing to do with such a system as a cell phone is already enough to lug around and it isn't easy to get a date while playing a portable game system.
Kids buy these things and Nintendo has the market square. They are constantly reinventing the system and the parents who buy these things for kids will buy Nintendo.
Good chance I'm wrong as I'm sure similar things were said about the PS, although my initial reaction to the PS was this was going to rock everything as it went beyond the types of games, but rather the media type, etc.
Is there really room for 2 portable systems? It has proven time and time again there is not. Ask SNK, Sega, Turbo Graphix, those Wonder Swan people and the resounding answer has been no. Sony's only chance here is if there is enough room for two markets. My initial reaction is many developers are having cold feet about it as they feel this too.
Either way I don't care. I don't own stock in either company or work for them or own a portable system nor do I plan on buying one. I don't think many other people plan on buying one too.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
He skips around questions regarding the processing power of the unit, indicates that they had to stick with an analog controller as that's what PS2 users are used to (i.e. they can't just re-port all their same old games to the portable without it). He then mentions however that two analog control sticks (like the PS2) would look too complex for the user, yet then they throw USB connectivity into the mix (so someone is too stupid to know what to do with a second analog stick, yet can play around with USB?).
The fact of the matter is, this is just going to be a shrunk playstation 1.5 with a great screen, horrible battery life and a library of titles that already exist for that "other" playstation you already have sitting in front of your TV.
It's nothing but a cash grab, they're reselling you the same crap you already have (but now portable!) use your heads/wallets and get a DS. You won't regret it.
Seriously, do you want a system from someone who thinks you're too stupid to handle the controls?
"...it would be troubling if the face was littered with buttons and users did not know which one to press."
Yeah, that's trouble alright.....
Could the developer have been any more vague? Half of the questions were answered with "I think" or "it may" or "possibly".
Also, still nothing definitive on the battery life, so all evidence still points in the direction that it will suck, or Sony would have been more clear, seeing the bad press they are getting because of it.
PSP is sweet in theory, but unless it works as well, or close to as well a gameboy (in terms of sturdiness, playability and battery life), I don't seeing being a huge success.
I am importing my Nintendo DS in November, and I am alot more psyched about is, as Nintendo actually has demonstrated games on it and shown what it can do, and it looks fun! The graphics may not be jaw-dropping like on the PSP, but they are still "good enough" for handheld gaming, which is all that matters.
That's the whole point, they'll hype it up and then you'll buy one just to find out that they aren't THAT great.
You're either mentally retarded or a troll.
Not for wanting one of these, that's fine. The way you framed your statement though is trollish.
The insult is because you suddenly end with:
"At least Sony is smarter than to have a device which can barely play a single movie before running out of batteries."
Smarter than who? What are you talking about? Is this supposed to somehow indicate Nintendo? The DS has 8-10 hour battery life. As well, the PSP will only just play a UMD movie before it runs out of power completely (and who knows if you're watching LOTR on it).
Get a clue, mod this guy down.
Well, at least for those of us who prefer something that has lots of business utility, as well as gaming utility, and think of Sony as part of the Evil Empire(TM)
Plus, the Zodiac is out now!
www.tapwave.com
PSP? The graphics package? On a games platform? Hmmmm.
If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done?
When I go out with my game boy, I wind up with four or five games getting strapped together with a hairband and dropped into my pocket next to the pens, cellphone, and KEYS.
They're expecting exposed optical media to survive sitting next to keys???
Wow.
Have slashbots suddenly acquired Japanese fluency? Is this for cross-reference?
; &# 12540;
Here's the answer:
うそ付くなあ
This site doesn't even support UTF-8 or SHIFT-JIS so why the hell should it's readership want a link to the original Japanese article?
"It's not your information. It's information about you" - John Ford, Vice President, Equifax
Also, i'm guessing the spinning of the disc might be rather noticable if you are holding it in a lose group. I can feel when my laptop spins the cd drive, will this be noticable (if so, will it be annoying) in the PSP?
SAILING MISHAP
Where did you get NDS has 11 hours of battery life? Last I see some info it was 6-8 or somewhere.
>The fact of the matter is, this is just going
:)
>to be a shrunk playstation 1.5 with a great
> screen, horrible battery life and a library of
> titles that already exist for that "other"
>playstation you already have sitting in front
>of your TV.
Yeah, riiiiight...
The fact of the matter is, this is just going to be a shrunk SNES with a tiny screen, modest battery life and a library of titles that already exist for that "other" SNES you already have sitting in front of your TV.
Do you know what the name this handheld is?
"...it would be troubling if the face was littered with buttons and users did not know which one to press."
Yeah, that's trouble alright.....
you do realize this is a translation, right? if you could read japanese, you'd realize that the statement isn't as condecending as you make it out to be. it was a literal translation and it is fairly accurate, but if you could read the original japanese, you'd never think he was making fun of the users.
Hmmm, it didn't save the topic as I had hoped... bleh. How do I do a greater than sign in the subject?
Biped? Like a chicken?
In part one of the article, Kawanishi makes this statement:
Updates are technically possible using Memory Stick or network transfer. I think firmware and software updates will be done using those methods.
If he's serious, then I think that Sony is already going to be in deep trouble as far as hacking/piracy goes in this handheld. How long do you think it will be until somebody figures out a way to spoof a firmware update that would have the same essential functions of a modchip, such as booting pirated games or unsigned software?
Or worse yet, wouldn't this also be a dangerous exploitable security hole if, like he said, firmware updates via network were possible? That could lead to virii similar to the ones that have been created on bluetooth-enabled phones that could disable the PSP completely, and as I'm sure we all know, a botched firmware update can easily turn devices into nothing more than expensive paperweights.
For Sony's sake, let's hope they're not serious about this.
I remember the days when it was just a pretty simple image manipulation program, a Photoshop wannabe that looked more like PaintBrush...
Are the mods on crack? Corel has bought Paint Shop Pro. Therefore the next version is guaranteed to suck.
There is a lot more revolutionairy stuff about this PSP than there was in the Game Boy Color, the Virtual Boy, The Game boy Advanced, and the Gameboy Advanced Advanced. I think that the PSP is speced to be an awsome contender in the portable market.
It's not just 7 year olds that play game boy(ish portables). The market goes all the way up to college, where people finally start putting their noses to the grindstone.
I know the new gameboy has wireless lan as well, so this applies to both portables. Being able to multiplayer just by being NEAR your buddy is going to be a killer selling point over consoles. Plus, everybody in the multiplayer game will get a seperate, full quality display! It's lan party in a pocket.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Tapwave is not going to make it against Sony and Nintendo.
Especially not since they hardly have any special features on the device... all of it my Clie's also can do (UX50 and NX73). what is so special about it??? it is just a PDA with a specialized software and some of the worst analog controllers. On the test device I had seen, it was already broken. Ok ok, there is supposed to be some kind of special GPU (ATI) in there which is only used in games like Spyhunter.
Second, they don't have the backing of big entertainment companies (the only big company is EA to my knowledge). The rest of the games are standard Palm-based games. Ok, you get StuntCar Extreme for free.
Third, the Zodiac is still not available on the european market? Ok, they just landed in the UK... but that doesnt mean it is sold in Germany or France.
No, I still place my bet on the Sony PlayStation Portable. If you take a good look at the screenshots of the running games and the movies of it... you haveto admit it: it looks awesome. but (high) quality comes with a high price.
F/OSS & IT Consultant
I'm assuming the answer you're looking for is the DS, but your statement applies more to the SP than the DS.
Like this:
>
GBA; except that the CPU is much better than a SNES (reducing programming costs) and the battery life is quite reasonable, unlike a Lynx.
Do you know what the name this handheld is? :)
Oooh, good point. Of course, most SNES games had been out of print for almost a decade at the introduction of the GBA, so they seemed new to many gamers. Playstation games are a lot fresher in people's minds, so it'll be harder for Sony to use that technique.
Also, while the PSX had some good games, I think history treats SNES games more kindly in the race towards oblivion, because of Nintendo's timeless design ethic.
There is a lot more revolutionairy stuff about this PSP than there was in the Game Boy Color, the Virtual Boy, The Game boy Advanced, and the Gameboy Advanced Advanced. I think that the PSP is speced to be an awsome contender in the portable market.
I have to disagree, the DS has an amazing number of cool features, and wireless is just the top of the list, and PSP's battery life will likely be a major problem for it. The fact that it's a rechargable, and doesn't run on AAs, will help a bit in order to save it from the fate of the battery-gobbling Game Gear, Lynx and Nomad.
The larger screen and analog stick are admitted advantages, but the fact that the DS can run different *types* of games seems, to me, to give Nintendo an edge in this round.
Quadraped? Like a puma?
Which one of you needs to get a clue again?
The world can be wrong today for once.
That's what I thought too when I read it---what does this have to do with Paint Shop Pro? Could someone fill me in on what exactly this PSP is?
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If, by "*types* of games", you are refering to the second screen, then I laugh at you and Nintendo. The types of games that would benefit from a secondary display are few and far between. Also, game developers have learned to display every kind of game quite nicely from one screen. Those that *might* benefit from the secondary screen have no absolute need for it.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
Before now I was holding a shred of hope that perhaps I was looking at the PSP's issues too negatively, that Sony would find a way to compensate for them, that they were just getting their feet wet and might improve now that they have some feedback. That hope is now gone. Time and again he makes comments that indicate they just don't understand the portable market. Users won't be satisfied with sub-PS2 graphics? I realize Sony aims for an older audience, but between the small (though comparatively large for a handheld) screen and, well, the fact that it's a *portable* and not meant for hardcore gaming sessions, is it really worth having beefier specs at the expense of battery life and price? And on the same tack, what older gamer would want PS2 graphics on a tiny screen (and where) when he has his PS3 at home? It doesn't make sense. And, of course, the futility of making a powerful system and then telling the developers to limit how they use it. I'll give them partial credit for making the batteries swappable, but until they reveal if/how you can keep the game going I'm not convinced. Then there's the proprietary and expensive DVD/MP3 media, but that's old news. What really knocked my socks off is that they don't think leaving the disc exposed is a problem! It makes no sense. Being Sony I'm sure they'll avoid being complete retards and have some sort of case, but why? What's the point of giving the UMDs their own little caddy if it doesn't even cover it? Okay, perhaps I STILL have a shred of hope, that they'll have some brilliant marketing package with pack-in extra batteries and memory sticks, but for them to do that and maintain a competitive price would hemorrhage money like no other. Outlook not so good.
"skips around questions regarding the processing power" -- that has been set in stone for awhile. 333Mhz R4000 Mips III with 32 Megs RAM and 4 MB video with 2 16 flop/cycle VUs and a 'media engine' (?). Regarding battery power, watching a full-length movie is the 'minimum requirement'... that's more than I've heard in the past.
"...indicates they had to stick with an analog controller...", Uh, yeah. Duh. Gran turismo 4. Tough to play with digital steering. Let's call it the 'killer app'. You can almost picture the dude waiting for takeoff, swaying from side-to-side focused insanely clutching a little black gizmo.
"...use your heads/wallets and get a DS..." -- Maybe. Maybe Not. The one number we're all waiting for is the price! Battery life, honestly, is like the Bush/Kerry stance on Social Security... sure you want to hear it, but it doesn't change who you vote for. Price (and launch titles) will make the whole big entire difference.
It's nothing but a cash grab, they're reselling you the same crap you already have (but now portable!) use your heads/wallets and get a DS.
I don't have these games that Sony is allegedly reselling for PSP.
Personally, I'm not buying either until I can handle them personally, and even then, maybe not. I consider the dual screen thing a gimmick until I can see for myself what it can be useful for. Like, what, it will come in handy for playing Battleship DS? The little handwriting note-passing feature looks cute but that looks like a feature for kids trying to pass notes without teacher intercepting the handwritten note and reading it aloud to the class. It might be useful for land-strategy but that doesn't seem like a good idea on a portable game.
And I am troubled by the number of buttons on a typical console controller now. I like being able to have fun right away, not trying to remember which button is which for umpteen number of moves, especially when move choice devolves into trying to quickly remember which combination of buttons to press to do a particular special move.
I really hope that Sony isn't going to be stupid about battery life.
coz in japanese one word can mean many different things
So, I take it you're a republican then.
"Soon after dumped disc images started appearing on the internet, so did "streaming server" applications that allowed Gamecube games to be streamed from a PC over a LAN by dynamically patching the disc-read commands to networking commands."
Piracy is really only a problem if burned discs are being sold on the streets of China. As long as it requires the home networking setup of an affluent western citizen with too much time on his hands, they can still sell games.
I'd agree the PSP is pretty wide open on the USB and Memory Stick fronts... how long until Lik-Sang is selling a PSPPod based on a cheap 2.5" hard-drive?
I'm not entirely convinced either, but your post sounds as if you paused your typing to go yell at kids to get off your lawn or something. Why are you so pessimistic? What if Nintendo shows that some games are much better in two screens? What if we see the birth of a new genre? Thinking outside the box results in many failures and stupid concepts. Does that mean we should stop and stay where we are?
Have you ever heard 'public key cryptosystem'? Sony has a private/public keypair and signs a firmware with its private key. Then PSP checks the validity of the firmware by checking it with the public key of Sony.
GBA. I remember playing Final Fantasy Tactics, Pokemon, Shadow Force II and Golden Sun on my SNES.. oh, wait ;)
I said the same thing to my aunt about the eye-toy for playstation, having taken some time to think about it, I can see benefits to using it as an input device. My main beef was it won't make games better by using it, and it won't, but it won't necessarily make them worse. Having said that apparently the reviewers of games disagree with you. Apparently there's already one game that benefits from the touch screen (see a comment above for the name).
Many of these Playstation games are still available on store shelves for $15 or less.
Amen.
People keep talking about the touch screen revolutionizing gameplay, now appealing to RTS gamers and FPS gamers. I call foul:
1) How many decent RTS games do you see for Palm/PocketPC devices?
I've tried to play some and the gameplay is horrible. Stylus != mouse
2) How many decent FPS games have you seen for Palm/PocketPC?
Again, not only does the stylus suck for FPS games, but its *really* hard to use a stylus and a controller at the same time, so games will have to choose, or you'll be juggling your control methods. One of the great things about consoles is that the controls are so easy and you don't have to move your hands so much, allowing you to play from lots of positions.
How many times have you seen someone lying on a couch playing GBA SP, looking up at it? Its awesome because you can do that. With a DS and touch screen, I can't see you cradling the unit with one hand and using the touchscreen with the other while lying down, on your side, or pretty much any way except sitting/standing.
The #1 reason I'm excited about PSP and have really been annoyed by GBA is that it caters to kids too much. I want the violent FPS games, racing games, GTA shooters, and RPGs. GBA never really delivered in the category of games I like, so I look forward to PSP.
I have trouble envisioning the two screen paradigm. Maybe I lack insight/foresight, but I like one screen that I can watch for all my action games. Only in strategy/turn based games will two screen be super useful, unless you're talking about a map in an FPS or RPG, but that hardly jusitifes two screens when I can just press "select" to view maps normally.
If, by "*types* of games", you are refering to the second screen, then I laugh at you and Nintendo.
I'm referring to the stylus and the microphone, in addition to the screen, Mr. Premature Mirth.
Having two screens, in fact, just may enable different kinds of play that a single large screen might not. The difference is more conceptual, in the player's mind, than technical, but still present.
But the stylus is the big thing, it allows for intuitive pointer interfaces that make RTS games a lot easier to pull off, among others.
So, in summary, nyaah.
"I just don't see this as a smart move on Soney's behalf. The PS had appeal because it tore down Nintendo's more chilidish marketing and development. Adults liked it. I do not see the same effect in a portable."
You're not taking into account all the variables. First, their home market is Japan. If you don't think the Japanese will eat something like this up, you're kidding yourself. We're talking nifty-cool gadget capital of the world where gaming reigns supreme. And nubile Geisha girls. But mainly gaming. It sounds powerful and flexible enough to perform a variety of tasks, and it just so happens Sony has been the king of gaming worldwide for the last decade, which means absolutely no shortage of titles. This thing is a license to print money, plain and simple.
While the same can't nessisarily be said about markets abroad, I'm warning you right now that this thing as 'status symbol' written all over it. To borrow from an over-abused analogy, it is quite literally the iPod of gaming. The SP has made great strides in design, but the PSP is sexy as hell. It's all but guaranteed to have a massive library of games, more horsepower, strong wireless lan capabilities and the flexibility to do way more than just game. And it's Sony. The status symbol aspect of this product cannot be overstate. More than some adults picked up an iPod and I see the same happening here. Speaking of which, have you put a PSP (especially the white one) side by side with an iPod? And then there is the hip new generation marketing featuring these things hanging from everybodies wrists. Sony may have been late on the digital music bandwagon, but they've taken marketing notes strait from Apple's playbook on this one.
And honestly, the Gameboy and kids thing is based on a flawed premise. The only thing that makes the gameboy a popular kids item is less mario and more price, because it's the parent who ultimately shell out for these things. If the SP can't hit that magic price point, I guarantee you that the DS kids market will begin evaporating while parents will keep right on buying them cheaper GBA hardware. And in a world where a SP costs you nearly as much as a gamecube, it's will be a tough sell. Not saying impossible, but tough and a potentially reduced market share among the actual buyers, not their 8 year old gamers. Unlike Nintendo, Sony has some leeway here. Sony is known for cutting edge electronics and can, like the iPod, demand a higher price (within reason). Also, they aren't targeting the kids, they're targeting actual buyers who are looking not only for a portable gaming/video/whatever unit, but want to look cool doing so.
Sure there is room for two systems, expecially given the target audiences of each. It will all come down to whether they can make the intelligent decisions that will keep them alive in the face of competition. Unfortuantely, Nintendo has bled alot over the last decade, and their console share is wearing razor thin. So much so that the only thing keeping them afloat is the handheld. Sony has the advantage in market position, consumer base, 3rd parties and a substantial cash reserve. Nintendo can do it, they just have to play it smarter than they have been for the last decade.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Free Flat Screen HERE!
Oh good, the most overpriced and incompatible memory that there is (with the possible exception of xD, but at least xD is tiny). Now storing save games can be part of the Sony LifeStyle Experience (tm)!
I don't really understand Sony's plan with this device. Playstation has always been aimed at the late-teen and beyond market, and people over the age of 18 who don't actually read Slashdot would generally not want to be seen playing a portable game anyway. When you add in the complications of having an optical drive and using MemoryStick, this thing is starting to look like a real turkey.
Of course, Sony, unlike Sega or Nintendo, can afford to make a few mistakes. A lot of people have been questioning the DS, but when you actually see what it does I think that it's pretty clear that it is basically a super-kewl version of the Gameboy line with wireless networking. PSP on the other hand, is apparently trying to replicate the experience of playing a full sized console on a portable device, but without the big screen TV, or the beer, or the sofa, or the surround sound.
Read Pynchon.
Call me when I should care. For the time being, this looks like an overpriced device without a long term commitment from ISVs. I'm not going to spend $300 or $400 on a device that will allow me to watch a CGI movie based around the characters from FF7 and play a card game version (!?!?) of Metal Gear Solid. I'll save my pennies and go pick up a few more games out of the thousands available for the GBA.
I should clarify one point, though. I am incredibly excited that Sony's pushing the state of the art in handheld gaming. However, I refuse to be a guinea pig for their foray into this market. I'd rather wait until this turns out to be either a PlayStation or another PSX.
iRooster, the Mac OS X a
"and people over the age of 18 who don't actually read Slashdot would generally not want to be seen playing a portable game anyway."
;)
How stupid is this? They are in JAPAN. Do you have any IDEA what Japan is like?
They really have to worry more about competing with cell-phone gaming among adults than missing the "kiddy" market.
America only has about three times the population of Japan.
Also, your user id is 606177. There are more people who read slashdot than you may realize, and many gamers who *don't* read slashdot. Not all gamers are geeks.
Finally, if Nintendo couldn't afford to make a few mistakes they wouldn't have survived the last two generations of consoles.
I'm not interested in a portable computer. However, I can't wait to play Duke Nukem Forever on a Phantom.
If I were a betting man, I would put playing movies as EASIER on the battery than rendering thousands of polygons and processing AI. Sure, the motor to spin the disc for movies uses some juice, but not nearly as much as processing 3D games and sound. It's also been said in other articles that they were telling developers to use the least amount of 3D rendering as possible to conserve battery life. You know something is screwed up when they're not wanting people to use the best the system has to offer. Not only that, but the emulator kits they sent to devs has an actual battery life emulator built-in so they can see how much life their game is sucking out of the PSP and can then DOWNGRADE their game to save some juice and not crap out.
It would be amusing if AC's had the domain of their i.p.'s displayed, what with all these marketing lackeys around there...
The hard drive based digital media players out there (iPod, Nomad Zen, Dell DJ, etc) should probably have a battery life of less than half an hour if they used their hard disk continously, but instead, they have circutry to read in information from the disk only when necessary, and cache it.
The same will probably be true for the PSP. Therefore, it really _will_ depend on how the developers make the games, and what caching scheme they will use. Just by having a console use optical media does not mean that all games _must_ have voice acting and full motion videos that must be read continously from disc, but they could have games similar to the DS that can first be cached to ram before played (read disc once).
It is without question that optical media will always be less expensive than solid state media. Even if it's a simple game that can fit entirely within the unit's ram, it's cheaper to fabricate discs than cartridges.
1.5? You must be retarded thinking that. Looking at GTMobile you can clearly see it's capable of equal graphics as PS2. And concidering it has 2 333 mhz processors, and 3 166 mhz processors, you must suck at math too, to not realize it's actually superior to PS2. Even the dev's claim so with it's NURBs handling abilities. It's a portable PS2, get over it and be happy
And that would be a lie. They showed the DS at E3 with both it's screens being displayed on a TV with space to spare. One big screen can display ANYTHING 2 smaller ones can. As proof, find me a picture on the net of the DS showing something a bigger screen can't, and I'll you show you a picture of my monitor displaying that pic thus proving you wrong/naive for beleiving in such stupidity
Programmers have been splitting TV's in two for years (never seen a split screen multiplayer game before? gees man, get some friends) forcing them to in every game isn't going to introduce anything new. It's not like we never had radar/maps before
Me-quote:
Having two screens, in fact, just may enable different kinds of play that a single large screen might not.
You-quote:
And that would be a lie....
Me response:
NO, it's not a lie. For starters, I thought I was rather clear with the word "may" and "might" that I was speaking hypothetically. It might be possible, but I don't know if it WILL happen or not.
Further, it's not a lie because the separation of the screens is the factor. People are trained, through long years of watching TV, to watch all of one screen.
Having two screens on which things occur means having to look back and forth between them, splitting your attention, which is a gameplay obstacle we've seen very little of. (Even Nintendo's old Punch-Out!! arcade game, which used a similar setup with two monitors, didn't use them very well.) That's the primary difference having two screens provides, and what I had in mind when I wrote the comment. Technically you can do this with one large screen, but due to the way people have been trained to play games it's not exactly the same.
The other use for two screens is that, since they're obviously separated, it makes a better logical fit to always use one screen for game information and the other for a playscreen. Bear with me now, as this is a weird description:
Take The Legend of Zelda series. It was one of the first games to use a subscreen, that is, an alternate screen in an action game that you can call up any time and that, while you're in it, the game is paused and you can make certain gameplay decisions and review data, mostly involving your equipment. In fact I think the original Zelda was where the word subscreen came from.
But why doesn't the game just keep the subscreen up all the time? And why don't other games do this? The answer is because it takes up precious real estate. The player expects a full screen to view the action. On the DS, the second screen is an element that lies outside of player expectations, so the developer is free to devote it to full-time use as a subscreen. And since that screen is always there, the player can always make adjustments on it (using the handy touch-sensitive feature, which starts to make more sense), and doesn't have to pause the game to do so. And if you don't have to pause, then you can have more devious things like combat sequences where real-time item selection is part of the tension.
In both these cases, the utility of the screen comes from playing with the player's expectations for what a game should be. There's no *technical* reason there's two screens, but it could work out anyway.
If the PlayStation Portable were to get Paint Shop Pro, it wouldn't be the first popular video game system to get a paint program. Those were Videomation for NES (horrible; 4 colors and you had to use the controller) and Mario Paint for Super NES (better; 15 colors and a bundled mouse). But I'd almost guess that among the two handhelds of this generation, the Nintendo DS would get a paint program first, given that it has a touch screen and that DS owners will already be used to playing PictoChat.
Some of us have a pervasive developmental disorder and can't always detect sarcasm.
Why the fuck did this get modded up to insightful? This is stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Having more crap on the front of the unit would affect everyone, all the time. Having USB isn't going to affect anyone except when they use it. It will probably never be a requirement for anything you really need to do, like flashing the firmware (which he said would probably be done over the network, or over the UMD) and it's just there so you can get images, hopefully video clips, and probably music onto the Memory Stick Duo media.
You know, one of the reasons people cite for playing games on consoles is that it's easier than playing games on the PC, because the input scheme is simpler. So, you might not, but most people do. Only, they don't see it in such an assholish way as you do - they see it as wanting to buy a system from someone who is thinking of minimizing interface complexity so they can just play a game.
Now that I've hit the highest (lowest) points of your comment, let me visit your other stupid remarks: Playstation 1.5, for example. It's more like a PS2-lite; it is many times more powerful than the PS.
You are either an ignorant troll (redundant, I know) or a Nintendo shill. PSP and DS will have fundamentally different kinds of games because they have fundamentally different capabilities. PSP is a powerhouse with an analog controller, optical media and a "standard" storage interface in the form of Memory Stick Duo. DS is a fairly powerful little system with two screens and a stylus. Why can you not accept that the systems are not necessarily better than one another, only different?
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
There seems to be a lot of that in this thread.
Punch out: You can display both those screens on one of equal size to the two.
Zelda: You can display the subscreen and overworld on one bigger screen
Did you miss the part where TechniMyoko said 1 screen the same or larger than the size of the 2 put together?
TM argued two screens are no better than 1 of of the same or bigger size. In fact they're worse since now you cant use them as one big screen
Did you miss the part where TechniMyoko said 1 screen the same or larger than the size of the 2 put together?
And did you miss the part when I acknowledged that yes, you could, but the usefulness of two screens, in game design terms, is that they're spaced apart from each other, and form different conceptual units? It is certainly possible to duplicate these attributes with one large screen, but players, not being used to it, will tend to focus on one screen at a time.
I didn't give Punch-Out!! as an example in my favor, but as an example of a largely useless use for a second screen (which I'm sure we'll be seeig a lot of). And as for games like Zelda -- if it's so useful keeping all the info of a subscreen on-screen all the time, when why don't more games do that?
And while you might be able to use one large screen like two smaller ones, on a portable that is more problematic.
I'm not pretending what I'm saying is obvious -- it is not, and I don't blame people if they don't see my point. (If the point were obvious, I probably wouldn't be making it.) And I don't think two little screens is *always* better than one large one. I'm merely saying there *are* hypothetical cases where two little screens *can* be better than one big screen.
If you connect the PSP to a PC via USB, the Memory Stick will be recognised by the PC as a mass-storage device and you can write directly to the Memory Stick. For example, you can do things such as write JPEG images to the Memory Stick and then view them on the PSP.
So if the development platform was released or reverse engineered, other people could make games that could be *easily* shared amongst PSP users. Now that's cool.
Considering that most movies are ~1hour and 30mins(the ideal Hollywood goal, because Hollywood doesn't know what 'art' is), I'd reckon the PSP gets close to 2 hours battery life. Maybe with conservative software design it might go around 3-4, but I highly doubt most games will achieve that.
Depending on how fast the drive can read data off a disc, they may do some kind of burst read mode, where they: fill the buffers, shutoff the drive, fill the buffers, shutoff the drive, and so on.