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Defect in PSPs Turns Disks Into Throwing Stars
Headcase88 writes "Gamespot has confirmed a rumour in which if you twist a PSP in the right (wrong?) way, the UMD will go flying out of the portable. To quote the article: "...we were brave enough to use one of our precious PSP units to test the theory. Amazingly, with just the right touch, out it popped". I guess you could do this on purpose and pull off some pretty unexpected pranks."
Redundant, but still (if you don't want to download a movie file):
http://oohhhh.com/psp_ninja.gif
- Agilo
Maybe I say this cause I've been burned one too many times by shody Sony products, but this doesn't bode well for Sony's new handheld gaming business. Say what you want about Nintendo, but the quality of their hardware is first rate.
Put yourselves in check, fellow nerds. As much as I'm amused that Sony's decided to continue their institutionalized tradition of poor design and quality control with the PSP, and as earnestly as I believe that the PSP is doomed for third place in the handheld "wars," let's put things in perspective.
First off, about the twisting motion. My friend studying in Japan received a PSP from her fiance. She tells me that it's possible for the twisting motion to be done accidentally, but it's not very likely. General consensus among the Japanese is that you have to treat a PSP more delicately than cell phones (of course), PDAs, or any portable system that's ever come out before, including the Nintendo DS. Apparently it doesn't feel safe to just toss it on the sofa or bed when you're done playing with it. That doesn't speak well for the durability of the PSP, although people do carry it around. It's better suited for use at home, where people already have home consoles, but anyway.
Second, about the screen. It smudges as easily as any plastic screen smudges, and it's even easier to notice than on things like cell phones and computer monitors, because you're supposed to look at the thing all the time, but your hands have to be on it all the time too. Also, it scratches more easily than Sony wants people to think. My friend has already put a faint scratch on her screen by putting it uncovered in her backpack along with a ballpoint pen and other small crap. She said the pocket clip on the pen is what probably did it, so the early press from Sony that announced that it was scratch-resistant was only partially true. Apparently the plastic that Sony used to make the PSP's front face is about the same as what they use on non-folding cell phones, but that's still not very hard. That plastic covers the whole front of the PSP in one single piece, so PSP users have to use something as a case at all times, and most PSP owners apparently are in the habit of wiping off the face of the unit before putting it away. Apparently it's common for the PSP to have thumbprints and small scratches all over the front, if you're not paying a lot of attention to it. If you wipe it off religiously, keep it in some kind of soft non-scratchy case, and don't move your arms while it's reading a disc, you should be okay.
About battery life. My friend only has Minna no Golf, and it goes for a pretty long time. Everybody there has heard about the battery life for big games, but she can't test it.
About the off-center square button. My friend's unit luckily doesn't have a serious problem with the square button not registering, but she does tell me that it feels different, and she has to press on the right side of the square button to be sure that it's being pressed. Hers stil pops up okay as well. But the diagrams of the connection point on the mainboard where the square button is off-center have been circulating in the Japanese gaming press, so everybody in Japan is aware that the controls of the PSP are a little wonky and unreliable.
Next, every shot of the PSP firing a projectile is taken with the unit oriented downward or horizontally. Many people have noticed this about those videos. When the PSP is facing up, UMDs don't normally fire out of the unit. The mechanism that opens the PSP isn't strong enough to propel the disc that hard, although all the throwing star jokes in Japan are based on the belief that it does.
Next, MP3 playback. My friend borrowed a memory stick duo and headphones/remote from a friend, since she only has the base unit. She could only put five songs on the memory stick, because she didn't want to erase her friend's game saves. Apparently it sounds pretty good, but she's no audiophile, and never had any other kind of portable MP3 player. I sent her a test signal file to use with the Koss headphones she brought from the States (because I have the same ones, and I know how it should sound using that test file on a good playback source), but hell if she wanted to bother
Umm... I'm used to Nintendo. Where things like this simply don't happen. Hell, I've dropped my DS from standing height onto asphalt and all it got was a little scratch on the case from the experience. The Gamecube according to X-Play is the toughest hardware out there of the current generation, and I've yet to have a Nintendo gaming product die on me in over 20 years. They also don't try to buy marketshare by releasing cutting edge electronics at a fraction of what it costs them to make. And they also have more than 2 9s of build quality. Say what you will about Nintendo, their shit is fischer price tough, and their customer service has no rival. I've come to expect that in my portables. I won't buy another Sony product unless forced to because of third-party support drummed up by the Sony fanboys or I have proof they've changed because the experience sucks ass unless you get lucky. And what bit of the experience is good is all third party anyway, and they go where the market-share is.
So yea, I expect my portable hardware to take some fuckin' abuse, because it all has thus far(cellphone survived a dunk in a lake, shit happens). I also expect my hardware to live past a year, which Sony thus far has been unable to do for me since they entered the market(smoker, on 3rd PS2, went through 2 Playstations). Pardon me for not giving them the benefit of the fucking doubt, they haven't earned it and they certainly haven't earned anyone's loyalty. The Sony fanboy is the saddest fanboy of all.
So anyway yea, that's a flaw. It might not be a serious flaw to you, but it's a flaw. Just as dead-pixels are a flaw in any LCD-based product, the media falling/flying out when the device is twisted is a flaw. More like flawed window breaks when hit by 5MPH gust of wind flaw. The fault does not lie with the consumer, it lies with fucking Sony.
But hey, no one cares, they love all the third party titles guaranteed to come out on the platform if everyone else thinks they'll come out on it and they buy the hardware.
The key to the enjoyment of pop music is to replace any instance of "love" with "C.H.U.D."