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Sony PSP Launched With Long Queues In Akihabara
Juergen writes "At 7 a.m. JST, the first shops in Tokyo's 'Electric City' Akihabara opened their doors and sold the brand-new Sony PSP to the long queues of gamers (Mirror) who had waited already for more than 24 hours in a chilly 5 degrees Celsius."
..as the insane line outside the new Apple Store in London when it opened a couple of weeks ago. People were out there in sub freezing temperatures, some for over 24 hours. I thought they were nuts, the lot of em, especially considering there was no new product on sale.
As a side note, I may not be as confident as Nintendo, but I certainly am a lot more interested in the DS than the PSP, despite the fact that the PSP technology is undoubtedly sexy and desirable.
Early reports are that the PSP has 5 hours of battery--and that's with a non-intensive (puzzle) game with no backlight or speaker or wireless connectivity-- and also slow loading times. 2-3 hours of battery life sounds more reasonable for the games everyone is interested in (3D heavy Ridge Racer, etc...), which is just not enough time. Couple this with launch titles that are almost totally sequels or so generic as to be indistinguishable from sequels, and even the still-somewhat-gimmicky DS just seems a lot more fun with a lot less headache.
Other than the number of units currently available - 200,000 - I don't see why people are so hot to get one right away. There are a couple of nice looking racing games but other than that it's a pretty pathetic lineup.
2-3 hours of battery life sounds more reasonable for the games everyone is interested in (3D heavy Ridge Racer, etc...)
Most major handheld game consoles in North America used alkaline AA or AAA batteries. The PSP battery, on the other hand, is rechargeable. Are people really away from 110*n volts for more than 2 to 3 hours at a time, unless they're already making a decided effort to retreat from technology?
(n = 1 in Japan or USA; n = 2 in most of Europe.)
Named after its country of origin 'England'. . .
Actually, the country is named after the language. Go figure.
KFG
They're both named after the Angles, a tribe from Denmark.
In any case, I would say that the case for 'color', 'realize' and many other American spellings is stronger than that for their English equivalents.
English English spellings were affected by a wave of Francophilia in the 19th century which resulted in a lot of changes intended to give a cultured, Gallic flavor to the language. I think with the benefit of hindsight most speakers of the language now would say this was a bad idea.
Some Americanisms, however, such as 'kerb' and 'tire' (for tyre), originate in violently anti-English lexicographers of the post-Revolutionary period (of course, said lexicographers had been English themselves), and don't have much other claim to validity (except, of course, that they are widely used).
Both sets of changes, then, basically come from people wishing they were some other kind of person.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Have you ever heard of this little thing called the Norman Conquest? You see, in 1066 England was invaded by French speakers from the North of France, who became England's upper-class. In this time, a period of about three hundred years, thousands upon thousands of French words entered English, until the lexicon of English became overwhelmingly Latinate. That is why "colour" has a u in it, because of something that happened nearly a thousand years ago with drastic ramifications on the language, not because of a relatively recent fad.
I work as an English teacher just over the border from Tokyo in Chiba. I'm about a 20 minute train ride from Akihabara. This morning one of our teachers walked in to the office carrying a PSP and Ridge Racer. Dunno what time he lined up, but he was at work at 11. I had a go at it and I gotta say -- those graphics are nice. The screen is bloody massive for a portable. It's got a nice shiny front and just looks good overall. The screen real estate alone is a big draw and some might say it's heavy, but I didn't really notice. I don't think weight will be a big problem.
Having said that, it's wee bit expensive for my taste (if you get the value pack with the memory card). The exposed screen seems risky and after a few of us got our hands on the thing it had quite a few smudgy fingerprints on it, ruining the shiny front. And I'm skeptical of the little joysticky button thingy in the corner(and why is there only one? Shouldn't there be two for FPS games?) Dunno about the batteries -- he had it pluged in and charging at work, so I sat by the outlet and played it -- though given the battery life estimates, I don't think I'd buy one.
I'm more of a Nintendo kinda guy, anyway, and though I haven't tried the DS yet I'm inclined to buy it instead, given the possibilities for FPS and RTS games with the touchscreen and despite the less impressive graphics. Still, I'll wait and see what games come out before I buy anything. (But with a 12 hour plane ride back to Canada for Christmas next week, it sure would be nice to have either the PSP or the DS).
hoser: Slashdot reader since 1987.
Nice to see the secondary market for stateside delivery is alive and well (like it was for PS2).
Current EBAY prices
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B - D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
I know you're trying to be humorous, but seriously, the original GameBoy had a great battery live. Wikipedia pegs the original at ~35 hours while all the handhelds after that have been significantly less(the GBA SP can get around 16, but only if the light is off). It's really unfortunate that handhelds like that really aren't possible these days.
1) Limit production run to 200,000 units at launch and christmas. /.ers) would hold off until some user reviews come in, each secretly hoping the battery life or limited games lineup will tank the thing.
2) Hardcore japanese/ sony gamers would line up in subzero temperatures for 48 hrs to buy the thing.
3) The skeptics (read:
4) Hardcore japanese/ sony gamers (remember kids, these are people who'd brave subzero temperatures to be first in line, or to secure the christmas package) post glowing reviews, obviously biased by the fact that they're already sold on the PSP and Sony brand.
5) positive reviews cause the skeptics to finally enter the stores, when production 'coincidentally' becomes large enough to cope, after which the numbers mean negative buzz doesn't matter anymore.
6) break open the champagne?
Not entirely plausible? You see, by limiting the run such that only the die hards get a hold of the thing, they are also limiting bad buzz.