Slashdot Mirror
PSP Battery Journal
ayersrj writes "The folks over at IGN have started a "Battery Journal" in an attempt to provide us with some relevant information regarding the battery life issue on the PSP in a realistic playing environment. The first run: a little under five hours with no wi-fi. Not too shabby."
...McGriddles did they consume in that same time span?
I'm happy with five hours, but people will still point out that the DS does better.
Why don't they make the batteries easy to swap out? This practice is not too popular (look at Pocket PCs), but it should stop the complaints.
I don't know what version of Paint Shop Pro you guys use, but mine does not need batteries. :)
I'd like to know how the full charge decreases in length of playtime over number of charges total.
Great, so you get 5 hours if you don't turn on wifi.
But what if you do turn on wifi, what's the battery life drop to? 2.5 hours?
Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
I meant it as a joke, please laugh.
No.
I beg to differ. I don't want another device I have to remeber to charge every night if I want to use it the next day. My cell phone, palm, and laptop are enough.
link
PSP hit me again today. It says that its my fault that it gets so little battery life. If I would only learn to love it as it is. I just don't know.
Today the PSP saw me linking up to play with some friends. It burnt my hands and threw a CD at me. It says that I don't need friends. I should just be with it.
What have I done!? I couldn't take it anymore. I killed the PSP. I took it off teh wall jack, and played it till it passed out. Then I flushed it down the toilet... All I have to remember it by is the broken CD and a scar under my left eye.
If I wrote something witty, you would say I stole it from somewhere.
I hope you pointed out Slashdot's bias in the recent Linux TCO article.
It makes no sense not to. Maybe the one the PSP comes with is the most cost effective solution.
It would certainly be a Sony thing to sell a higher capacity battery for a nice markup.
Not that Nintendo's business practices are any better. Release a handheld with a terrible screen, then after everyone buys that, release a better version with features it should've had to begin with (minus the headphone jack), and then release a completely different handheld that's backwards compatible.
We'll probably end up seeing a "sleeker, smaller" version of the DS in about a year or so. And naturally, the consumers will happily rebuy it for $150.
Sony Sony Sony, havent you learned anything from Sega? Leave the handhelds to Nintendo.
Yes, why try to enter a market in which Sega failed to succeed ten years ago? It makes no sense at all to release a sleek, comparatively sized unit with extra features in a market that couldn't support the Game Gear ten years ago. I'm sure nothing has changed in the interim.
Notes: post was sarcastic, and I own a DS. I don't begrudge Sony for entering the market and think they do stand a chance at success, though probably not domination. Screenshots look very nice, and the price is surprisingly low for what it can do. I may end up with one eventually.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Too bad they won't be incorporating the jet engine chip for power... Those things are so freaking cool.
"hey, could you pass me a paper towel? er.. I mean... DEPLOY ABSORBTION PANEL!"
Nintendo claims that the Nintendo DS can last about 10 hours before it needs to be charged. I don't know whether or not this is real-world performance. It'd be interesting to see what the battery life is when doing multiplayer, wireless gaming.
--
Free Nintendo DS
infested with jello like fishes no melotron wishes
Playing through Ridge Racers until the battery dies is probably not a good indication of how long the battery will last when you end up getting your PSP system and putting it to use for a variety of things.
Except, this is exactly the scenario I'd want tested when purchasing a portable device. I'd like to know if it will die on me when I'm flying from Los Angeles to New York. Hopefully they'll include this in future tests.
...as the Slashdot editors desperately attempt to bury the 'Roland' controversy below...
Only the winter edition will be using this much battery-power.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
I will end up with one, though I still expect to do my gaming on a DS, which I already own. The PSP looks interesting, but I've a feeling that 5 hours will end up being essentially the best possible. For games with near constant disc access, which will have to happen if people expect games that play like PS2 games, the battery life will be much lower, with or without Wi-Fi.
So what would be a reasonable charge cycle be for a device with disc based media and wifi capability? What the hell are you saying here? How long should a portable video game system be expected to last on a charge? Even if you used it 2.5 hours a day it would still make it two days.
Or are you saying that you just don't want another device at all? I guess I can respect that, but why even post to the story you negative nellie.
A while ago I stumbled across this site called Battery University, which has a lot of detailed information about how various kinds of batteries work and how best to make use of them. Not sure if this is relevant, but just wanted to toss that into the conversation.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
And with one of the features turned off too.
PSP (like NDS and GBA SP) uses an internal rechargable battery. That means you can't replace the battery when it gets low, you need a power outlet and time to recharge. The old Gameboy (Pocket) offered about 8-9 on replacable AAAs. Gameboy Advance was near 14 hours (or about 9-10 using the rechargable battery pack).
Didn't anyone (at Sony) learn anything from Gamegear vs Gameboy? It didn't matter if your system was a monochrome sub-NES powered unit with a bezel speaker, it could still beat a full color portable that didn't give a full days use out of a charge. I'd say mistake #1 was even considering optical (mechanically read) media. Unless the whole dual screen/touch screen gamble flops, PSP will be going the same way as the Gamegear, in exactly the same way (large, high powered but battery killing unit that is mostly filled with ports from its larger brother)
Apparently depending on the game, the battery life can be HORRID. Simply grahic games can go for 5 or so hours with no WiFi turned on... more graphically intense games? Ridge Racers goes for 90 mins-3 hours, depending on screen brightness and speaker use.
90 minutes!!! Next Sony will be selling protable generators to carry on your back when taking your PSP and graphically intesnive games around with you (Metal Gear Ac!d, Gran Turismo, Ridge Racers, etc.).
[sarcasm]Yep, looks like IGN is right, as always...[/sarcasm]
Oh my! Are they hiring??
Let me get this straight. There's someone out there whose job is to play until the game runs out of a battery? Is he a lucky bastard or what?!
Sure, sure, go on, tell me he'll be tired someday. Whatever. When that day comes, I'll be the first to send out my resumé ;)
Of course Gamespot says the battery life is a bit more variable than that.
For those not playing at home IGN has had some incredibly biased coverage in this recent round of handheld launches going so far as to "talk down" about the Nintendo DS on the actual DS portion of IGN. While both portable gaming systems kick ass, they do it in different ways, the rampant fanboyism at IGN is somewhat sickening, especially given than when it was first started, way back as Next Generation and even before then when the site was run off a college server it was known to being one of the first gaming sites to push honest opinions.
--- I do not moderate.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing. My Sony Laptop (which ironically was rated at 2.5 hours and only got me an hour tops) had a new higher capacity battery released for it shortly after, which also costed a good chunk. Thankfully I was able to get one for free because I screamed at tech support long enough.
I love this journal. First, they decide to give you times in American West Coast (PST) for no reason, as they're in japan, and time of day here matters not to anyone when the test is taking place in day/night conditions in japan. Could someone post the article but translate the times to Japan time, so that their actions make sense logically?
Also, they've made a few, how do you say, mistakes?
That part sure confused me.
For context, click Parent.
What about a Loading time journal?
7:45AM: Stopped playing games Realized that you don't actually control mechs in Armored Core, so decided to stop playing.
:)
yeah that about summed up armored core for everyone else to
Seriously. If anything, the second AC post is redundant. Not this one.
Live under a rock? Seriously READ THE F'IN ARTICLE! And if you're still too lazy to do that... It's The PlayStation Portable. Basically a a handheld version of something between a PS1 and a PS2. *sigh*
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
http://ukresistance.co.uk/e .jpg
I love the people packing around the car batteries to be able to use their PSP's hah.
direct link to images:
http://ukresistance.co.uk/pics2/pspbattery.jpg
http://ukresistance.co.uk/pics2/somepossiblefutur
anime+manga together at last.. in real time.
Seems to have something to do with video games - the poster probably talks in unintelligible and ultimately useless and transitory jargon for most of his chair-bound life...
The PSP is Sony's attempt to break into the handheld market, which Nintendo has an iron-clad lock on.
It's a typical Sony product. A really sleek futuristic looking gadget with a nice screen and a lot of functions you probably won't use.
Lots of people will tell you it's a "portable playstation", but unless Sony mysteriously changed the specs for it, it's actually reasonably close to a PS2 in most respects. It can do NURBS (curved surfaces), which is actually something the PS2 CAN'T do. It's rather powerful.
The problem is though, it's portable. The battery life is a pretty big issue for anyone wanting to take it on a trip, considering it runs on its own rechargable battery.
Now that we've got everyone talking about battery life of the PSP - what about DRM? I threw my MiniDisc player in the garbage, after the headaches I had to endure with the software / copy protection.
I'm not trolling, one of the selling points of the PSP is the fact that you can load up all kinds of user created content on it.
I'd hate to purchase one just to find out that I have to do it Sony's way, or no way. I really don't want to make another one of those expensive mistakes.
Don't bash Sony and the PSP.... I have yet to see a single battery review or spec for Nintendo DS, anyone have a legit link?
If the battery is the only thing bad about the PSP, then I am definitely getting one. Cause I know for a fact, people will bitch about the lack of adult games on DS. No thanks Mario, Zelda, Metroid. I was done with you in the early 90s.
Well, if you actually read the article, you would know it was the Play Station Portable. But this is slashdot...people don't read the articles (at least the stupid ones don't). Maybe you could have guessed what it was from the freaking Gameboy picture? Oh no, it is much easier to type and ask instead of using any form of intelligence and figuring it out yourself. Congratulations on proving yourself a lazy waste of space.
I know, they do that same lame thing Intel does. They should just wait and design the best product possible and never have to improve.
Optical media works fine for the MD player when you could get 40+ hours out of a single aa.
But Sony's not using there new "not catching on" 1 gig MD discs but another probably more power hungry disc type for fear of piracy. When will they learn.
From the article I know it's some sort of portable gaming system. The Icon shown on Slashdot is that of a Nintendo Gameboy, so that was no help, either.
Thanks however, for solving the mystery, and killing a few kharma points for me along the way. 8)
--Mike--
The low battery time is only an issue the months right after the system's launch. Because I can guarantee you that if Sony doesn't release an alternate battery, third part assecory developers won't be late to profit from it. Thus, I am far more interested in the physical constraints involved in changing the battery.
Well the reason I am wondering if you live under a rock is because there has only been about 5 articles a week on the PSP in some form or another on slashdot. Along with many other sites like Engadget and Gizmodo
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Battery capacity for a given volume and technology (LIon in this case) increases about 15% a year, tops. And "last year's models" are generally as cheap as it gets. So you can expect a 15% increase in PSP battery capacity this year, tops. And frankly, I wouldn't even expect that.
Wanting Grand Thief Auto is good...but lets be honest, why would you want BMX XXX? Are you that hard up for porn?
Prosecutor: The defendent is plainly GUILTY!
Defence Attorney: Clearly, he is INNOCENT!
You (on jury): [sarcasm]Yep, looks like old Mr Prosecutor is right, as always...[/sarcasm]
Which it probably isn't.
Pennsylvania State Police
Not only is it translating data from the media, running a screen, and accepting input from the user, it's also making a disk spin extremely fast. Sounds like a battery sucker to me.
Not laughing, actually. IGN isn't really high on my list of sites that I don't automatically assume are wrong. I've seen too many examples of them outright lying not to take this with a grain of salt. But it really has me wondering: Sony themselves were talking aobut FAR less battery life than IGN is reporting. That really sounds off. Sony is the last company to understate their products. If you could realistically expect 5 hours from the PSP, I would expect them to be talking about ten to fifteen hours, not two, one, and less like they have been. Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear about the moving parts issues. Battery life was the least of my worries. I feel very uncomfortable carrying something around in my pocket or bookbag that could be susceptible to shock damage, and I don't want to have to go and modify my laptop bag again to make a padded spot for one.
i got one in Shinjuku on launch day and played Ridge Racers for a solid 4 hours and some time just dinking around before the battery crapped out. i'm perfectly satisfied with that performance. i see a lot of PSP bashing from people that don't even have one. i think that once you have one in your hands, you'll whistle a different tune. i like the DS, but the PSP experience is light years ahead of the DS experience.
+5, funny.
Does anyone more familiar with this subject than me want to explain why there're so many Paintshop Pro articles on slashdot at the moment?
My GBA gets near 20 hours of battery life! I can basically take it on a vacation and not have to worry about bring along the recharging equipment.
I will tell you from personal experence that the battery life on the ds is more than 10 hours, I ran mine for 13 hours on a single charge. oh and to games not being 'adult' enought i point you here
Sony did similar things when they were releasing benchmarks of the Playstation 2 -- they turned off all lights in the room, and rendered a black triangle polygon in a black room. The numbers were amazing. But they weren't real at all.
So yeah. PSP Battery Life: 90 minutes. This drops further if you enable WIFI.
it's always a shame to see people turn away from some of the greatest games ever made because "they're for kids."
1) These games have storylines that are infinitely better than GTA:whatthefuckever and
2) You're a fool if you bash the Muppets for any reason, regardless of how old you are. And these games are in the same category.
Well, currently Nintendo is the only portable system with GTA.
If Nintendo allows GTA on the GameBoy I have a very good feeling they will allow it on the DS too.
and shit like that isn't Censored
Yeah, I can't wait for "Custer's Revenge 3D" to be released.
You-will-own-both PSP and DS. ...my will is gone. I'm definitely buying both... ...i have no life+
Feel your will crumble.
or the Personal Software Process ;)
And let me guess with this new battery it will recommend you don't play games while filling up at the petrol station, or near a gas stove, or only children 12 and up can handle the PSP with this battery and and don't forget the lead lined suit!
How in the world is "5 hours of battery life" a good amount of juice for a portable?
It's a portable game device. Poeple will sit down and play it for 2, 3 hours at a time. They'll play it on the comode. They'll take it on trips (planes, car) which will last all day.
In my mind, trips is the main reason to have such a device in the first place. If I can't play the device for the entire trip (or even half of a 16-hour trip), what in the world is the point of having it?
The battery is rechargeable, not replaceable. I can't very easily pop it out and put a replacement in, as I can with a Gameboy. Never mind that a gameboy will run for weeks on dead batteries.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
PSP == Personal Software Process
http://www.sei.cmu.edu/tsp/psp.html
Thanks for playing, try again later.
--Mike--
the Slashdot Icon still shows Nintendo... old old Nintendo
Isn't it a bit insensitive, eh ?
Sorry if I made you feel sarcastic.
Remember Ridge Racer for the PS1? The whole game was loaded into RAM and you could put in your favorite cd and play to it once it was loaded. Ahh memories.
Now, I'm not saying that's likely to happen for most games...but for some games it might be possible. I'm not sure what the psp has for memory...
And competition is always healthy for any product - if Sony hadn't released the PSP I'm sure Nintendo would have taken a bit longer to deliver the DS.
Now, Nintendo better deliver with the Revolution because they know what the market wants and what gaming is all about!
I think if there were any problems with the DS battery then we would have heard about it by now.
Most of my portable gaming is done on planes, and my trips take between 18-30 hours. Now i've played about 8 hours of my DS without having to charge, and the LED indicating low battery life hasn't popped on yet. Granted the DS probably won't last the whole trip, but 90 minuts / 3 hours for ridge racer? BS!
People will be buying this thing mainly to play those graphically intense games. Right? I mean that seems like the whole point of this things..
Things are only going to get worse. New games will probably have higher and higher load times with more and more graphics and the battery lifes going to get worse and worse.
By what the gamespot article said it sounds like 90 mins was still with the wi-fi turned off.. Hmm
provided it's enough for me to get my Lumines on.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
I think if there were any problems with the DS battery then we would have heard about it by now.
Agreed. Same is true about load times.
the cosmos in 20 words or less: thumbuki.com
Or a 3rd party will.
If your code is acting bloated, and is running rather slow, it's likely and predicted that some loops you will unroll.
5 hours of playing MP3's, though. If you look at the diary, a lot of their time appears to be related to playing MP3's.
On my TapWave, I can listen to MP3's for a long time without running down the battery, because playing a MP3 requires virtually no processor time. I would guess that if you played a lot of MP3's and played fewer games, you could stretch the batter life a lot.
If your code is acting bloated, and is running rather slow, it's likely and predicted that some loops you will unroll.
For coach and other discount flyers, there is no such thing as a DC port for your laptop or game adapters.
You'll only get this in the first class, executive/business/commercial class flights on most airlines.
Winged Power Photography
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/5a68/ is all you need...
*604x
So he got 5 hrs battery, i'm gonna be picking one up.
i'm trying to think of another product that has done well with abysmal batteries.
ohh yeah, the apple ipod!
I wish Sony well, but history shows that they do face an uphill battle. It's going to be HARD to unseat Nintendo. They are currently and have been for about 15 years now, the king of the handheld hill.
Sega, Atari, NEC, SNK, Nokia, and a few others have had their asses thoroughly kicked by Nintendo in the handheld market.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
The PSP is overpowered as a game machine. Obviously Nintendo knows the magic formula for handheld games is to keep it simple, innovate with the control scheme, and keep your battery life up at the expense of nearly everything else. As a pure game machine, the NDS probably wins in the long run (literally).
However - and its a big however - the PSP is not just a game machine. Sony has made some gut-wrenching design decisions (for them, anyways) to keep this thing open to its users... and the result is actually aimed more at the nascent phone game market, the GameBoy market, the portable audio and video market, and the wireless connectivity market. Its trying to carve a new niche, and this is exactly what Sony is good at.
Witness: a plain USB port with full standards-compliant access to the memory card as a drive volume. Regular folders named with things like 'photos' and 'music'. The screen - which is much better than the DS - is something I could easily see as superior against an iPod Photo. WiFi - the verdict is still out on how this will expand - but its standard, and not some proprietary version. MP3 support, also a major shift from Sony's ATRAC3 (although I guess it will play that too).
And finally let us not ignore the fact that it ships with white headphones. This can mean only one thing: invasion.
As for battery life, it looks pretty good to me, as I rarely play my PS2 for more than 3 hours (ahem) at a time... but that is personally a subjective thing. I do think its still to early to measure realistically as it will likely go up as programmers learn the tricks necessary to optimize/minimize battery drain. (Of course it might go down again as they all try to compete with Metal Gear Acid).
And finally, if you can find a plug, the game equation vs. the DS is a no-brainer if you ask me (peanut gallery: no one did.). The PSP is more capable graphically and those optical cartridges will lay waste to the tiny memory storage of a DS cartridge. The impromptu WiFiLAN party will rock with one of these.
So for me - the DS is neat, I like it. But I've never bought a GameBoy or any other portable game system because I don't want to carry just one gadget for that specific purpose. If it keeps some music, my picures (in a nice display), plays movies and really cool games, and does even a little WiFi access.. hell yeah, I'll take one.
If Jesus wants me it knows where to find me.
for now, the batt life might suck on PSP, but if a 3rd party can come up with a batt comparable with DS, then we can finally compare them fairly instead of :
the DS camp accusing PSP of low batt life, disc media instead of nonvolatile, and lack of attractive titles, and
PSP camp mocking DS of weak hardware specs, thick bulky profile, and the same Mario and Pokemon games all over again
it sucks that both machines have enough disadvantages to turn me off....sigh...
The least the poster could do is make "PSP" a link to the product's official site for people who don't know every single Acronym Of The Week(tm)...
None of those had the near complete mindshare in the TV console scene that Sony does now, though. Ask most any serious gamer, and if their primary system is not PS2, then they'll most likely at least own one, with the exception of people who own just an XBox and Halo (and of course Halo 2), who are unlikely to buy a handheld anyway. The best case was Sega, which was probably about even with Nintendo in the 16-bit console days. The Game Gear's battery-guzzling was not only the annoyance that the PSP might be, but also was expensive. 6 AA batteries is not a trivial expense for a few hours of play, and rechargeables at the time were slow to recharge and underpowered. Plus, Game Gear did not have Tetris, and was huge and heavy. This round, there's no killer app, and the PSP is about the same size as a closed DS, and considerably sleeker.
I agree, though, that Sony does have to put up a fight, but the situation is not nearly as grim as it was for most of the previous competitors.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Are you suprised that the PSP gets less battery life than the DS? It does more. The screen on the PSP has 25% more pixels than both screens on the DS combined. It has a faster chip, and it has moving media.
I just take my GBA SPs USB charger (gotta love lik-sang) everywhere with it- wherever you go is sure to have a USB port SOMEWHERE.
(hell, someone always manages to take a laptop camping...)
I beg to differ. I don't want another device I have to remeber to charge every night if I want to use it the next day. My cell phone, palm, and laptop are enough.
Then you probably aren't in the market for a portable gaming machine, now are you?
How did this got modded up to +5 Insightful? I am not planning on buying a PSP, DS, or GBA anytime in the future as I rarely travel. Oooh! Give me points, moderators! I'm insightful!
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
The only 'legit' links i've found are from cnet, and pc mag, and knowing cnet them they probabbly didn't charge the battery to 'full' before testing, and they may have even had wi-fi turned on for the entire duration (hard to say as they didn't mention any of the testing conditions)0 895578-2.html?tag=glance s p
PC mag on the otherhand got 8 1/2 hours in 'informal' testing, and they did charge the battery to full prior to playing.
I've heard of people getting ten or mour hours of gameplay time on a DS, on slashdot, but likely they were playing GBA games on the DS, rather than DS games (while cnet and pc mag were testing DS carts, not GBA cart batt life...)
http://reviews.cnet.com/Nintendo_DS/4505-6464_7-3
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1730092,00.a
People are bitching about load times too, but hey the load times are comperable to ps2 titles, so if you can cope with ps2 load times then psp load times shouldn't bug you much.
From what I can tell the PSP's battery is exclusively for keeping your system running while you head to the next power supply, unless you run it as a memory stick based mp3 player, a 2 GB memory stick will run you about $300 and of course every mp3 you want to put on it will only play in sony portable mp3 players, and only on the memory stick you originally copied them onto using sony's DRM software.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
... of my old Atari Lynx. I have one of the originals, and the best I could get for battery life was 90 minutes on 6 AA's. Later, they released an extended battery pack that plugged into the AC adapter port and held 6 D batteries. Imagine carrying a handheld the size of a Lynx, and a battery pack that weighed more than the biggest Mag-Lite and you get the idea.
Hopefully Sony wont make that mistake.
Porn Star Penis?
Come on people the PSP is a portable CD based handheld with an intensive GPU and a WI-FI its not like a palm, ds, gba,ngage etc e of course the battery lasts a lot less than in any other device! it has rotating spinning disk! if thats an impediment for you DONT BUY IT. We are completely aware of the battery problem, ok?
If you think the system is going to "tank" stop worrying, its already sold out in Japan(although it was a limited release) and apparently it will sold out in America as well, theres a good library of games coming and they will be less greedy with the spinning disk usage (which will help the battery).
Every single review and user review says the same, the battery is a bit of a problem since it needs a daily recharge and the loading times are weird in a handheld (not unbareable, just unusual) still not of those is a show stopper the system is definetily great and extremely fun to use, not only is the equivalent of a portable ps2 It can also be used as a digital camera a mp3 player (with bad reviews on that mind you) and an storage device with usb support so is definetily not a bad buy for the average tech freakie
p.s. Look some people would not be caught dead using a non nintendo handheld, while others wont even touch a DS even if it was 10 times less expensive. So lets just break even and let our throats alone ok?. you play with yours I play with mine, ok? good.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
Nintendo's last off shoot from the game boy line led to a piece of shit. This one will most likely be considered in the same category in a year or so.
If i remember correctly, there were less than 20 games produced for the Virtual Boy during its entire life. At this point, I believe the DS has the support of over 50 (I think it's closer to 100) 3rd party developers. I'm willing to bet the story will be a little different this time.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
Who to trust?
Wadya expect if you push the buttons the wrong way?
And while we are at it stop insulting yourself, or
else I'll slashdot ALL of your entries.
Journal - See I do have a sense of humour, really!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
IGN was trying to take a potshot at GameSpot with that statement, for their revealing test that showed that the PSP lasted for as little as 90 minutes when playing Ridge Racers, when in single-player mode only. Playing in multiplayer mode _lessens_ that number.
I agree with you; this is what I'd be using the PSP for, if I bought one - playing games on the go for as long as my trips last. And it seems that the PSP's battery life is just too poor when you're playing the pretty-ish games that people might actually care about, as opposed to "Mahjongg Load Time," "Mahjongg Chest Pain," "Minna no Mahjongg," "Card Game Acid," or any of the other similar PSP gems.
And when the reported failures of the first measly 200,000 units start to surface, you know there's something wrong compared to Nintendo's problem-free DS launch (where they even cut off any doubts of build quality when they preemptively announced their no-tolerance dead-pixel guarantee program).
It's really too bad that the DS has a feel a lot more like the original GBA than the SP. From what I've played of it it might be even less useable, since the touch screen doesn't seem that great. Though admittedly I was playing the crap that is Metroid Prime Hunters on it...
You must be a Grade A Retard to get NGO and IGN confused.
I don't even take handhelds out of the house 95% of the time and a 5 hour battery life would really suck. If I planned to actually take the thing places, 5 hours would not cut it at all.
Hmmm... clearly a troll, but hey... I'll explain... ;)
PSP stands for Portable Sans Power (the article should have given this away). This is a very clever acronym as it is also the noise you make after you've played Ridge Racer for 2 hours.
PSP also stands for precision spectral pyranometer, a pyranometer with an outer clear dome that can be replaced by colored domes that transmit specific bandwidths of the solar spectrum. [Ah... Google... how else could you find out trivia you never wanted to know?]
DS stands for Dream System, it's like a portable Dreamcast (which is why SEGA managed to produce a game which shows off it's capabilities before Nintendo could).
Long car trips? All you need is a cigarette adapater and you can watch dvds, type, code, play brand new pc games. Play fallout 2. You know, whatever. Great system. Called a Laptop. Some of them have even got pretty good batteries I hear. And third party games and stuff. Should check it out.
the battery in the GBA SP is replaceable only it's not so simple as flipping a panel to slip in the new battery - something Nintendo should consider for the next gen Game boy
What do you mean? It's as easy as open door, remove old battery, insert new battery, replace door, and charge. If you're referring to the screw that holds the battery access door in place, then under at least one country's product safety regulations, any battery-powered product marketed to children must require a tool that is sold separately in order to open the battery access door. In the case of a GBA SP, this tool is a Philips size #00 screwdriver, available at your local hardware store in a set of "precision" screwdrivers.
I consider myself a serious gamer, and my primary systems are a GameCube and a PC. I do not own a PS2 or an Xbox.
-B
Many here have been raising the spectre of the infamously battery hungry Sega Game Gear with respect to PSP battery life. But I don't think that we're going to see a replay of the GG failure not so much because the PSP will have stellar battery life, but because our cultural expectations have changed. One poster here made mention of all of the things that he/she has to charge daily, cell phone, mp3 player, and laptop.
In other words, we're used to charging things up every day! And since the PSP has a rechargeable battery, no one is really going to feel the same kind of pain the GG induced back in the '80s. The PSP could give the DS a good run for the money if it delivers on the software and movies, etc...
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
Ok, I bought a PSP on Sunday and have been playing it since. Battery while playing Ridge Racer constantly (which I worked on): about 4.5 hours or so on a full charge. Yes, the machine saves where you were in the game once you have the power back. Have not yet tested wireless play. Most amazing quality screen I have seen. I was really very impressed. Once you see it for real, you will understand what some of the fuss is about. Now, given Sony's track record here (in Japan) lets hope they have made a machine that doesn't break down.
Redundant? This AC had not even read the other joke about the batteries and PSP when parent was posted. The timestamp shows ONE minute difference, but I doubt it was even that much. And this one is funnier.
In my experience most serious gamers play PC games. Many of them also play XBox, PS2, or GC as well.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
Of course it is natural for everyone would go buy the first machine, then go buy the second updated one, and then go buy the next one after. They have so many good fucking games and the hardware is good quality. What sane minded consumer wouldn't?
That is entirly incorrect.
I own a PSP and the batteries are replaceable.
With 3 batteries it is possible to play the PSP for LONGER than the DS.
Now of course their batteris are for PSP only, you cant say pull the battery of of say, a Digital camera, but unlike my nintendo portables I CAN replace the battery.
Also unlike the offerings from nintindo they PSP uses standard interfaces. I don't have to buy headphones or memory cards, or PC link cables to interface with the PSP.
Will the DS interface my MAC, I don't think so.
I'm sure you'd much prefer adult games like GTA, Manhunt, or Killswitch. Cause a game isn't innovative or adult unless there's swearing, blood, and murder involved.
Now, for a portable? I like me some puzzle games, mini games, and RTS games.
So that's going to get covered REAL fast by Nintendo.
Drill Spirits, Wario Ware DS, and Advance Wars DS.
You can have your long load times for a fighting game, that's fine by me.
My conditions for getting a PSP? 6 hour minimum battery life for any settings (they've said firmware upgrades can get this there.), good game line up (the japanese lineup had 2 games in it I would even consider getting, and those were (meh) games at best IMO, and finally, innovative games. Last thing I need is a rehash of GTA, MGS, or some other craptacular port of a PS2 game on a handheld. Unless they want to port SEGA games that is... I'll take Crazy Taxi, REZ, and Sonic Adventure pls.
So the PSP has a battery life of minutes big deal. It also causes nearby lights to dim, drains the batteries of other devices (pacemakers, etc) and if four players try to play a game together over the wifi it will cause a small, but noticeable black spot on the sun. But damn it looks neat.
It has a battery life of 7 minutes. It will drain the power of other nearby devices causing street lights to flicker and pacemakers to go off. Plus, if four players try to play together via the wifi, it will cause a small but noticeable black spot on the sun. But damn it's shiny.
I am a serious gamer, and I do not own an Xbox. I do own a PS2 with about 5 games that rarely get played. I doubt I will be getting a PS3 or a PSP.
Light is filtering down from above. Would you like to use DIVE?
I want to buy the PSP. Have you even seen a DS?. It looks like a toy, it is marketed as a toy here. The PSP is not in the same class. The only similarity is that they are both portable. Even if Ridge Racers (the first game I would buy) does only last 90 minutes, that's enough to get me to work. And that, friends, is what it's made for. Really. It is not made for anything else. If you can't use it for your weekend camping trip where you forgot your charger. Tough bikkies.
Sony sold 200,000 units (all of them) more or less instantaneously. I went out last night to buy one and was told they don't even know when the next batch will come in. The DS however, was looking very lonely and I might add, already discounted.
The PSP is a marvel. If you lust for a DS, you may just be a Nintendo fan. Hey, I own a Nintendo 64 myself and have never owned a Playstation but I find myself unblinkered when appraising new hardware. The PSP vastly outclasses the DS. But you know, if dinky gaming consoles do it for you, and if you like retro games then I guess the DS is for you.
Geez. First the idiot directly above. The battery is easily swappable. It is a custom battery but it is an open compartment and it doesn't look like you need a tool. This is sony. They know handhelds. They have been doing special batteries that can be swapped for longer then anybody else. Next is the slashdot article it self. The article has almost 5 hours of gameplay, that much is true BUT it also has an hour of mp3 playing. So what does that make actual game time? Who knows. This was a stupid test. After all this test includes numerous boots and shutoffs not straight gaming. Neither did they just game. Is the battery life any good? Well it ain't an iPod or similar that's for sure but it doesn't compare to badly with my gba+afterburner especially considering the increased screen size. Is it long enough? For short work commutes, sure. For a plane flight or long train journey? You need to take some extra batteries with you. It is hardly as bad as other handhelds that tried to compete with the gameboy but it isn't quit up to gameboy standards. Personally I think the far more impressive graphics are a perfectly acceptable excuse for the lesser battery time. For my own typical use it is enough. I would simply plug it in along with my phone and mp3 player. Price might be a bigger obstacle. I was really disappointed with the GBA and the games and their prices. I only played the real quality titles during commutes. Will sony be charging console prices (I am a PC player) for these games or even higher? At the moment it will have to compete for me with buying a portable movie player (the iRiver linux one looks so sweet). Will have to see how easy it is to watch downloaded content on the PSP.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
How hard is it to do that?
One for pirating games to play, of memory sticks.
Two for games to load the data onto the memory stick and access the data from their instead of spinning the drive wasting battery time.
The drive kills the battery, so circumvent it.
What is insightfull about this? Is sony supposed to make PSP that works on absorbing brainwaves? Wouldn't work on this guy.
The PSP has a battery life of over 5 hours with a fresh battery (almost 5 gaming + 1 hour mp3). So that is better then a phone and a laptop but less then a gameboy (depends heavily on battery class AND for the gba use of afterburner and gba SP on use of light, don't know about DS) and a mp3 player.
And if you got trouble in 2004 remembering to plug in your devices for reloading then the solution is simple. Don't buy them.
What next, fashion people complaing that the latest clothes still require you to put them on?
Go get a portable chess set. No batteries needed.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Luckily it comes with a removable battery and although it is a special model it should be easy enough to take 1 or even 2 spares with you. TADA problem solved.
On the other hand you could take the DS wich doesn't have the battery life either AND increased eyestrain for looking at a tiny screen.
Optimal solution? A book. Certain to work for the entire flight. Just hope you don't have to make an emergency stop in the bible belt. They are suspicious of those things down there.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
anyway speaking of the battery life who cares if it only lasts 5 hours? My cellphone, pocketpc and ipod doesn't last much longer than that so I just charge them nightly, just add the PSP to the list of devices that need nightly charging. What's the big deal?
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Meanwhile I will be playing with a screen easily 4 times the size, that works without me having to twist to catch the light, with graphics from this century all at the cost of carrying a few spare batteries around and a recharger. Woopie!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Live under a rock ever played something called a alienware computer an xbox a ps2 a gamecube i would take any of these anyday instead of a psp or ds.
Really, I don't know how else to parse this. The statement is entirely passive language and impossible to interpret. I'm assuming you mean that IGN isn't credible due to bias, however IGN is the only gaming site I've seen actually bash titles released by their major advertisers. For example, the most recent Metal of Honor games, which EA plugged with massive annoying ads on IGN's homepage. IGN may be the advertising kings of the online gaming press, especially if you're not a subscriber, but their reporting is one feature of the site I've never been able to fault.
Sony is the last company to understate their products. If you could realistically expect 5 hours from the PSP, I would expect them to be talking about ten to fifteen hours, not two, one, and less like they have been.
Ehh, you're being awfully cynical about all this. It may be that Sony has, in fact, wised up by being honest over the battery life issue because they realize how integral that time is on a portable.
Anyway, I'm still waiting to hear about the moving parts issues. Battery life was the least of my worries. I feel very uncomfortable carrying something around in my pocket or bookbag that could be susceptible to shock damage, and I don't want to have to go and modify my laptop bag again to make a padded spot for one.
The easy solution to all this? The Nintendo DS! I absolutely love mine and would highly recommend it, even if you're waiting for the PSP. Not in lieu of a PSP, of course.
"Come on, let's go drink till we can't feel feelings anymore."
Only 5 hours? That's utter B$!!!!! I live in Japan and I own one. Last night I played Everybody's Golf solidly from 10pm to 5am this morning. It was only when I checked the time that I realised I had been playing unplugged during this entire period ............and that I needed to be in work at 8am!! When I plugged into the wall the battery still had 50%......so plenty of legs left. IGN really do post some utter crap and this is a classic example............
I have been reading various blogs about short battery life in the PSP. Its only day two but so far I have had no problems with short battery life at all. I think the reason for this is that when I bought mine on Sunday I left the battery charging for about 14 hours without using the unit.
I think a lot of those guys, in their mad urge to be 'the first', didn't charge their battery for long enough initially and are now reaping a somewhat bitter harvest. Thankfully for all the losers who did this Sony sell replacement batteries. All I can say is 'ha ha Mr Clever' now stop whinging, buy a new battery and learn some patience batty boy! Nooch!
I can take all the whining and complaining about the battery life as long as said whiners own up to one simple fact: You're comparing a 125mb (+/-) memory card to multi-gigabyte disk storage. Fucking apples and oranges are raining out of the sky like locus from Apocalypse here. Ok, so the battery is five minutes to five hours long, depending on who you believe. Fine. At least be willing to admit what you're getting for that trade off-- Shit you will NEVER see the DS capable of because of that lack of storage space. And if you don't mind too much, let's take a stroll down memory lane and remember how this was one of the major issues that dogged the N64 when pitted against the PS1.
Does that make the DS a bad platform? Maybe, maybe not*. But you better be at least willing to consider that of course your DS is going to have a longer battery life. It's a memory card based system that only needs to access 128mb of information. As compared to spinning around a physical disk to access 1.8gb worth of information. I would even go so far as to speculate a pasting much like the one Nintendo recieved there as well, but that's just me and irrelevant here.
Hey, I remember the N64 and Nintendo's phobia of circular game media. I'll take the trade-off and smile, thankyouverymuch.
*probably
You need a FREE iPod Nano
"I'd hate to purchase one just to find out that I have to do it Sony's way, or no way"
You mean like every other poratble gaming system in existence? Come on now. I mean, what other way would you be doing it with Nintendo? Sega? NeoGeo Pocket?
People seem to be overly fond of comparing apples to oranges this thread around...
You need a FREE iPod Nano
They didn't sell them all out. They still have them at the stores in my area. You weren't that lucky.
You can change the batteries (I'm not sure if you need any tools, but it looks easily swappable from the pictures I've seen), but the big problem is that PSP batteries cost $50 apeice. Not the cheapest thing. Wouldn't stop all complaints ;)
The DS, though, has DOUBLE the PSP battery life. It's a huge difference.
Add to that the jack-of-all-trades-master-of-none design (games can't be too CD-intensive or battery dies, it can't play much music unless you spend extra money on a more expensive memory stick, you can't play movies unless you buy them on a proprietary format which won't play on anything else), and higher price ($200 + memory stick [$30 minimum] + possibly extra battery + no games > $150 + free Metroid Prime Hunters demo)...
I'll take the DS.
*sigh*
/.
No one can take a joke anymore on
Please note that when the SP came out, it was the SAME price the GBA was released for, and the GBA dropped in price.
If the GBA was soo bad, why did *everyone* buy one?
God forbid a company respond to feedback and release an updated version of a product that was better than the original. If you're that concerned, don't buy it right away, and wait 9-18 months and see what happens.
Buyer freaking beware. Is it that hard of a concept?
"That is entirly incorrect."
For someone so quick to make corrections, you sure do make a lot of mistakes.
"With 3 batteries it is possible to play the PSP for LONGER than the DS."
Ah, but those two extra PSP batteries will cost you $90 ($45 each) on top of the initial cost of the PSP, which comes with one standard low-capacity battery. An official Nintendo first-party DS battery costs $15...and if you buy only ONE of them, you once again have more playing time than a PSP with FIVE of those heavy $45 PSP batteries (which is a combo I'd hate to lug around, considering those PSP batteries are quite chunky while the DS battery is almost credit card-sized).
"Now of course their batteris are for PSP only, you cant say pull the battery of of say, a Digital camera, but unlike my nintendo portables I CAN replace the battery."
Which of "your" Nintendo portables without replaceable batteries are you talking about? The ones where you accidentally glued the battery cover to the system?
Hint: It's possible to change the batteries on every Nintendo portable that's ever been relased, from GameBoy to Nintendo DS.
"Also unlike the offerings from nintindo they PSP uses standard interfaces. I don't have to buy headphones or memory cards, or PC link cables to interface with the PSP."
Actually, that's EXACTLY what you have to do, espcially if you were smart and didn't go for Sony rip-off "Value Pack," which includes shitty headphones and a puny memory card.
And as if you hadn't made enough mistakes already:
- Standard headphones work on the GBA and Nintendo DS.
- Writeable memory cards are not even officially supported by Nintendo, but what the hell do you think Memory Stick Duo is? You think you can save to those slow-ass UMDs? No, you need a memory card.
- PC link cables - what do you think USB cables are? That's what you use for that PSP you allegedly own.
"Will the DS interface my MAC, I don't think so."
Given the fact that the DS is a gaming machine while the PSP is a swiss army knife, I don't know any sound business reason that Nintendo would have in supporting that.
But anyway, we in the DS community don't exactly know what the Unmasked project is yet, so I won't rule out any possibilities. I already have my DS and am enjoying it, so I have nothing to lose by waiting to find out.
BTW, do you really own any portable gaming systems at all, no less the PSP or any of Nintendo's current portables? No offense (seriously), I'm just curious whether you're bluffing or not, considering your lack of knowledge about these things.
jesus, seriously, there are more fanboys here than should exist on the planet. did everyone post in their journals there was a nintendo vs. sony article so everyone jumped in?
you're all wasting your breath. if you guys find your DS so awesome, play it and stop posting about it. if you know sony is gonna kick ass, go read about it and engineer a backup battery so when it arrives in the rest of the world, you'll be ready to play.
they're both gonna have tons of rehashed games and suck, just as the portable market always has.
Everyone? I didn't buy one.
I must say, the one time I actually used a GBA(original), it still wasn't as uncomfortable to use as those stupis Xbox controllers. Guh.
I owned (and still own) some Atari Lynxs. I don't remember exactly what the batter life was (3-4 hours maybe?). But I do remember how I extended battery life: When playing in the car, I used the car adapter to power it. And when playing at home, a lot of times I used the AC adapter. These allowed me to save the batteries for when I needed them.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Yeah, that first sentence is awkward, that's my fault. What I meant to say is that I have a fairly short list of sites who I trust for news on any particular topic. When it comes to hardware like this, it tends to be the places that intentional use things until they break, since they generally find realistic limits (although realistic limits sometimes end up being unrealistic scenarios like driving a pickup truck over your laptop). When I see news on those sites, I assume they're onto something. IGN is definitely not on that list. I don't automatically assume their wrong like I do with, say, GameDreams, but I won't quote them on anything.
In 3 months or less, third party manufacturers will have released replacement batteries for the PSP with more battery life (and likely at a cheaper price than the Sony brand). Within a year Sony may release their own branded suped up battery pack.
The capabilities of the device far outweigh the bitching and moaning, and the main problem of the bitching and moaning is temporary.
In one to two years the model number of the PSP will increase as they run better production models down the line. So whether you're an early investor or bide your time, if you WANT a PSP... you'll get what you want. The battery issue will be solved.
Now let's start comparing games between the DS and PSP! Go, Go, Wipeout Pure!