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Top Ten Things About the Sony PSP
Hector Martinez writes "A very nice read on some of the features of Sony's portable device." From the article: "Simply put, the character models don't need to be as detailed, because you won't notice the difference anyway. That said, we need to keep in mind that these are first-generation PSP titles. Just look at how the PS2 games have evolved since its launch. If handheld games are looking this good at launch, imagine what a couple years of development time will do. You can expect the same leaps, similar to those found with home based consoles, as developers become more familiar with it. "
I am definitely going to spend a lot of time deciding where to plop my $150. It takes about six months to see where the best games are coming out for a system. The PSP looks to be more hackable than the DS - AVI playback built in? MP3? Gorgeous screen? Nice. Now, what about the games?
but I can remember a great handheld coming out by a company called Sega that was everything the game-boy wasn't and I haven't seen a game-gear around since 96. weird.
"It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself." - Henry Rollins
You're going to take a 12 hour flight. You can have, what, two carry on bags now? One? Remember, these things have weight limits.
:)
You can buy one of these, perhaps even later on shell out the money for an extended battery; or you can buy the rival unit that lasts for 2-3x times as long, natively.
I don't know about you, but I'm going for the latter in a heartbeat.
The point being, this is a portable device, yet with battery life like that, they're clearly not aiming for the portable market. It's insane that this even got out the door like this.
Or is it just me? Sigh.
"An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program."
10 Great Things About the N-Gage (not the N-Gage QD)
1. Plays MP3s.
2. Runs the popular Series 60 OS, for which many non-N-Gage-specific apps are already available.
3. Synchronizes built-in PIM software with Mac OS X (iSync) and Windows (Intellisync).
4. Built-in FM radio.
5. Supports on-line play with built-in GPRS radio.
6. Available used for about the same price as a Game Boy Advance SP.
7. Memory expansion with widely-available albeit slow MultiMedia Cards.
8. Includes software that lets me surf the web and check e-mail using the built-in modem.
9. Supports Bluetooth, letting me use a cordless headset instead of Sidetalkin'.
10. Has a built in Media Player, which supports not only MP3s (#1) but also video clips and streaming media.
There, that wasn't too hard. Maybe I should put it on a web page myself and submit it as an article!
For more information, click here.
I just got my Dell Axim x50v. It's a Pocket PC.
It was $375 - quite a bit more than the PSP. Keep in mind, however, that Dell is making a profit on the unit while Sony is selling the PSP for a loss.
It's clearly not optimized for gaming. But, here's the lowdown.
The screen is VGA (640x480) with a 3:4 aspect ratio. It's quite a bit higher in res than the PSP screen.
The unit has WiFi, like the PSP, but it also has bluetooth for connecting to a mobile phone.
It doesn't need expensive memory sticks. You can use either CF-based (up to 8GB flash, or use a microdrive like the iPod Mini) or SD-based (up to 2GB flash) media. You can use both slots at once.
The unit has a faster processor than the PSP (Intel PXA270 @ 612MHz) and it has a good 3D accelerator (Intel 2700G - based on the PowerVR core used in the Dreamcast, with 16MB of memory - 4 times more than the PSP).
Battery life is only around 2.5 hours, but that's with wireless on, the processor set to full speed, and the brightness set to the maximum.
The unit has 64MB of main memory - 8 times more than the PSP. It's an ARM core, like the DS, GBA, Pocket PCs, Palm OS devices, and 100s of other products.
Thanks to the PXA270 and the 2700G, the unit has no problem playing back DIVX/XVID movies at VGA resolution. You can download the trailers off of the Divx website and play them right on the unit without conversion - and they look great.
The Axim isn't really a Dell product at all - it's produced by a company called HTC. HTC also produces many of the iPaqs.
Microsoft could absolutely own the mobile market. Here's how:
1: Call up HTC and ask for a unit with these specs
- VGA touchscreen
- Intel PXA270 + Intel 2700G platform
- 64MB SDRAM, 64MB flash, 16MB VRAM
- 2 SD slots
- WiFi
- A game optimized case & buttons
Since the device is based on existing hardware and could simply be a modification of an existing Pocket PC, design time would be short and the unit could be on store shelves in quantity by next Christmas.
2: Develop an OS to run on the system based on Windows CE. Since similar hardware platforms already run Windows CE, there isn't a lot of work to be done there. Microsoft already has a compact DirectX framework that works with the Intel 2700G, they already have the OS, they already have a media player. All they need is a nice UI to tie everything together and a SDK to make development easy.
3: Ship the SDK. Get game development going. The SDK should make it easy to port XBox games - not a huge problem given the fact that WinCE has a similar API to Windows and the fact that the unit runs a variant of DirectX.
4: Launch. If Dell can make a profit at $375, Microsoft loses only about $110 on each unit at $200 (assuming that Dell's profit is $10, that Microsoft is charging $20 for the WinCE license, that the cradle costs $10, that the Bluetooth chip costs $10, and that Dell's "free" shipping costs $5.)
Regardless, here's what we see:
- Microsoft launches a product that is largely compatible with the XBox. Call it the XBox pocket.
- The unit has comparable graphics to the PSP, plus a better screen, enhanced video/audio playback, a touchscreen, and better battery life.
- Microsoft ships the unit with IE for Windows CE, plus an organizer that syncronizes with Outlook.
- Microsoft ships the unit with Windows Media Player 10. The unit plays Windows Media files, MP3s, and even WMA-DRM files purchased online.
- Microsoft ships a cable that allows the unit to link to the XBox. The device already has a USB client port (for connection to a PC) and the XBox controller ports are USB.
- Users can download games from XBox Live or purchase them at a place in a retail store. Games have DRM (of course) and are loaded onto SD cards. A 1GB SD card holds 16 games (at 64MB each - plenty of space with careful programming) and is only around $80.
Any thoughts?
Cripes!
Buy what you like, no need to bash the other guys system. Nintendo and Sony are heavyweights, you don't need to promote their products for them, they'll still have the same libraries they were planning anyway.
I for one own a DS and I plan to buy a PSP if it ever gets a game I want on it. (Yeah, I'm a 29 year old man who likes playing Super Mario 64 DS, laugh it up)
First it was Atari vs. Coleco, then NES vs. SMS, then Gameboy vs. a ton of other portables, then SNES vs. Genesis, then Playstation vs. N64 vs. Saturn, then Dreamcast just plain fell on its ass, then X-BOX vs. Gamecube vs. PS2, and now this!
If there is one thing that has ever remained constant across ALL of these fights, It does not matter whose hardware is better, whoever has the best software library wins.
In terms of hardware, if I recall correctly:
Coleco > Atari
SMS > NES
Gamegear, Lynx, and that Turbo Grafx 16 handheld > Gameboy
Genesis somewhat > SNES (SNES had better sound and more colors, but Genesis had a better processor)
Saturn > N64 !! Playstation
Dreamcast = Nice hardware but only like 1 good game and the worlds worst controller design ever.
X-BOX > PS2 !! Gamecube
and just for fun:
PSP > DS - Yes the hardware is better for the PSP. Only a Nintendo fanatic will argue otherwise. But as can be demonstrated throughout history. It does not matter whose hardware is better, it matters who has better games. (that, and with portables, battery life is a huge factor)
Heh, if the original poster was a troll, you're obviously an astro-turfer.
One of the games I own is Ridge Racers. The graphics are comparable to Gran Turismo 3 on the PS2, as is the framerate.
I've seen movies of Ridge Racers running. No, it isn't comparable to Gran Turismo 3. It's graphics look better than the PlayStation, if only for the bilinear filtering, though. Textures on the PlayStation looked fugly, it's good to see the PSP isn't repeating that. So I'd say that the both of you are exagurating, the PSP is in between the PS1 and the PS2 in graphics capability - about what I'd expect, really.
Battery
I've heard figures of 1.5 hours to 6 hours life. Regardless, that's way too short. If you're correct that it's around 6 hours life, then it may be acceptable, but if it's around 3 hours average which seems to be the most widely agreed on figure, then that means that after every play session I'd have to recharge it. How hard is the charging process anyway? You can play while charging?
Depending on the answers, you may need an extra battery. One of the things I'm planning on using my GBA SP for is plane trips, and sorry, but 6 hours battery life isn't good enough for one battery. (Of course, I never travel, though, so it doesn't come up much. But it almost came up a while ago.)
I could honestly care less about the PSP's media capabilities, since I can't imagine it being comfortable to watch a movie on a portable game system unless you can place the unit in front of you somehow. I've already got an iPod mini, so I've already got MP3s covered.
These videos [of throwing-star like PSP discs] are fake. The eject mechanism isn't strong enough to throw discs out.
They aren't fake, exactly... They just aren't honest. The PSP really does have a flaw where you can get the disc to eject by twisting it in just the right way. However, the disc just kind of pops out, and isn't at all like a throwing-star. That's a massive exageration. Most of the videos of the PSP disc flying out at things have been taken with the disc flying straight down, so it was gravity helping with the speed, not the PSP itself. From what I've been read, it's really hard to do this by accident while playing, too.
Ultimately, though, it's the games that matter. I'm not going to be getting a PSP on launch. If titles I want to play come out for it, then I'll consider. Right now, even if it were technically flawless, I'd rather get a Nintendo DS - it has games I'm actually interested in.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.