Slashdot Mirror
PSP Opened up and Exposed
Pascal writes "After delivering some classic first impressions of the PSP last Tuesday, including some interesting loading time tests, the happy thugs at Lik Sang have now respected their tradition by opening up the PlayStation Portable. If you ever wanted to know how Sony puts such a powerful hardware inside such a small casing, there is a huge picture gallery of the guts over at Lik-Sang.com"
I think we can safely say the PSP sports graphics and games equal or greater than what the Nintendo DS offers.
However, the deciding factor for many would-be buyers (myself included) is still the battery life, and not one article says anything about it.
Bored? Visit my exciting counter page!
It looks like that antenna attached to the wireless chip can be removed, I wonder how long it'll be before we can wardrive with a PSP?
In one of those pictures, they show a Sharp brand LCD display.. its actually a medium sized display too.. how are they selling these for almost less than just the display costs(I would think anyway..)
what you fail to notice in the DS grasshopper is that the DS will play all the Advance games without a problem.
therefore if you buy someone the DS and there are no DS games available for them they like they can start playing it the second they open the box with their advance games.
and yes, the advance games on the DS are much smoother and certianly more playable.
super monkeyball in particular is much more playable on the DS. it almost seems that the game is taking advantage of the higher speeds to give me smoother gameplay. I can finesse the ball with greater accuracy now.
and yes, I instantly yanked the cartridge out and ploped it in my SP... there is a definite playability difference between the two.
the PSP has a ton of distance to catch up to the DS. they did not come out of the gate with hundreds of games that will work on the unit from the older platform.
my SP is now deligated to playing my old gameboy and gameboy color carts.
the only thing I pray for.... they do NOT bring the nightmare that is pokemon to the DS.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
-Sony has won the adult part of the portables market with its sleek styling and functionality... question is, is there even an adult market for these things to begin with?
-Do we need yet another proprietary media format? When can we burn on it? When can we buy it?
-Are audiences really going to want to buy their media on a proprietary format when a portable DVD player is so cheap these days, and works with your home disks? Saying that smaller is better was important in the 80s... I don't think that holds today. Matter of fact, is anyone going to buy a movie on this thing? Will they be offering anything besides FF:The Spirits Within and Akira for the otaku?
-The interactivity of the DS is well known, the interactivity of the PSP not so much, why?
-It's obvious that Nintendo knows where it is going, but I am not so sure about this. Their primary point is that it is "sleek." I am not sure that being sleek is my main desire to having a portable.
-I am not really excited about a disk drive anything in my carry around equipment. It may be an unfounded fear these days, but still, it is there.
From what I have seen from both Nintendo and Sony, they are trying to make a quantam leap in the portables market, and right now, my money is on Nintendo. Still, they need to do something before I buy either one. They both have side features, but shiny and features is a seriously Japanese thing, and Nintendo has held its own with their focus. So I go with 'Tendo.
After all, who uses their Xbox to play movies? Anyone? Who will use their PSP to play the ten songs that their memory stick can hold or look at digital pictures when the camera already has a screen, and shows them without running it through a PC? Picto-chat? Honestly Nintendo, if you are close enough to picto chat you are close enough to chat for real. That is more fun.
Some of these things on both machines make no sense. Maybe they make sense if you are Japanese. I don't know what some of these things are for.
You heard wrong. Even by Sony's inflated estimates, when they will even give an answer, it's 4-6. In reality it'll probably be closer to 1-2.
A recent public showing of the PSP (at TGS) had Sony reps being caught swapping batteries on the PSP every 2 hours to avoid the battery warning light coming on.
The screen is said to be nearly scratch proof. After a couple attempts by the media, the only device that finally made a mark in the screen was a hard stab with a sharp knife.
While the PSP has better hardware, the Nintendo DS has:
:)
1) Better battery life (10 hours vs 4 hours in game)
2) Game cards (Who wants to spend extra money on a memory card, and who wants to carry a bunch of disks in their pocket? I perfer to be able to save to the game media)
3) Touch screen. Without joysticks, how can you possibly play FPS on the PSP? The DS has the touch screen, which works like a mouse on Metroid Prime: Hunters (near-perfect control- I love the touch screen).
4) Cost. DS is $150, PSP is $200. Add to that the cost of the memory stick ($30 minimum) to the PSP, and the fact that an extra battery costs $50 (to equal the DS's battery life), means you get a much cheaper system with the DS.
5) Stability. That exposed screen must be very easy to damage. The flip-open DS design is a good protection. Plus, the PSP has a CD drive, you know how easy it is for those to skip with a little bump, and break with a good drop.
6) Nintendo games rule
Just my opinion. I've done some research into the topic.
A caveat: I'm a Nintendo loyalist.
Remember that the Dreamcast had a good head start over the PS2 (I bought mine on release day and have a bright-orange T-shirt to prove it), and ultimately it was for naught.
But then again, Nintendo has had a long history of supremacy in the portable arena. Their dethroning from the console top-spot isn't as telling as you might think -- the SNES and Genesis had a long-fought, bitter rivalry.
I know who I'm cheering for, but admit that the victory is up in the air. Could it be we might actually have TWO concurrently profitable portable systems? Is this possible?