PSP Emulation Madness

This is SWEET... by ALeavitt · 2005-06-01 01:36 · Score: 5, Informative

... but so far it only works on the Japanese 1.00 firmware. So far there's no support for the US versions (1.5 and 1.51) so for most of us, it's nothing to get too excited about... yet. I don't know about you, but I don't want to flash my PSP's firmware... but I'm getting so impatient. Just imagine... a 1GB card of all of your favorite games for all of those classic systems, portable, on that gorgeous screen. I hope they hurry up and figure out how to run homebrew apps on the latest firmware.

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Re:This is SWEET... by rovingeyes · 2005-06-01 01:42 · Score: 1

So is Sony going to go crazy over this and start suing every one or is it the plan of sony to let people do cool stuff like this? I don't own a PSP yet but I am sure they have some where in the EULA that states "You are screwed if you mess with it" (or something like it).
Re:This is SWEET... by sjf · 2005-06-01 01:50 · Score: 2, Insightful

Clearly Sony doesn't want people to do this. That seems to be the point of the later firmware releases: to block unencrypted binaries. But, I don't see what is illegal or worthy of suit in running homebrew software on the PSP. Unless, of course, that homebrew is compiled (and probably distributed) with libraries that are copyright Sony. As far as I know, that is not the case.

But, Goddamnit, I can't wait until we can run these emulators on the North American PSPs...oh the anticipation...
Re:This is SWEET... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 02:09 · Score: 4, Insightful

There is no reason for Sony to get upset about this. People are simply making their system more marketable. It isnt economically feasible to pirate games using Memory Stick DUO(you might be able to get 1 game on a 1 gig stick, which is freakin expensive), it'd be cheaper to buy the UMDs. As long as the mods dont interfere with the PSPs ability to play retail games, then why would they take legal action?

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Butthead Vendor
Re:This is SWEET... by drunkennewfiemidget · 2005-06-01 02:16 · Score: 2

I absolutely agree. To this point, I have had no interest in the PSP. I've seen it as nothing more than an overpriced handheld.

If I were able to play all my favourite old SNES, NES, GBC, GBA, TGFX16, or any other old system's games via a memory stick, I'd buy it in a second.
Re:This is SWEET... by LoverOfJoy · 2005-06-01 02:25 · Score: 1

I think that's the point. If their profit mostly comes from games and you already have tons of cheap games there is less incentive to buy more.
Re:This is SWEET... by fanboyslayer · 2005-06-01 02:27 · Score: 1

I'm suprised Ebay sellers haven't jumped on this and started selling overpriced 1.0 systems. A search for "japanese 1.0" only returned 8 items out of the 1003 in the category...

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I will laugh for a week STRAIGHT when I finally kill you.
Re:This is SWEET... by drunkennewfiemidget · 2005-06-01 02:29 · Score: 1

Even still -- I'd think my likelihood of purchasing a game would be slightly increased by owning a PSP in the first place. By me not bothering to buy a PSP, the likelihood of me buying a game is quite obviously 0.

However, even if I buy it with the intention to use it mainly for emulation of old games from old systems, the likelihood of me buying PSP games is still much higher -- movies too!
Re:This is SWEET... by DarkDragonVKQ · 2005-06-01 02:44 · Score: 1

the problem is the emulators only run on old versions of firmware. Games will require newer versions of firmware..so now it's basically

You either play the emulators or play the latest games.

Sony, which makes money from software sales prefers you to buy new games then play old games.

Not to mention if there was a way to prevent emulators and a company decided to conviently not do anything about it..well dunno if there are any laws regarding that. Though I imagine there will be in the future with all the copyright and piracy things flying around right now. So it might so happen that in the future that if you have a way to prevent people from doing illegal things with your hardware (let's say upgrading firmware) and you choose not to do it you may be able to get sued by certain companies.

Now of course this is assuming that the copyright and piracy stuff continues flying like this.

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Re:This is SWEET... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 02:44 · Score: 2, Insightful

They will definitly have no profit coming from games if you dont get the hardware into people's hands. The point is, if a great game comes out that appeals to someone, then no matter how many games they have emulated they will be able to buy it because they have a system. I dont think anyone would buy a machine meerly for emulation at a price of $250. It's more like an incentive, "Hey you get all those cool PSP games, PLUS you can play all your old NES, SNES, Game Boy, SEGA, etc." Playing Chrono Trigger on the go would be awesome.

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Butthead Vendor
Re:This is SWEET... by aliquis · 2005-06-01 03:19 · Score: 2, Interesting

I don't think they block unencrypted binaries to kill the homebrew games & apps scene, I rather think they do it to stop piracy.
Re:This is SWEET... by drunkennewfiemidget · 2005-06-01 03:30 · Score: 1

I totally understand where you're coming from, but is there anyone on the planet still making money off of SNES/NES/Genesis games? And I would still only want ROMs of games I legally own. I still have about 30 NES games, and I own all my favourite SNES games in their catridge form -- FF3, Chrono Trigger, FF2, Earthbound, etc.

It still all seems kind of silly to me.
Re:This is SWEET... by apoc06 · 2005-06-01 03:48 · Score: 2, Informative

i agree. sony is one of the few companies out there that has embraced the homebrew scene of the mod community. they did release a the linux version of the playstation: netyaroze or something like that. the problem that pops up whether or not leaving the psp as an open platform will result in piracy like you said. there are already isos of various psp releases. sony released psp games in the closed UMD format so that only sony [not the developers] will be able to press the discs. that eliminates the scare of people being able to burn / distribute illegal copies.

the real question now is whether sony wishes to make it legal for users to copy legal games onto memory stick duo [MSD]. from a users standpoint, it would be a great way to prolong battery and laser lens life; since it doesnt have to constantly read from the disc.

the threat comes from the fact that users have picked up speed quickly on how to program from the device. its only a matter of time before someone writes something that will enable the psp to load an iso from MSD. a constant updating of the firmware will just keep the pirates and homebrew developers busy.

as with most encryption and DRM its only a matter of time before someone finds a way to circumvent it.

when will someone find a way to keep things free enough that you are able to mod thing in your own way, but locked enough that sony wont have to worry about lost revenue from piracy?
Re:This is SWEET... by sdhankin · 2005-06-01 03:52 · Score: 1

I totally understand where you're coming from, but is there anyone on the planet still making money off of SNES/NES/Genesis games?
Yes. And they plan to make more. Their name is Nintendo.

The Revolution's big claim at E3 was that it would play downloadable games from all of Nintendo's library. Surely they will charge for these, probably even if you already own them on cartridge.

Nintendo is still actively seeking out ROM sites and pursuing black market cartridge makers. It looks to me like they still consider these to be viable revenue streams.
Re:This is SWEET... by Civin · 2005-06-01 03:53 · Score: 1

Well one of the major new features of the new Nintendo Revolution is the ability to purchase and play nintendo's entire back catelog from nes / snes / n64 games and download them to the system. So at the very least Nintendo will soon again be making a profit off these, though I'm not sure how much of a fan of Nintendo Sony is ;)
Re:This is SWEET... by Txiasaeia · 2005-06-01 03:54 · Score: 1

"I totally understand where you're coming from, but is there anyone on the planet still making money off of SNES/NES/Genesis games?"
Um, Nintendo? Remember the "Classic Nintendo" series released onto the GBA? You've also got various remakes such as Metroid Zero, Mario Brothers 1-5 (Incl. World and Yoshi's Island), Zelda, etc.

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Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
Re:This is SWEET... by buffer-overflowed · 2005-06-01 04:45 · Score: 1

I'd worry more about Nintendo. They have a few patents on emulation.

They didn't really go after pocketNES, but I'd expect they would certainly go after any working out of the box emulator for the PSP because it's not their hardware.

They'd also probably go after Sony for allowing it, and guess what, they would probably win the lawsuit. You're talking running pirated games on the competition's hardware.

If you want those old games, there's a wide range of hardware capable of playing them. Including the GBA via purchased cart or via flash cart(up to the SMS/NES, DS should go up to SNES/Genesis via various exploits with the same hardware), laptops, palm devices, pocket PCs, and the GP32.

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Re:This is SWEET... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:50 · Score: 0

It is economically feasible to pirate games. If I can have 40 games on my computer, and simply load them onto the memory stick when I want to play them. You act as if memory sticks aren't rewritable.

I know it doesn't give you the option to switch them on the road, unless you have your laptop with you, but it isn't that hard to write a gig to a memory stick each time you want to play a new game.
Re:This is SWEET... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:59 · Score: 0

I'd like to see the emulators use the wifi port, so I can connect to my home computer and access my romsets through the internet. It'd be a lot easier than trying to cram a bunch of roms onto a memory stick, and it isn't like the roms will take a long time to download over 802.11b.

If that means downloading a ~1GB PSP disc image every now and then, I'm OK with that too.
Re:This is SWEET... by mesach · 2005-06-01 05:21 · Score: 1

Why don't people understand that the 1GB memory sticks are NOT write once?!?!?

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moo.
Re:This is SWEET... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 05:34 · Score: 1

No one is debating that. But carrying around 1 game on a memory stick that costs 100+ isnt economically feasible. It'd be like if DVD+Rs cost $150 a piece but could be written infinitly. The point is, without signifigant cost, you cant carry around a bunch of pirated games to play when the mood strikes you. Rather you can carry around 1 game that you play until you get tired of it and then overwrite it with a new game. Not exactly rampant piracy. If you like several different games, its going to be cheaper to just buy the damn things retail. On an additional note, adding addition exclamation points and question marks does not reinforce your point.

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Butthead Vendor
Re:This is SWEET... by Megane · 2005-06-01 05:34 · Score: 1

As long as the mods dont interfere with the PSPs ability to play retail games, then why would they take legal action?
Because if you're spending all your time playing SNES games on an emulator on your PSP, guess what? You're not buying PSP games! They don't expect to make money off of PSP console sales; they make money by selling games for it, and from manufacturing fees for other companies to make games for it.

They want you to play the latest EA shovelware, not classic games that they can sell you a compilation or a rehash of (when they're good and ready).

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Re:This is SWEET... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 05:41 · Score: 1

The fact that these hacks exist and there is a demand for them means that people who are on the fence might make the leap and purchase it. You say if people are spending all their time playing SNES game they aren't buying PSP games. Well if those same people don't buy a PSP, they aren't buying any games either. The fact is, the more people who have the console the better position it puts sony into. When that killer app comes out all the people who bought the console to mod will still have the ability to purchase it. More functionality will not hurt the PSP, rather put it on level ground with the DS, which has the library of GBA games to back it up.

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Butthead Vendor
Re:This is SWEET... by zaq121 · 2005-06-01 06:43 · Score: 1

Yes, there will be a few of us will buy it just for emulation. My Zod and GP32 were purchased for the same reason.

Emulation is good enough for some of us, but like you said, if a great game comes out, then I will be able to buy it, only because emulation got me to buy the system in the first place.
Re:This is SWEET... by aichpvee · 2005-06-01 07:21 · Score: 1

EA has that plug-and-play tv thing with old Madden and NHL on it.

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The Farewell Tour II
Re:This is SWEET... by gl4ss · 2005-06-01 08:04 · Score: 1

if they wanted it to be devved on.. ...they would release the sdk.

which could/would lead to sonys own games getting pirated sooner or later as well.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:This is SWEET... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 09:03 · Score: 0

Dude, you're not even close.

First off, unless you're talking about copying PSP games, most are going to inevitably require the 2GB sticks (which do/will exist). And so what if you can only carry one game at a time. Most people only carry one or two games anyway. You aren't planning on carrying your entire PSP game collection around with you anyway are you? If you are, you are a fool because the system becomes that less portable.

Second, the major use is for old system emulation. Do you know what that means? I can fit a few hundred N64 games or a few thousand NES, SNES and Genesis games on my 1GB memory card. I wouldn't count on playing too many PSP games through the cards either as it likely won't support full speed play.

Third, the cost of memory cards goes down significantly over time. A 512SD card that I bought 2 years ago at $125 is now $25.

Forth and finally, this requires NO extra hardware or modification which is a big bonus over the Nintendo SP which required special game cards, transfer devices and poor software written with engrish instructions. That hardware often cost in upwards of $200 and wouldn't hold too many games at one time (my card stored 4 games).

On top of all of this, we already know those cards can be used for photos, music and video. Sony may keep real quiet on this if they feel it may finally make their cards the de-facto memory card for all devices people use.
Re:This is SWEET... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 09:28 · Score: 1

Valid, but does that make it a good business decision? Perhaps there is some bigger picture that my lack of business acumen forces me to miss. Modding makes a system more attractive to some, and better yet from a business prospective, its FREE market research. Sony gets to see what kind of features people want in the next round of handhelds for free, how can they argue with that?

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Butthead Vendor
Re:This is SWEET... by Elranzer · 2005-06-01 10:05 · Score: 1

Eh? Big Deal. The Gameboy Advance already HAS a Gameboy Color emulator in it...
Re:This is SWEET... by Breakfast+Pants · 2005-06-01 12:30 · Score: 1

They don't do it to stop piracy; at least that's not the main reason. They do it to prevent third parties from making games and not paying up to Sony for the priviledge. For instance when Sega used to have its systems require that games did a little unlock sequence that played the Sega logo do you think they did so to prevent piracy? Not whatsoever, if you were willing to break copyright law you would be willing to break trademark law. They did so simply to keep third parties paying massive royalties. The courts ruled that an invalid use of trademark law, and also with similar lockout systems an invalid use of copyright law. Lexmark tried the same thing with toner cartridges and the district court (though not yet, and perhaps never, the Supreme Court) relied heavily on these past rulings in rendering its decision. So what these companies have settled on is crytographic signing of the binaries.

This has certainly worked well for the console industry. Essentially trademark and copyright didn't work so instead they have gone the trade secret route, with the trade secret being their private key.

If you really think about it, crytographically signed binaries don't stop piracy at all--they are available on the disk, you can just bit for bit copy them. The only place it helps is that you can't make a homebrew launcher that ignores the other anti-piracy measures on the disk (if there weren't any then you could just do an exact copy of the DVD and bam you have the same crytographically signed game). Basically these anti-piracy measures just make the xbox game disc a nonstandard DVD that can't be completely copied over.

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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
Re:This is SWEET... by FireAndGlass · 2005-06-01 14:04 · Score: 1

...And it's still a Gameboy. Can you play PSP games on your gameboy? No.

Truly awesome by MikeDX · 2005-06-01 01:36 · Score: 1

The PSP is a fantastic machines that is showing to have some great promise. Once the version 1.5 has been unlocked so that everybody can utilise these emulators and homebrew apps I'll definitely have to buy a second memory card and fill it up with all my old favourite games. Stunned? yes I am.

Re:Truly awesome by Aero+Leviathan · 2005-06-01 05:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

This is the kind of thing I wish Sony would hear. They actually stand to profit from giving us what we want and opening up 1.5 to homebrew, via sales of memory cards and probably more systems, yet they don't!

Tycho of Penny Arcade had a little rant the other day that I thought was quite succinct. Here's an excerpt:

How would I distinguish the PSP from full platforms? Let me count the ways:

* Full platforms can play any audio type, or allow applications to do so. . . .

* Full platforms can play any type of video, or allow applications to do so, and these videos should be able to use the entire resolution of the screen. . . .

* Executable code

I'm willing to bend on this one if you give me the other two. But letting people expand the functionality and value of your hardware isn't some imaginary thing. People write whole browsers and operating systems and every other Goddamn contraption, just because it's there. They'll make your product the kind of phenomenon you couldn't pay someone to create.

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~ Aero

The advance of Technology. by the_xaqster · 2005-06-01 01:38 · Score: 1, Interesting

This really proves Moors Law. A handheld unit now has the ability to play the previous generation of console games, through an emulator layer!

I can remember when you needed a top of the range PC to play Doom. Now I can install it on my Phone.

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I'm just here to regulate Funkyness

Re:The advance of Technology. by JaF893 · 2005-06-01 01:50 · Score: 2, Informative

I assume you mean Moore's law. If you do then you are barking up the wrong tree:

"Moore's law is the empirical observation that at our rate of technological development, the complexity of an integrated circuit, with respect to minimum component cost will double in about 24 months." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore's_law
Re:The advance of Technology. by Vo0k · 2005-06-01 01:56 · Score: 1, Troll

But that's how the world works.
Word processor in memory protection overlay in GUI overlay in multitasking overlay in 32bit overlay in hicolor overlay in some more overlays and you get Word XP which is still basically a word processor and a good typist still can type faster than the computer can accept and output the characters to screen, despite the fact this one works on 4GHZ CPU, and the first one worked on a 4MHZ one.
Add more MIPS and programmers will add more overhead.

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Re:The advance of Technology. by the_xaqster · 2005-06-01 02:28 · Score: 1

Sorry, my bad on the spelling. I was using Moore's law in the more usual (mis)stated way, that computing power doubles roughly every 24 months.

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I'm just here to regulate Funkyness
Re:The advance of Technology. by lumpenprole · 2005-06-01 02:44 · Score: 1, Funny

I'm so sorry. That's "Moop's Law." That's what it says on the card.

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Disclaimer: MINAA (Mummy! I'm Not An Animal!)
Re:The advance of Technology. by Andy+Gardner · 2005-06-01 02:49 · Score: 1

And I thought my phone was the ultimate emulator. Series 60 phones can now emulate Gameboy, Nes, Genesis, Commodore 64 and Mame but I guess im going to have to throw it out now!
Re:The advance of Technology. by mrselfdestrukt · 2005-06-01 02:50 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Don't apologize to him! We all know what you meant. He just had to be a prick by pointing out that he could not understand it the way he read it.
So, don't apologize to that dumb fuck.You made a good point in your previous point.

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"I used to have that really cool,funny sig ,but it got stolen."
Re:The advance of Technology. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:04 · Score: 1, Funny

Word processor in memory protection overlay in GUI overlay in multitasking overlay in 32bit overlay in hicolor overlay in some more overlays and you get Word XP which is still basically a word processor and a good typist still can type faster than the computer can accept and output the characters to screen, despite the fact this one works on 4GHZ CPU, and the first one worked on a 4MHZ one.
Add more MIPS and programmers will add more overhead.

And you'll add more clauses to your goddamn sentence. Jesus fucking tits.
Re:The advance of Technology. by mzwaterski · 2005-06-01 03:13 · Score: 1

I'd like to see that typist. As fast as I can mash the keyboard the letters are appearing on my screen. Do I have a faster computer than everyone else?
Re:The advance of Technology. by Taladar · 2005-06-01 03:40 · Score: 1

I don't know about you but I can't type faster than emacs (or nano, or vi) can accept input. Maybe you are just using the wrong software.

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Linux is not Windows
Re:The advance of Technology. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:43 · Score: 0

My sincerest apology. It wasn't intentional.
Re:The advance of Technology. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:54 · Score: 0

No, you either don't use some kinds of Office (MS or OOo), or using it, have some (many) options unchecked in prefs. Happens especially often with thesaurus suggestion lookups during autosave. Inserting text near the beginning of a 60+ pages document (with fancy formatting - inline images, multicolumn, footnotes etc) is a real pain in the ass, sometimes it slows down to crawl trying to reformat the whole document every few keystrokes. It took good 15 seconds to re-render a page of equations on P4 3GHZ and 1MB RAM in OOo equation editor. And once it started, you weren't able to type anything. And of course traditional PC architecture issues. CD spin-up, failed floppy read/write, and no matter how fast your CPU is, you're down to crawl with everything.
Re:The advance of Technology. by mzwaterski · 2005-06-01 07:00 · Score: 1

Well, I'm using MS Office on a 512 MB P4 2.4 Ghz with spelling and thesauraus enabled. But I guess I'm using a small document, so I can see where that would be a problem. I guess I just won't write anything that long. :-)
Re:The advance of Technology. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 07:29 · Score: 0

The overreaction was intended as comic-spite, not actual spite. Think John Cleese AS Basil Fawlty, not Basil himself.
Re:The advance of Technology. by MilenCent · 2005-06-01 18:03 · Score: 1

"Previous generation" means PS1/N64. I think you mean the previous previous generation.

All these are for the 1.0 firmware only by CerebusUS · 2005-06-01 01:39 · Score: 2, Insightful

No one's cracked the 1.50 or the 1.51 firmware yet, so US PSP owners are still SOL.

Re:All these are for the 1.0 firmware only by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:30 · Score: 0

The encryption is supposedly 2048 bit, so you might have to wait a bit longer...
Re:All these are for the 1.0 firmware only by cosinezero · 2005-06-01 02:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

You're assuming the plan is to hack the encryption... likely the plan is to work around it. The japanese versions simply don't check for a digital signature; once the firmware or hardware is hacked to ignore the signature, it's game on.

What we realy want to know is... by PhilippeT · 2005-06-01 01:40 · Score: 0

When will it be able to emulate the PSP common you lazy modders.

:)

In all seriousness cool I was hoping the DS would get the same things but since Nintendo drooped the ball the DS is Dead.

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A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.

Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 01:50 · Score: 5, Informative

Nintendo dropped the ball??? Last I looked except for 2 weeks the DS has outsold the PSP every week since release, not to mention Nintendo has more games comming out for the DS than Sony has for the PSP.
Nintendo hardly dropped the ball on the DS.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 01:57 · Score: 0

From everything I've seen, Nintendo still seems very happy about the DS, besides the fact that the whole system only seems to be a test bed to them. They refered to it as either "Dual Screen" or "Developer System" at E3. It seems like they just loaded it with a bunch of random stuff and wanted to see what takes off, probably as a test for upcoming Game Boy releases.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by oskard · 2005-06-01 02:06 · Score: 1

Windows also outsells Linux in the category of Operating Systems...

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Sigs are for Terrorists.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Michalson · 2005-06-01 02:17 · Score: 1

Well according to what Nintendo announced long before the DS came out, it's a whole new product (like the VirtualBoy) - if successful (which it appears to be) they would hold off the release of a "GBA2" until 2007. If it flopped the "GBA2" would come out in 2006. The DS is really just another experiment by Nintendo to create new types of games. Shigeru Miyamoto and co don't seem to like the same game, incrementally better graphics that have taken over the industry (admit it, with few exceptions every single PS2 game is really just one of about 10 games, but with different graphics and sounds).
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:23 · Score: 0

Where are you getting this info? Because from where I look (the Magic Box), the PSP has outsold the DS every week its been out except for the last couple (when Nintendogs and the blue DS launched), and in the US, the PSP sold 971,000 units through the end of April while the DS sold about 550,000 from January 1st to the end of April (got those numbers from Gaming Age Forums, mostly).
Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 02:24 · Score: 1

Thats a very poor comparison to make though. Saying Nintendo dropped the ball on the DS simply because some geeks dont find it nearly as hackable as they expected, while others have found it to be greatly hackable and (gasp) unlike the PSP have actually managed to DO things with it like hack the 802.11 on it in the US since both the JP and US versions are the same.
So if we are going to say that anyone dropped the ball, its sony by making the US version different than the Japanese version.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by zoney_ie · 2005-06-01 02:25 · Score: 1

It remains to be seen whether Sony drop the ball or not, but for the time being, the two are selling reasonably neck and neck (despite Nintendo being in the lead) in a market in which previously Nintendo pretty much had it all!

Ideally Nintendo should have hung on to at least a big lead (60%, 70%, 80%?) despite not being 9X% anymore. But at the minute, they aren't.

If in Nintendo, I'd at least being chewing my nails, for the time being (like I said, if Sony screw up, the PSP sales could drop off).

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Re:What we realy want to know is... by xombo · 2005-06-01 02:26 · Score: 2, Informative

Either I live in a topsy turvey town or most market research is wrong.
PSP has outsold DS by a LONG-SHOT at my store since it came out.
XBoX has outsold PS2 by a LONG-SHOT at my store since we opened.
There are whole days where not a single game from the GameCube section leaves the floor.
There are whole weeks where not a single person touches the DS section.
But I must tell you, we get TONS of people shopping the PSP section.
It got so bad that we simply took our DS marketing off the wall and put it in a small display rack like how we display the GBA games. It's nothing impressive. The PSP takes up about as much store space as our GameCube section now.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 02:27 · Score: 2, Funny

try a real industry site.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/04/28/ds_psp_sal es/

The DS has sold twice as many as the PSP has even shipped.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 02:29 · Score: 1

Nintendo has hung into the lead, we are only counting DS here, Nintendo still sells the Advance, SP, and now a new mini one based on the Advanced platform is comming out. Likewise while games sales between the two have been neck and neck, advance game sales are well past either system.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by zoney_ie · 2005-06-01 02:59 · Score: 1

I think it's a question of that they've let Sony get a reasonably decent foothold (almost half of next-gen handhelds?)

Granted, that may not come to anything, but it just as easily could.

Looking at current sales of previous handheld + games merely reflects the past. Eventually people will move to the DS, or PSP. One would think if Nintendo had a truly better system, and did a decent job marketing presuming the DS is better than the PSP, then there should be a much bigger proportion of people buying DS rather than PSP!

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Re:What we realy want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:02 · Score: 0

YOUR store doesn't matter very much, it how many units the company sells. Those are tracked by INVESTORS.
Stupid post..
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:12 · Score: 0

I have no idea where these analysts are getting their information from.
I look at my game shelf and all I see are PS2 and GameCube games.
I look at my countertop and all I see are GameBoy Advance games.
It's quite clear from what I see that the Xbox and PSP don't even exist.

gawdammfugginmorons...
Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 03:13 · Score: 1

or much like the Virtual Gameboy, people are simply not interested in what either have to offer, especially since one has NO games, and the other shuns a lot of the backwards compatablilty that the advannce had.
Honestly while I love my DS, im playing more Advance games on it, and I am not happy that unless I hack my system, my much larger library of gameboy/color games is SOL. Thats just me, Im one of those gamers who looks at a good game not having to have the best graphics.

A lot of the new crop of gamers would play Shit Tosser 3000 as long as it had good graphics despite the gameplay being so buggy that pressing the right button may not give you the same result every time o_O. There are a lot of us those who would shun these games in favore of our older Gameboy greats, and you cant play those on a DS.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by sdhankin · 2005-06-01 04:05 · Score: 1

He said PSP outsold DS every month this year. Your dazzling response was to point to an article describing total sales since both units shipped, which is arguably irrelevant, since the DS shipped first.

His point stands: since the beginning of the year, PSP outsold DS, unless you have another link up your sleave...
Re:What we realy want to know is... by apoc06 · 2005-06-01 04:17 · Score: 1

honestly it doesnt matter which system outsells which. im happy that now that nintendo isnt the only company playing the portables game. what that means is i have options, i have developers and divisions of companies that realize that they have to work harder to keep me happy and loyal to their product as well. we are all winners, but the true winners are those that own both systems. as better and more better software is created, they get the cream of competition.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by bynary · 2005-06-01 05:08 · Score: 1

Ummm...Nintendo has hardly dropped the ball. If I've heard correctly, Nintendo has already sold 5 million + DS units worldwide since last November. That's pretty good. THey have also shipped about that many GB Advances/SPs in that same time frame. Nintendo is still undoubtedly the leader in handheld gaming. This is nowhere near the success that Sony had with the PS1. Whether you like it or not, Nintendo is still in the lead.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:What we realy want to know is... by bynary · 2005-06-01 05:13 · Score: 1

Look at it from another perspective: PS2 has outsold Xbox by a LONG-SHOT worldwide. DS has outsold PSP by a LONG-SHOT worldwide.

Yes, you must live in Topsey-Turvey town because obviously reality has not settled wherever it is that you live.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:What we realy want to know is... by bynary · 2005-06-01 05:16 · Score: 1

im happy that now that nintendo isnt the only company playing the portables game

Care to qualify that statement? Nintendo has never been the only company in the portable gaming market. Tiger has had handhelds for quite a bit longer than Nintendo. Remember the Wonderswan? NeoGeo Pocket? Sega Game Gear? Tapwave? N-Gage? The list goes on and on...

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:What we realy want to know is... by delicious · 2005-06-01 05:24 · Score: 2, Funny

(admit it, with few exceptions every single PS2 game is really just one of about 10 games, but with different graphics and sounds).

and story, and controls, and gameplay...

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8hop.com
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:26 · Score: 0

He said PSP outsold DS every month this year. Your dazzling response was to point to an article describing total sales since both units shipped, which is arguably irrelevant, since the DS shipped first.

His point stands: since the beginning of the year, PSP outsold DS, unless you have another link up your sleave...

And this everyone, is a great example of how you can lie with statistics.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by falcon5768 · 2005-06-01 06:19 · Score: 1

Actually I have quite a few since its only outsod the DS IN JAPAN.
Worldwide sales put the PSP way behind.

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"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Re:What we realy want to know is... by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 07:23 · Score: 1

Maybe I'm weird, but I don't want a DS just because the dual screens are just stupid. I'd rather have one, bigger screen (like the PSP), and I have yet to be convinced that the touching idea has any usefulness in gaming. I really think that strangeness turns off a lot more people than the lack of backwards compatability.

Of course, I also refuse to get a PSP -- despite how great the hardware is -- because it's made by evil Sony.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:What we realy want to know is... by KDR_11k · 2005-06-01 08:39 · Score: 1

The touch screen is simply a portable replacement for a mouse. If you can't see what a mouse contributes to gaming I can't help you.

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Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by Eric+S+Raymond · 2005-06-01 09:22 · Score: 1

Maybe the revolution will have a gb* emulator, let's hope so.

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Bypass Compulsory Web Registration -- http://bugmenot.com/
Re:What we realy want to know is... by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 14:33 · Score: 1

I don't buy that. I mean, I understand quite well what a mouse contributes to gaming -- my two favorite genres are FPS and RTS, and both of those suck without a mouse. However, I don't think the FPS experience would translate well to a touchscreen, and I don't think the RTS would translate well to a small screen.

The other possibility is a menu-driven strategy game, like DopeWars or something. That, I admit, works well enough on my Palm that I can see it working on the Nintendo DS. But frankly, I'd gladly trade away the ability to play that sort of game in order to get a bigger single screen like in the PSP.

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:What we realy want to know is... by apoc06 · 2005-06-03 02:50 · Score: 1

"im happy that now that nintendo isnt the only company playing the portables game". of course there are other companies; there have always been other companies fighting for mindshare of the portable market. im just saying that i am happy that there is finally a serious heavy-hitter in the market to compete with nintendo. the last time there was anyone that even stood a chance and had the power/hardware/ industry influence to go head to head with the gameboy was probably the gamegear.

sony has the backing of many other corporations and third party developers. i mean they are what? two minutes from making the mini-DVD format obsolete... until now nintendo could pretty much sit on its laurels and watch the gameboy cash cow bring in the dollars. do you think nintendo execs were worried for a minute when they heard that the n-gage or tapwave were coming to the market? now they have a solid opponent in the handheld market, so they have no choice but to create and innovate in order to stay competitive. honestly, how many gameboy titles were really, really quality? sure many were fun, but how many had the same level of polish that youd see for a first party console game? only a few come to mind. the GBA has plenty of solid titles, but now with the DS you can see a solid increase in their production effort. why? because they have a competitor that can stand on even ground and compete toe to toe, and i expect to see nintendo step up to the plate.

competition is good for us: the consumer.
Re:What we realy want to know is... by bynary · 2005-06-03 04:16 · Score: 1

i mean they are what? two minutes from making the mini-DVD format obsolete

Until (and most likely even after) Sony authorizes the release of a UMD burner, the mini-DVD will still see wide-spread use. Sure, Lik-Sang will have a UMD burner in the next few months, but I'm talking a legitimate, mass-market UMD burner that you can stick in a 5 1/4" slot on your PC. Sony might stop using mini-DVDs in their DV Camcorders, but that alone won't kill off the medium. Look how successful Memory Sticks, MiniDiscs, and Beta tapes have been. Who uses them? Sony. But that's it.

honestly, how many gameboy titles were really, really quality?

Replace gameboy with Playstation and/or PS2 and the sentence still works.

Yes, competition is good for the consumer. But last time I checked, the PSP and DS were targeted at different markets. That's not competition. That's co-existence.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:What we realy want to know is... by apoc06 · 2005-06-09 10:20 · Score: 1

right now. i believe that columbia is the company major motion picture studio that still supports mini-dvd [i might have the company wrong, but there is only one studio left; thats a fact]. as a writable media, we will all have to wait and see how far UMDs go, but the fact that they have been accepted as a medium faster than dvds were, and they are only playable in one medium [for the time being] really says alot.

if the psp fails as a gaming device [and once third party support starts to hit its stride, i dont foresee that happening], the psp is still a very, very viable movie player; that is unless apple can come up with an iMoviePlayer or something absurd. since the movie studios are even more paranoid about allowing downloads of their property, i dont see that happening either.

as for the quality titles comment, i meant that as with the playstation there are titles in every genre that appeal to everyone. not all, but many gameboy titles are just little sibling titles to console titles. looking at the upcoming lineup for PSP, you could say the same thing, but the fact is that overall the PSP will offer a more varied cross-section of genres.

competition is good, but you have to admit; both handhelds are aimed at the same markets. whenever the topic of handhelds come up, the inevitable comparison rears its head. DS vs PSP. "the psp didnt sell out, but the DS did". when they were still tentative devices, nintendo reps were talking it up against the psp. once the psp came out and stole alot of its 'ooh and ah' factor, the reps came out with the whole 'its not meant to compete with the psp' line. its just like whole: 'the ds is not a replacement for the gameboy line'. its corporate talk to make it seem like they have something better planned. the new gameboy will not come out for at least three years. they just came out with the ds, i respect nintendo more than to imagine that they would burn ds users by coming out with yet another system that quick. besides, if its not a replacement why would it be backwards compatible with the gameboy line? the same gameboy line which the psp is competing with...
Re:What we realy want to know is... by apoc06 · 2005-06-09 10:29 · Score: 1

geez, the psp is only available in North America and japan. the ds is available nearly everywhere.

regardless of whether the ds is outselling the psp, the psp still hasnt hit its stride yet. they are both great pieces of technology and will both have excellent games. i dont like the gimmick of using a stylus to play games, but thats a personal preference. now that the ds' killer app is out i expect it to outsell the psp. but once gta and gran turismo drop for psp, i expect the market to reverse.

by the way, am i the only person that thinks its an oxymoron that they refer to nintendogs as a 'killer app'? pure utter hilariousity!

Portable vs Console by Dan+East · 2005-06-01 01:40 · Score: 1

While it may be the "portable console" with the most emulators, Pocket PCs easily surpass it - if we're talking about hardware with a similar form-factor.

Dan East

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Better known as 318230.

Re:Portable vs Console by Serapth · 2005-06-01 01:55 · Score: 4, Insightful

Yes, but the Pocket PC video chipsets are pure arse compared. I have a HP3950 iPaq ( 400 mhz arm 64 ram ), and it cant run MAME or any other emulators worth a damn. I also have a PSP, and from what ive seen sofar, it will easily be capable of running most older emu's ( SNes, gameboy, earlier mame, etc... ). You really cant compare the two devices, they have different purposes. When it comes to graphics and sound, the PSP blows the PPC out of the water.

But thats not the worst part. The controls for a Pocket PC are absolutely horrid for gaming! First off, the placement sucks... and secondly most units cant support multiple button presses concurrently.

In summary, when it comes to gaming you just cant compare the two devices. The PSP way out performs the PPC, but it damn well better, seeing as it was designed for gaming. That said, it rather sucks at reading Excel spreadsheets :)
Re:Portable vs Console by NitroWolf · 2005-06-01 02:25 · Score: 1

Yes, but the Pocket PC video chipsets are pure arse compared. I have a HP3950 iPaq ( 400 mhz arm 64 ram ), and it cant run MAME or any other emulators worth a damn

I don't know what other emulators you are referring to, but in the case of MAME, it's not because of the video chipset in your iPaq, it's because MAME emulates the video hardware, or at the best of times, does not take advantage of the abilities of any video chipset in a given machine. That's why you need such a beefy processor to run simple stuff that would be trivial if programmed in today's methods. All the video processing is done on the CPU, not the GPU.

If MAME were to be rewritten for the PPC and specifically targeted at that video chipset, it would fly... but it's meant to be portable (MAME) and to be compiled on many different systems, as well as providing absolute true emulation of old hardware, and thus *EVERYTHING* is handled by the CPU since it's basically creating a virtual machine. That's why MAME runs so crappy on a PPC, not because the GPU sucks.
Re:Portable vs Console by lusid1 · 2005-06-01 02:52 · Score: 1

I have to agree with you Dan. While I'd love to get some emulators running on my PSP, they already run great on my clunky old Ipaq 2200. Add in the ports, and its a retrogamers dream toy. Major props to you for your contributions on that front, btw.

With gigs of storage, and extra inexpensive CF & SD cards, it's also a great multimedia device. I use my Ipaq as a voice controlled MP3 jukebox on my commute and keep movies and TV shows to watch when I find unexpected downtime.

The PSP on the other hand, while it's a great device with incredible potential, will never be the ultra-cool multimedia/gaming device it should be. Not only is Sony intent on crippling it from running homebrew, its lack of storage absolutely kills any potential as a multimedia device. Thier determination with pushing memorystick patents is mind boggling, and their insistance on keeping UMD writers off the market blows the only other option for storing media files.

Sony really just wants it to be the next gameboy. They lack ambition, vision, and the willingness to let the PSP market develop to its full potential.
Re:Portable vs Console by taskforce · 2005-06-01 02:52 · Score: 1

The pocket PC does have the disadvantage of not having any controls apart from the stylus, although I concur that it's programming environment is definately easier to work with as everything doesn't have to be hacked before it can be used.

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My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Re:Portable vs Console by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:05 · Score: 0

the tapwave zodiac also runs snes, game boy/color, sega, and a few other systems pretty well. plus it has a control layout that is suited for gaming. while it is surpassed now by a lot of the up and coming ppc's, i want to see what they are offering in their next system.
Re:Portable vs Console by vasqzr · 2005-06-01 03:29 · Score: 1

I had a Dell Axim 3 or something, I played SNES/Mame/NES games on it without a hitch. The buttons sucked but other than that it worked fine. Even SuperFX games like Starfox.
Re:Portable vs Console by glesga_kiss · 2005-06-01 03:48 · Score: 1

The pocket PC does have the disadvantage of not having any controls apart from the stylus
Depends on the device in question. Mine has 10 customisable buttons and a 8-way d-pad. More than enough for any emulated system, 'cept maybe the C64/Sinclair ones, but I've got a qwerty slide-out keyboard for them!
Re:Portable vs Console by Spluge · 2005-06-01 04:14 · Score: 1

Minor nitpick correction: 400MHz xscale not 400MHz Arm. The xscale is an Arm 9 compatible part, same instruction set but they added a couple more pipeline stages. This means it will clock faster than a true arm 9 but averages a significantly lower throughput per clock cycle. In other words standard Intel desgin for marketing.
Re:Portable vs Console by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:12 · Score: 0

The PSP is 222 MHz - slower than the PS2 (which is 294). Yes, Sony advertises 333, but it's a lie - ask any registered developer. As a result, it's gonna suck ass on any non-trivial emulator.
Re:Portable vs Console by Dan+East · 2005-06-01 07:09 · Score: 1

I think your post is greatly over-rated because it is quite inaccurate.

it cant run MAME or any other emulators worth a damn.

Many, many emulators run at full speed on Pocket PC. Sega Genesis, and even Playstation 1 emulators run extremely well. Like anything else, if you try a specific emulator that is not well optimized for the platform then performance will be sub-par. For most all emulated platforms there are at least a few different emulator ports, and of course the performance varies greatly from one to another.

When it comes to graphics and sound, the PSP blows the PPC out of the water.

New Pocket PCs are already on the market with 3D hardware supporting OpenGL ES. As far as sound, I'm not quite sure how the PSP is better. Perhaps you mean it is louder than the particular Pocket PC you own?

I agree with the controls, although again some models are better than others. The model Pocket PC you select should reflect what you intend on using it for. Thus models with particularly bad button layouts should (can) be avoided if you are a gamer.

Regarding pressing multiple button at once, claiming that "most" units do not support multiple button presses is absolutely wrong. The very first ARM Pocket PC released 5 years ago - the iPaq 36xx - had that issue. I believe one other model besides has it as well. That is two models out of hundreds.

Dan East

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Better known as 318230.
Re:Portable vs Console by snuf23 · 2005-06-01 11:54 · Score: 1

The video chipset doesn't have much to with emulating 8 and 16 bit 2D console games. Mostly the emulators are CPU drive. I don't know why your model has so many problems with emulators, my Asus A716 runs Atari 2600, Gameboy Color, NES, Game Gear, Sega Master System, Commodore 64, and TurboGraphix games perfectly. SNES is playable, MAME supports older games (early to mid 80s stuff fine). The Genesis emulator I have doesn't work too good, and my PocketPC is not fast enough for Gameboy Advance.
Definately the screen and button layout on the PSP are better. I chose the Asus model because the button layout wasn't bad for gaming, especially with 8 bit systems that usually only had 2 active in game buttons. The "dpad" is also much more normal than the oddly shaped mutant things that are used on some devices.
If/when there is a way to load homebrew on software on the newer American PSP models - I will certainly consider getting one. I've been in search of the perfect emulation handheld for ages. Let's all just keep in mind that this PSP hack isn't something every PSP user can use and also that PSP homebrew is in it's infancy. It'll only get better from here. Until it does, my PocketPC will suit me just fine.

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Sometimes my arms bend back.
Re:Portable vs Console by apoc06 · 2005-06-03 04:42 · Score: 1

dude, its just underclocked. its capable of 333mhz, but games and development etc is limited to only 222mhz. its a limitation of the firmware/ dev kits. a sony tactic in its purest form. once the battery life reaches a suitable stage, sony will unlock the hardware.

but since we are talking about the mod community, its only a matter of time before they learn to unlock the cpu speed themselves since its not a hardware limitation.

PIM Suite? by macemoneta · 2005-06-01 01:40 · Score: 3, Interesting

Has anyone ported a PIM (Personal Information Management) suite and user interface (like Opie) to it yet (or are there any projects in progress)? That would make the PSP attractive as a PDA as well.

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Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

Re:PIM Suite? by bazio · 2005-06-01 01:44 · Score: 4, Informative

Don't know if the software has been ported or not, but the PSP wouldn't really be a very attractive PDA option, since it has no touch screen.

--
Set the bar high, then bring a tall ladder.
Re:PIM Suite? by jwdb · 2005-06-01 02:03 · Score: 1

You kidding me? The PSP would be a wonderful PDA!

Think about it - as soon as it becomes known that there is decent PIM software for the PSP, it becomes an acceptable tool in the business world. Install those emulators and a few games and you'll never have a boring meeting again, and the great thing is that no one will notice!

They'll all think you're rearranging your calendar or taking notes while you merrily bounce your way from koopa to koopa.

;)

Jw
Re:PIM Suite? by macemoneta · 2005-06-01 02:05 · Score: 1

I currently have a Tungsten C, which has both a touch screen and a keyboard. I find that I use the "Navigator" (4 directional rocker and center select button) more and more, instead of the touch screen. It's faster than getting out the stylus. The PSP has a similar set of directional and selection buttons, and it would be more than adequate as a PDA. You would probably want to do your data entry on a PC though.

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Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Re:PIM Suite? by cosinezero · 2005-06-01 02:12 · Score: 1

True enough, but Sony demo'd a keyboard for it at E3... I hate the touch screen aspect of PDA's anyways. Once sony releases the keyboard w/ web/email support, that thing is going to be an ipod killer.
Re:PIM Suite? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:14 · Score: 0

Just a question but what do you use for input. A PIM suite requires and EASY way to input data.
Re:PIM Suite? by Total_Wimp · 2005-06-01 02:19 · Score: 1

Size matters too. I don't use the PSP as an MP3 player very much just because it's too darn big.

It's a great game machine and has a good size screen for watching movies in an airplain or car, but there's just no practical way to carry it around all the time like a PDA for instant access.
Re:PIM Suite? by bazio · 2005-06-01 03:03 · Score: 1

Yes, it would become acceptable to carry the PSP at work in that case. However, that is entirely dependent on the fact that there is decent PIM software for it becoming general knowledge, outside of the geek sector. Even then, I'd still prefer a traditional PDA. I can't see myself using a D-pad (or a keyboard either, for that matter) to select a date from a calendar, which is muy importante in PIM software.

Don't get me wrong, I love my PSP, but I don't think it will ever replace my PDA. Especially since everyone at work already figures I'm playing games on my PDA, what would they think if I whipped out the PSP?

--
Set the bar high, then bring a tall ladder.
Re:PIM Suite? by NanoGator · 2005-06-01 03:35 · Score: 1

"Think about it"

I have, and I get hung up on the D-pad for input.

"They'll all think you're rearranging your calendar or taking notes while you merrily bounce your way from koopa to koopa."

You'll never bounce from koopa to koopa on the PSP. The DS, however, would make you happy in both cases.

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:PIM Suite? by jwdb · 2005-06-01 03:57 · Score: 1

It doesn't actually have to be usable, it just has to be plausible.

As for no koopas, you missed the point the article, namely the part about the snes and gameboy emulators for the psp...

Jw
Re:PIM Suite? by bynary · 2005-06-01 04:19 · Score: 1

Did I miss something? If you think adding a keyboard, email, and web support to the PSP is going to make it an iPod killer you are sorely mistaken. That might be what you want, but that's obviously not what people who buy iPods want. You're argument is ignoring logic. Last time I checked, the appeal of the iPod wasn't that it did everything and then some. It's appeal lies in the fact that it does one thing (two on the iPod photo) - play music - and it does so very well. You can also get one with a 60GB hard drive. I'm not aware of any 60GB Memory Sticks.

Just say what you want to say, "I don't want to buy an iPod because I don't like it. But that makes me feel unappreciated because people don't like what I like. I hate that the iPod is so popular. I love my PSP. It makes me happy and I want what makes me happy to make everyone happy because then I will be popular too."

You are obviously not part of the target market for both iPods and PDAs.

...or is "ipod killer" the new slang term to replace "the cat's meow"?

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:PIM Suite? by Zigg · 2005-06-01 05:15 · Score: 1

And the point of a PDA incapable of data entry is...?

FWIW, I think the DS would make a pretty poor PDA as well, just not as poor as a game machine would. Primarily due to the fact that if you weren't already sleeping with the PDA software in the card slot, you'd have a lot to go through just to check a calendar.
Re:PIM Suite? by macemoneta · 2005-06-01 06:18 · Score: 2, Insightful

And the point of a PDA incapable of data entry is...?
It keeps your schedule, documents, contact list, and to-do items with you in a portable manner. I rarely do data entry on the PDA itself. Other than checking off items or acknowledging reminders - which don't require a touch screen or keyboard - the bulk of the data entry occurs on my desktop/laptop. Some small amount of data entry could be performed with an on-screen keyboard and the two directional/select pads on the PSP. Heck, if you can put your name in the high-scores list on an arcade machine without a keyboard or touch screen, this shouldn't be a problem. Certainly more than enough to record a name and number, or schedule an appointment, for example.

--
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
Re:PIM Suite? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:45 · Score: 0

I don't find it that bad. Cargo pants exist for a reason.
Re:PIM Suite? by phaetonic · 2005-06-01 09:45 · Score: 1

I would assume so. iPod's can do this (at least my mini) by copying contacts and writing memos in a text editor, then copying them to the iPod via the transfer cable.
Re:PIM Suite? by arron_nz · 2005-06-01 19:57 · Score: 1

The iPod doesn't have a touch screen either, but it turned out pretty well as a personal organiser.

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garble

Whats wrong... by timtwobuck · 2005-06-01 01:41 · Score: 2, Insightful

Next step, GBA games.

That would seal the deal for me, and probably many others.

I think that it isn't outside of reason, its touted that the GBA is just as powerful as the SNES, so the hardware requirements apparently are close to being met....

Re:Whats wrong... by Jonny_eh · 2005-06-01 01:58 · Score: 1

If the SNES emulator can get to full speed, do not expect the GBA. Just from experience on the PC, the GBA emulators required at least a P2 500 Mhz (if I remember correctly) and the SNES emualtors required a P100.

Although, this may be because the SNES emulators were highly optimized and were partly done in assembly.
Re:Whats wrong... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:37 · Score: 0

SNES has a 3,58 MHz 16-bits 65c816 CPU, while a GBA has a 16,7 MHz 32-bits ARM processor. Perhaps there will be a GBA emulator on the PSP, but a SNES emulator on the PSP doesn't automatically make a GBA emulator instantly viable.
Re:Whats wrong... by kerrle · 2005-06-01 02:41 · Score: 1

The GBA is actually considerably more powerful than the SNES - it's by no means certain that GBA emulation is possible. They have a similar feature set in some respects, which is probably why so many people seem to think the GBA is basically just an SNES in portable form.
Re:Whats wrong... by Threni · 2005-06-01 03:29 · Score: 1

> The GBA is actually considerably more powerful than the SNES

The PSP is considerably more powerful than the GBA. Which aspect of GBA emulation do you think the PSP would have trouble with?
Re:Whats wrong... by kerrle · 2005-06-01 03:47 · Score: 1

Honestly?
I'm not sure it's fast enough to emulate the ARM7 at full speed. I'm not saying it can't be done - just that the specs don't suggest it is to me.
Re:Whats wrong... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:25 · Score: 0

Um, no. The SNES ran off a 4MHz primitive sort-of-we-hacked-together-a-16-bit CPU. The GBA runs off a 16MHz full RISC 32-bit ARM7. The GBA has more colors, more sprites, more graphics modes and effects, and bigger game carts.
Re:Whats wrong... by runlvl0 · 2005-06-01 11:59 · Score: 1

Next step, GBA games.

Actual next step - PSP games.

Of course, I'm just speaking from the perspective of someone whose PSP has turned into a carrying case for the Lumines UMD.

Yup, I paid $300 for... Tetris.

D'oh!

--

Carthago delenda est!
Re:Whats wrong... by snuf23 · 2005-06-01 12:00 · Score: 1

The GBA is more complicated than the SNES - but the reason you were able to run SNES games on those old Pentium 100s was because the early emulator ZSNES was written in assembly language. This also made the emulator pretty much impossible to port to other architectures. SNES9x is a more "normal" emulator, but runs much slower (although at 100% on any even reasonably modern CPU).

--
Sometimes my arms bend back.

Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by Mean_Nishka · 2005-06-01 01:41 · Score: 5, Interesting

I will add my voice to the choir on homebrew software.. I bought a PSP at launch and haven't picked it up in weeks.. There's simply no decent software out for this thing, with very little on the horizon.

Sony would be wise to open the machine up - it'll drive hardware sales certainly more than UMD movies will. Existing homebrew apps like PSPVideo 9 are probably driving more sales than software :).

--
www.lonseidman.com

Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 01:51 · Score: 1, Informative

Its not the hardware sales that they make profit on, or at least hardware of the console itself. They make profit on 1) The games/software sales, 2) accessories. The "licencing fee" to write software, or create an accessory, is what makes it a workable business model while selling the main unit at cost or even with a loss.

So they really have no incentive to "open up" the platform.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by Mean_Nishka · 2005-06-01 01:54 · Score: 1

I disagree.. They have to sell hardware to sell software. Nobody's going to buy the profit-driving components of the business if there's not a decent hardware base. Just look what happened with the 3DO.

--
www.lonseidman.com
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by LWATCDR · 2005-06-01 01:59 · Score: 2, Interesting

What would make more sense for Sony would be to get sega to make a commercial version of the emulator for the PSP. The question then would be... How many people would pay for the games.

--
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by portwojc · 2005-06-01 02:04 · Score: 1

No decent software? Obviously you haven't played Lumines or Hot Shots Golf. They are putting out good games of course you get a lot of junk too but those two are definite winners.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by maniac/dev/null · 2005-06-01 02:22 · Score: 2, Informative

Currently, you can run unsigned code on any DS (reguardless of region or firmware version) with a small piece of hardware that inserts into the DS card slot and a GBA flash cart. You can even run the DS Downloadable demos (like they had at the kiosks at E3) with only a combatible wifi card for your PC. If you want a homebrew-able machine, buy a DS.

I haven't played many of my commercial DS games in a while, but I play homebrew or E3 demos almost every day still.

PS: I really hope they release an English version of Trauma Center. Or maybe I'll just learn Japanese...
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by kerrle · 2005-06-01 02:50 · Score: 1

The above poster is correct, and emulation is also coming along. Gameboy and GBC emulation is already working, though with some speed increases needed for GBC. Other emulators are also coming along, though not every author is being that public yet.
One thing that is worth pointing out, I think - most of the PSP emulators are ports of open source emulators - SNES9X, etc.

There's nothing wrong with this, but most of the DS emulation projects seem to be written from the ground up for the DS - like I said, both are certainly fine, but my guess would be that DS emulators, when done, will be better optimized and designed to fit the system.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by poot_rootbeer · 2005-06-01 03:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

Sony would be wise to open the machine up - it'll drive hardware sales certainly more than UMD movies will.

If the PSP is anything like the PSX, PS2, and presumably PS3, Sony doesn't WANT to drive hardware sales -- unless sales of game and movie media are driven at least equally as hard. The hardware is the razor, they make their money from selling blades.

Let's keep the attractiveness of emulation on PSP in perspective, too; out beyond Slashdot, very few people actually have enough interest in homebrew projects. More people buy PSP's thinking "hey, I can watch Spider-Man on the airplane" than "hey, I bet if someone manages to hack the firmware this thing would make a sweet Gameboy emulator"...
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:56 · Score: 0

I played Hot Shots Golf. Three years ago. On the PS2. And that was Hot Shots Golf 3 (import)!

Lumines is great and all. But Tetris was so 1989. I can get that shit on my laser printer now.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by rackhamh · 2005-06-01 09:00 · Score: 1

Last I checked, you need a razor to put the blades onto.

Just a thought.
Re:Hopefully Homebrew Will Run Soon.. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 11:00 · Score: 0

That's why he said "unless sales of game and movie media are driven at least equally as hard.". You don't want to sell razors to people who aren't going to buy blades if you're losing money on the razors.

Sega Handheld by SpectreBlofeld · 2005-06-01 01:42 · Score: 1

Looking at these pictures remind me of how advanced the Sega handheld seemed for its time. Beautiful full-color screen and rich sound, while the Gameboy lagged behind with its black and white screen and one tiny speaker for years. Remember the TV tuner cartridge you could buy to turn it into a handheld television?

Re:Sega Handheld by tkavanaugh · 2005-06-01 01:51 · Score: 1

I had game gear, still do infact, it was awesome, too bad it was so expensive in comparison to game boy, which i never owned... I was the envy of most of my gameboy touting friends in the 5th grade!
Re:Sega Handheld by kerrle · 2005-06-01 02:54 · Score: 1

I still have a Gamegear (actually, still own one of most of the portables, TurboExpress included).
The screen may have seemed good compared to the Gameboy, but try it today - it's incredibly blurry. Sonic is essentially unplayable.

The TurboExpress was better, but neither of them compare to the screens on a DS or PSP - or even a GBA SP, really.

And of course, the battery life on both of them sucks.
Re:Sega Handheld by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 07:16 · Score: 1

I have a Game Gear. It's great to play on compared to anything less than a Game Boy Advance SP (and despite being 10(?) years old, it still beats PDAs and iPods). However, I hardly ever actually used it because it was so big and sucked so much power. My friends who had Game Boys could stuff it in their pockets, but between the unit itself, a game or two, and extra batteries I would have to carry basically a friggin' purse (except that it's nylon and has "Game Gear" written on it) just to play. It only ended up getting used in the car during road trips, because I could use the car power adapter.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

PSP & Chinese Military Computers by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 01:42 · Score: 1, Funny

The PSP is a powerful compute engine, and exporting it to China should be banned. The Chinese military could use it as the basis of the next-generation supercomputers. Beijing is engaged in an aggressive attempt to modernize its military infrastructure, and supercomputers are central to it

Re:PSP & Chinese Military Computers by lanswitch · 2005-06-01 02:09 · Score: 0

One word: Lenovo.

So... by zr-rifle · 2005-06-01 01:43 · Score: 1, Funny

So when is the Nintendo DS emulator coming out for the PSP?

--
Hack your mind out of its sandbox.

Re:So... by Billy+the+Impaler · 2005-06-01 01:49 · Score: 0

It will never be able to emulate the DS seeing as the DS has imput from not just the digital buttons but from the touch-screen. I imagine a resourceful programmer could get the PSP to show one screen or the other from the DS but as long as the Nintendo retains its novel control system, emulation is difficult. Now if you tried it on a PDA...
Re:So... by zephc · 2005-06-01 01:50 · Score: 1

I think Nintendo would shit a brick if there was a DS emulator for the PSP. Why ever even buying anything (portable) other than a PSP after that?

--
"I would say that 99 per cent of what my father has written about his own life is false." - L. Ron Hubbard Jr.
Re:So... by ceeam · 2005-06-01 01:52 · Score: 1

When PSP gets DS (dual screen). I.e. - never.
Re:So... by tuffy · 2005-06-01 01:57 · Score: 1

Why ever even buying anything (portable) other than a PSP after that?

Just about anything else portable has better battery life.

--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Re:So... by Markus+Persson · 2005-06-01 02:08 · Score: 0

And don't forget about the touch screen.

--
If the cat can't experience its own death, nothing will ever kill you. (No, really!)
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:23 · Score: 0

PSPs screen is large enough to fit both DS's screens on it. Add a USB mouse and voila, the touch screen
Re:So... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:47 · Score: 0

Just about anything else portable has better battery life.
Nope, far frome it. For one, all portables that do last longer, are weaker and less capable.
Re:So... by pecko666 · 2005-06-01 02:48 · Score: 1

And when PS gets a little longer batery life then 3 hours :-) Ok, maybe 5, if you only listen to mp3, and have your display turned off. But compared to 10 hours of DS batery life .. Its realy incomparable.
Re:So... by ivan256 · 2005-06-01 02:51 · Score: 1

I keep hearing all this bad stuff about the PSP's battery life, but I got one as a gift this weekend, and I played Hot Shots golf and Lumines for four and a half hours on Monday and there was still some battery life left.

Plus the thing charges in about 40 minutes. What's the problem here?
Re:So... by cowscows · 2005-06-01 02:51 · Score: 1

There's two problems here though. Number one, the DS has two screens. Maybe the PSP could fake that convincingly enough. But number two, the DS has a touch screen. That's a tough piece of hardware to emulate. If someone figures out how to implement that purely in software is a damn genius, and deserves gazillions of dollars.

--
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Re:So... by cowscows · 2005-06-01 02:56 · Score: 1

Well, I think for what it's capable of, the PSP battery life sounds reasonable. But there's also plenty of people for whom four and a half hours would end up being a little short. I went to the beach a couple months ago. five hour ride each way, my DS being used basically the whole drive. the 10hours+ battery life came in handy because sometimes things get hectic and busy and I forget my charger.

I guess the point is, I generally only remember to charge my portable when the battery dies. So having it die less is nice. Not trying to poop on the PSP, just saying that more battery life is definitely a good thing.

--
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Re:So... by grumbel · 2005-06-01 03:01 · Score: 1

On the PC thats relativly easy to emulate, either with the mouse or with games where the touchscreen is used as 'button pad' you could simply bind different click-positions to a key. On the PSP you could try the same by using its Analog-stick, it probally would never really be as confortable as on a real DS, but its not impossible and might work well enough for some games. If the PSP is actually fast enough to emulate a DS is of course a whole different story.
Re:So... by tuffy · 2005-06-01 03:03 · Score: 1

For one, all portables that do last longer, are weaker and less capable.

If you're using a PSP to emulate a GBA (or some other portable), what do you gain in exchange for 7 less hours of battery life? It hardly seems worth the effort to do away with one already inexpensive gadget.

--
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Re:So... by p4ul13 · 2005-06-01 03:07 · Score: 0

humor - (hyoomr)
n.

1. The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness: could not see the humor of the situation.
2. That which is intended to induce laughter or amusement: a writer skilled at crafting humor.
3. The ability to perceive, enjoy, or express what is amusing, comical, incongruous, or absurd. See Synonyms at wit1.

--
Paul Lenhart writes words!
Re:So... by cowscows · 2005-06-01 03:10 · Score: 1

well, yeah, you could certainly create a layer interface that the user interacted with, and which then interfaced with the DS code and made it think it was a touch screen. But in terms of the user experience, it's very different. So in my mind, that doesn't really count.

At a really basic level, you can emulate just about any computer/console with any other if you took enough time to do it. Isn't that one of the laws of Turing Complete machines or something? Basically since when you boil it down, all computers are just crunching ones and zeros, any one can feasibly do what any other can, given enough time. (I don't really know what I'm talking about, just trying to remember random stuff that I've read)

It just might not run fast enough/have the correct input/output to do it in a way that an end user would find at all acceptable. So what's the point then? Maybe just the geek factor, but with games it isn't terribly useful.

--
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Re:So... by NanoGator · 2005-06-01 03:42 · Score: 1

" Why ever even buying anything (portable) other than a PSP after that?"

Oh, I dunno, maybe because most of the games wouldn't be worthwhile since the PSP has no touch screen?

--
"Derp de derp."
Re:So... by kesuki · 2005-06-01 09:10 · Score: 1

If someone figures out how to implement that purely in software is a damn genius, and deserves gazillions of dollars.
http://dualis.1emulation.com/

I'd like a 10% finders fee you can forward the remainder of the gazillion dollars to the guy who wrote the DS emulator thx.

(albeit it's for PC, not for psp...)

--
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Re:So... by toddestan · 2005-06-01 10:09 · Score: 1

When PSP gets DS (dual screen). I.e. - never.

C'mon! Just use two PSP's!

Just say MAME... by bbzzdd · 2005-06-01 01:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

...and I am sold. I'd love to lay in bed playing the Capcom classics on the PSP. I can do it now on the PC and modded Xbox, but the portable angle would be killer.

Re:Just say MAME... by aurelian · 2005-06-01 02:04 · Score: 1, Funny

I'd love to lay in bed playing the Capcom classics on the PSP

Ok, just keep it to yourself; everyone does it but no-one wants to hear about it.
Re:Just say MAME... by Foolomon · 2005-06-01 02:40 · Score: 0

I'd rather lay in bed with twin blondes, but call me a Contrarian.

The PSP by Council · 2005-06-01 01:46 · Score: 1, Funny

Also contains a full-featured PSP emulator.

--
xkcd.com - a webcomic of mathematics, love, and language.

Re:The PSP by Vo0k · 2005-06-01 01:49 · Score: 1

What about PS1?
I think it would be fabulous...except, where would you insert the CDs?

--
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Re:The PSP by Aldric · 2005-06-01 01:55 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Not a question you want to ask on slashdot...
Re:The PSP by Yaotzin · 2005-06-01 03:01 · Score: 1

Hardware modding.

--
Error: No error occurred

Re:Living under the law by CastrTroy · 2005-06-01 01:49 · Score: 2, Interesting

That's why I don't really get why platforms like Palm don't catch on more. With anybody being able to create and load programs on them, its suprising they don't get more attention. I think they could just as easily create all these emulators for Palm, and not have to worry about being sued. I realize that PSP has a better interface, but couldn't they make something like a keyboard attachment that has a game pad and 4 or 5 buttons?

--

Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.

Re:Living under the law by MoonBuggy · 2005-06-01 01:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

Y'know there's nothing wrong with media-shifting games that you own. I've seen plenty of collections of old games lying around people's houses, if they own the game but want to play it on the train it's just a little more practical to use a ROM dump on a PSP than bring along a console, TV and bag of cartridges.

On the other side of the coin, if I wanted to play Sonic 3 on my PSP (since it's one of my favourite games) I'd be quite happy to pay a few £ on eBay for an original cartridge so I'm then completely legit in downloading a ROM of that cartridge and running it under emulation.

C-64 Emulation by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 01:55 · Score: 0

If they can get C64 and/or Mame to run on it then I'll want one too. Even if Mame only plays 80's era video games.

Yeah but, by MrCopilot · 2005-06-01 01:56 · Score: 1

Can it play playstation games? Wait, that's stupid.

or Run Linux?

PSPLinux http://www.psp-linux.org/
No not yet.

--
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games

In other news... by quickbasicguru · 2005-06-01 01:59 · Score: 0, Flamebait

The DS Linux team is appears to be way ahead of the PSP Linux team.

At least the DS users are doing something useful...

Re:In other news... by DeVryGuy23 · 2005-06-01 02:12 · Score: 1

The DS has been out a good while longer than the PSP also.

--
Butthead Vendor
Re:In other news... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:37 · Score: 0

>> The DS has been out a good while longer than the PSP also.

Yeah. A whole 21 days.
Re:In other news... by Grey+Ninja · 2005-06-01 03:52 · Score: 1

PSP users are just trying to get some games worth playing. ;) I mean, DS users have the GBA library to play, so there's no real shortage. There's a HUGE shortage of worthwhile games to play on a PSP, meaning that other systems must be pirated in order to get anything worthwhile.
Re:In other news... by Zigg · 2005-06-01 05:24 · Score: 1

The DS has been out a good while longer than the PSP also.

Yeah. A whole 21 days.

Heh, not to mention the DS titles we do have now have been in development for what, half the time of the PSP titles?

No wonder Sony didn't even mention its existence at E3 -- is there anything even coming worth talking about?

Re:Of course legally... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 01:59 · Score: 0

There's not? So, if I have a GB/GBA cart and a dumper, I can't dump it myself? Since when? There's no encryption or access control, so the DMCA means nothing.

Things they left out. by Rirath.com · 2005-06-01 02:00 · Score: 4, Informative

They left out NES, TG16 / PC Engine, and the fact that so far, it's only 1.0. They also didn't mention that there's an up and coming emulator called PSPE that can run PSP some homebrew on your PC. No, it can't run PSP games... but it's interesting for devs and just playing around in general, and rather nice to have this early on.

As much as I support PSP homebrew and emulation, it's premature to say it's "the ultimate in handheld emulation consoles". Many of these emus work at good speed, and many have sound, but it's still very early in the game. This is just ASKING for flames from the DS and GBA fans, not to mention the POCKET PC which can play everything from the Atari, NES, SNES, TG16, Amiga, C64, and etc including SONY PLAYSTATION.

As for when us 1.5 folks will see homebrew... "soon", if you believe the rumors Several teams are hard at work on it, and the team Dynarox recently announced "In a really near future, a loader will be released to make games work via the memory card.", so far, no reason has been given to disbelieve them. This loader will probably be in the form of a bios replacement.

And to answer all the silly questions that are bound to pop up: No, you can't do anything right now. No, you can't downgrade your firmware by any currently known methods. And yes, odds are that "backups" and "emulation" will go hand and hand when this is finally cracked. -- No, this did not kill the Dreamcast, and No, it won't kill the PSP either. -- Proof: It's easy as heck to convert video from your DVDs to MP4 and store on a memory card, but UMD Videos are already a commerical success.

Re:Things they left out. by ripnet · 2005-06-01 02:13 · Score: 1

Dynarocks are a bunch of BS. They dont have any hacking ability - they just used a tool leaked from Paradogs (who actually worked out how to rip UMDs) to rip some US images... I dont believe for a second that they will have a exploit to run on 1.5/1.51 machines... Paradogs on the other hand, maybe :)
Re:Things they left out. by Rirath.com · 2005-06-01 02:24 · Score: 1

Paradogs? The name is Paradox, far as I know.

PS2NFO:
Basically here's a little behind-the-scene "what happened"... the GODS @ PDX gave the WipeOut (USA) release guy their dumper to do the dump as being Euro-based they didn't have access to any USA titles, and unfortunately he leaked it to a friend who (with or without his permission) did the other dumps under Dynarox to gain access to the benefits intended only for REAL sceners.

This does not mean Dynarox is a bunch of nobodies, nor should you assume they're the only ones working on it. There's several, as Team Xecuter recently mentioned:

"We are giving support and advice to other underground teams as well as receiving help ourelves - its an excellent "group" effort without anyone actually knowing about who or what is involved."

Note that like many Slashdotters, I'm waiting on homebrew. But like I said in the other post, these two things will go hand and hand.
Re:Things they left out. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:52 · Score: 0

Paradogs? The name is Paradox, far as I know.

Google for their website sometime. Go on, give it a try.

Here, I'll help.

http://www.paradogs.com/
Re:Things they left out. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:43 · Score: 0

Yeah, and if you actually read that website, the contents are filled with references to "Paradox", with the only mention of "Paradogs" being the URL.

PDX has been around for years and years, they're not new to the scene.
Re:Things they left out. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 07:56 · Score: 0

Yeah, and if you actually read that website, the contents are filled with references to "Paradox", with the only mention of "Paradogs" being the URL.

You wanted to know where the OP gets "paradogs", I told you. Don't get all uppity.

British Games by mr_gerbik · 2005-06-01 02:10 · Score: 3, Funny

"already it boasts Full Speed Gameboy Colour Emulation"

But it only plays British games because the US releases are not in colour.

Re:British Games by Slashcrap · 2005-06-01 02:23 · Score: 1

But it only plays British games because the US releases are not in colour.

Wow. This has to be the first time that I've ever seen someone flamed on-line because their spelling wasn't retarded enough.
Re:British Games by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 03:02 · Score: 0

Get a life.
Re:British Games by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 08:30 · Score: 0

But it only plays British games because the US releases are not in colour.

Which is just another fine example of how Sony is mysteriously capable of screwing everything up, because GB games don't have region lockout.

Turbo Express GameGear by jasonhamilton · 2005-06-01 02:10 · Score: 1

Turbo Express was a better system. It even played the full console 16 bit games.

Nintendo has always won against higher end handhelds due to the fact batt life is king when talking about a portable. So is price when dealing with kid's toys.

The Sony PSP is heading for a different market, and so neither are make or break.

--
SearchIRC - Now with live chat directory!

Re:Of course legally... by cosinezero · 2005-06-01 02:15 · Score: 1

Actually, I don't think the DMCA restricts you to a specific platform. It defines a "program", but does not restrict you to running it only where it was intended.

MAME emulator? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:17 · Score: 0

when is the MAME emulator going to be available? Also, how will it accomodate over 1GB in MAME ROMS?

Re:Living under the law by Rayonic · 2005-06-01 02:21 · Score: 2, Informative

"They" do release emulators for the Palm and PocketPC platforms. Example: http://paqpark.nuclearfallout.net/projects/pockets nes.php

--
[PowerPoint] is a tool for capitalist presentation

While we're on the subject... by DroopyStonx · 2005-06-01 02:26 · Score: 1

How long until we have a way to mod the PSP, and is it even possible?

I'm thinking the mods will be along the lines of the PSO exploit for Gamecube, but I guess something is better than nothing.

Anyone know the status on this?

--
We have secretly replaced these Slashdot mods' sense of humor with a rusty nail. Let's see if they notice!!

Re:While we're on the subject... by StonedRat · 2005-06-01 02:33 · Score: 1

The firmware is flashable and a cracked 1.5 is in the works which could be released in the next month or so.

--
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Re:While we're on the subject... by Abcd1234 · 2005-06-01 04:53 · Score: 1

And you flash it... how, exactly?
Re:While we're on the subject... by StonedRat · 2005-06-01 05:00 · Score: 1

from the memory stick or from a little trickery with your dns server so it downloads from a different site.

--
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
Re:While we're on the subject... by Abcd1234 · 2005-06-01 05:07 · Score: 1

From the memory stick... which requires the code to be... *signed*. Can we say "chicken and egg"?

And as for your "dns trickery", there is, to my knowledge, absolutely no evidence that you can run code on the PSP that way.
Re:While we're on the subject... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 08:56 · Score: 0

The GC expliot is an EXPLOIT it's not an actual modification.
Re:While we're on the subject... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 12:51 · Score: 0

um, it's the same way you patch online PS2 games that are "signed" so that you can't copy them.

haven't you learned yet that there's a way around everything? ;)
Re:While we're on the subject... by Cryptnotic · 2005-06-01 16:15 · Score: 1

haven't you learned yet that there's a way around everything? ;)

In this case though, the way around might be that you take apart your PSP, desolder the flash rom, use a device programmer to program a new (patched) flash rom, then solder the new flash rom to the board.

That's more work than many people will be willing to do.

--
My other first post is car post.

Not all that impressive by mriker · 2005-06-01 02:28 · Score: 1

A handheld unit now has the ability to play the previous generation of console games

The previous generation of consoles were the N64 and PSX, neither of which are emulated on the PSP yet (the PSX isn't even well-emulated on the PC yet). Gameboy Color, SNES, and Genesis are pretty dang old, so it's not a very significant accomplishment. PC emulators for these consoles have existed for nearly a decade.

Re:Not all that impressive by kerrle · 2005-06-01 02:39 · Score: 1

I'm assuming it's been a while since you looked at PSX emulation - saying that it's not well-emulated on the PC hasn't been true for a while.
Re:Not all that impressive by mriker · 2005-06-01 03:33 · Score: 1

I errored; I was thinking of PS2 emulation.
Re:Not all that impressive by kerrle · 2005-06-01 03:44 · Score: 1

Fair enough.
There has been some fairly impressive work done on PS2 and XBox emulation, but it would definitely still be early to call them well emulated.
Re:Not all that impressive by ultranova · 2005-06-01 06:04 · Score: 1

The previous generation of consoles were the N64 and PSX, neither of which are emulated on the PSP yet (the PSX isn't even well-emulated on the PC yet).

PSX is well emulated. For example, ePSXe has played everything I've bothered throwing at it on my 1GHz Duron 512MB GeForce2MX 64MB machine (but development seems to have halted), but I've yet to find a good N64 emulator - Mupen64, for example, constantly cuts sound and slows down in large areas, not to mention hangs randomly (in Z:OoT).

--
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

Re:Living under the law by __aamkky7574 · 2005-06-01 02:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

The problem with playing games on handhelds (I have experience of Palm and iPAQs) is that they simply aren't designed for it. Nothing is more frustating than trying to play a game with sticky keys. Also, the iPAQ couldn't register two seperate key presses at the same time (say, up-left and fire). I tried a few games, everything from NetHack to more recent proprietary games, and gave up.

P.

http://oceanclub.blogspot.com/

Zaurus by dangerz · 2005-06-01 02:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

My Zaurus has been emulating other game devices for a couple years now. Declaring the PSP the *ultimate* emulation machine is a little far fetched.

--
The greatest experience we can have is the mysterious.
- Albert Einstein

Re:Zaurus by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 03:00 · Score: 0

Yes but there is a slight size and price difference.
Re:Zaurus by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:36 · Score: 0

Your comparing a dedicated gaming system with purpose built controls to a PDA?

"Declaring the PSP the *ultimate* emulation machine is a little far fetched."

Hardly. I don't even own one yet and even I can clearly see that if they get the USA firmware fixed then this will in all likelyhood be the best current emulation machine. The fact that it is a portable underclocked PS2 that can do video, wireless etc doesn't hurt either.

Don't get me wrong the Zaurus is wicked cool device but its controls alone prevent it from ever being an ultimate gaming machine.
Re:Zaurus by snuf23 · 2005-06-01 12:10 · Score: 1

"I don't even own one yet and even I can clearly see that if they get the USA firmware fixed then this will in all likelyhood be the best current emulation machine."

IF, they get the firmware cracked and WHEN they get the emulators finished and up to speed. THEN it will be the ultimate emulation portable. It sure ISN'T right now but it has the potential to BECOME the ultimate.

For emulation, PocketPC and things like Tapwave have much better developed software and don't require owning the Japanese 1.0 version.
The controls vary model to model, some horrible, some decent. The Asus PocketPC I own has decent controls for gaming. The Tapwave is better.
If the PSP does get mature emulators and a way to run unsigned code on a U.S. model, I'll be the first in line to get one.

--
Sometimes my arms bend back.

divx? by blubill · 2005-06-01 02:34 · Score: 0, Offtopic

So this thing will read movies? Will it read divx? If it does, will it have divx pop-up ads in the middle of the movie and thus have to clean spyware off your memory stick?

Bollocks more like. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 02:41 · Score: 0

The GP32 is the king of emulator handhelds, and always will be DUE TO ITS OPEN NATURE. The only way to open something from Sony is by goatseing it...

Yeah great, but.. by Keichann · 2005-06-01 02:42 · Score: 2, Informative

A warning for anyone thinking of grabbing homebrew without reading up on it.

Unfortunately the flash ROM on the PSP is completely writable by anything running on the machine. The 1.50 and 1.51 updates fix this, but in doing so locking out homebrew software. For anyone that can't see the connection - malicious writes to flash = a shiny PSP paperweight.

http://forums.ps2dev.org/viewtopic.php?t=1962 [ps2dev.org]

So, if you're going to run homebrew on your PSP, beware the possible consequences. Mine just arrived yesterday, I wish they'd release these things sooner in the EU! Alas, it's 1.50 :(

Re:Yeah great, but.. by th0mas.sixbit.org · 2005-06-01 03:04 · Score: 1

the 1.50/1.51 updates do not fix the fact that anything can write to the flash rom. those updates lock out unencrypted ELF files from executing, which was an assumable mistake in the 1.0 firmware. once the 1.50's are capable of running homebrew they're going to be equally at risk of being bricked.

--
twitter.com/gravitronic

Cool, but I'll wait for the North American version by radarsat1 · 2005-06-01 02:43 · Score: 1

This is pretty awesome actually. I'm not one to go out and buy every new gadget that comes on the market, but I have to admit there is something very attractive about the PSP, and if it can run these emulators, it's even better. But I don't think I'll actually buy one until it's possible to run homebrew apps on the North American version. Otherwise it's not really that interesting to me.

Kind of funny that Sony is trying so hard to stop me from buying their little machine... I would love to have one, but I'm really not interested if I can't try my hand at writing programs for it. Hm, I guess that means I'm not the target demographic..

That was a typo by Pope · 2005-06-01 02:46 · Score: 0

He meant Moops Law!

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It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.

ColecoVision? by tf23 · 2005-06-01 02:48 · Score: 1

how about ColecoVision? I sure do miss the football and baseball games from that machine. "Super Action Football" oh yeah!

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http://slashdot.org/~tf23/journal

Re:Living under the law by jvmatthe · 2005-06-01 02:55 · Score: 1

Y'know there's nothing wrong with media-shifting games that you own.

There may be nothing wrong with it, in principle, but some newer games appear to have licenses that restrict this. For years games have been saying "Licensed for use only on YOUR FAVORITE CONSOLE HERE". Perhaps that just means that the console maker gave its approval to the software maker to put the software on their console, but I think it's more: you're only granted rights to play it on specific hardware.

Moreover, there is at least one GameCube game that I own that has a funny clause in the license in the manual. It actually says that they won't permit you to make backup copies of the game, and further that this is does not impinge upon your rights as a consumer. That's pretty restrictive, no?

Is anyone from Sega going to come to your front door and try to stop you from putting Sonic 3 on another platform? No. But we should all be aware of what licenses say on today's software. To be totally paranoid, with these kinds of restrictions as a precedent, there may come a time when they don't have to physically visit you to make you stop: they just show the proper data to the government and they restrict your rights in other ways.

That said, I'm in the minority that (conservatively) interprets the law to mean that media-shifting is not obviously a right you have.

--
Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy

I have V1.0 and they are soooo goood. by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 02:56 · Score: 0

I have been playing these emulators since they started and they are so good. The best of the lot is the TG16/PC Engine emulator. It runs at virtually full speed and full screen - yeeeeharr!!

However, Sony have stated all new games will require an update to the latest firmware of the time which comes on the UMD. B*stards. I have five games and hopefully by the time the next one I want comes along 1.5/1.51 will have been hacked.

Erm, no by Mwongozi · 2005-06-01 03:02 · Score: 2, Interesting

Anyone who thinks the PSP is "the ultimate in handheld emulation consoles" clearly hasn't heard of the GP32.

Re:Erm, no by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 03:05 · Score: 0

No, they have heard of it but just think it's not as good. And they're right. You think Wipeout Pure or Ridge Racers could be run on the GP32 with the same quality sound and graphics? If you do mate you are living in a dream world.
Re:Erm, no by Mwongozi · 2005-06-01 03:54 · Score: 1

You think Wipeout Pure or Ridge Racers could be run on the GP32 with the same quality sound and graphics?
What do they have to do with emulation? They run natively. Read the original statement again.
Re:Erm, no by oGMo · 2005-06-01 04:45 · Score: 1

Anyone who thinks the GP32 is in any way comparable to the PSP hasn't even seen a PSP in person.
Not to mention the GP32 has specs that are more comparable to the GBA, while the PSP has specs that are more comparable to a PS2.

This isn't to say I wouldn't mind having a GP32 for some emulation---although it only does 320x240, so no hi-res/overscan games like Secret of Mana---but when it comes down to it, the PSP just kicks ass.

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Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Re:Erm, no by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:42 · Score: 0

And the PSP is a hell of a lot more closed.

That anyone's been able to port any emulators at all to it is quite a miracle. This isn't true of the GP32 which has very well-understood hardware and firmware.

Ain't it funny... by rAiNsT0rm · 2005-06-01 03:04 · Score: 1

When the PSP gets buggy emulators everyone creams, but when the Revolution is announced to play old titles (perfectly, no doubt, I might add) everyone is as down on it as can be. Funny how them double standards work.

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http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea

Re:Ain't it funny... by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 03:11 · Score: 0

Jeez mate, you have no idea how emulation works have you? All emulators are buggy when they start out - that is why all the PSP ones are open source so improvments can be made. In the space of two weeks the GB/GBC emulator for the PSP (RIN) has gone from being very buggy to almost perfect with full screen. It sounds to me you have an issue with the PSP rather than anything else.
Re:Ain't it funny... by AvantLegion · 2005-06-01 03:41 · Score: 1

If Nintendo announced the Revolution would play those old titles FOR FREE, then we'd have something to cream over.
But you and I both damn well know that that won't be the case.
Re:Ain't it funny... by Annihilon · 2005-06-01 03:54 · Score: 0

I wouldn't waste your breath - Nintendo fanboy ahoy.
Re:Ain't it funny... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:23 · Score: 0

Ain't it true. *pats his GP32* :D

Still, I feel compelled to mention the Zodiac from Tapwave... It's a step up from the GP32. Why, oh why, is it only sold inside Asia and the US?

I mean, come on, a PalmOS PDA with huge screen and plenty of RAM, going for ~200bucks? Sometimes I really really consider applying for a greencard. ;)

This is neither intended as flamebait nor to hype the thing - I don't have one, nobody I know personally has one. But day-um if it isn't a sweet little machine, at least from the specs.
Re:Ain't it funny... by apoc06 · 2005-06-01 04:39 · Score: 1

well, i will still wait and see. the revolution is "supposed" to play old titles perfectly, but i have not seen one screenshot, heard from a single developer. actually i dont know of any developer that has a dev kit for one yet. funny enough, i trust nintendo. im sure they will get one up and running, but until i see the goods... forgive me for not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

for one, id like to see how nintendo could work out the royalty rights to rerelease "every" single game again. sure its in most publisher's and developer's best interest, but all it takes is one publisher to say no, and that complete library takes a hit. for example, acclaim is out of business, and didnt rare get bought out by MS? i dont see MS allowing them to rerelease goldeneye or killer instinct, or DKC etc., since that could potential harm their sales in the long run.
Re:Ain't it funny... by bynary · 2005-06-01 04:53 · Score: 1

I don't recall Nintendo saying that they would re-release "every single game" again. I believe the wording was more like "select titles".

If I remember correctly, Rare developed the games for Nintendo. I'm no lawyer, so forgive my ignorance, but wouldn't this work like the deal between Disney and Pixar? Pixar makes the movies, but Disney distributes them. Disney can release Toy Story until the cows come home even if Pixar no longer makes movies for Disney.

Also, I would imagine that someone bought/will buy Acclaim's IP.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:Ain't it funny... by bynary · 2005-06-01 04:56 · Score: 2, Insightful

When did it become wrong to pay for things? If there is something that I really enjoyed from previous generations, I will pay for it. This whole "everything digital has to be free" movement is sickening. It's this idea of entitlement. Nintendo's not just going to release old games for the hell of it. Suck it up and pay for good software.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:Ain't it funny... by AvantLegion · 2005-06-01 05:00 · Score: 1

It's not wrong to pay for things. What's wrong is Nintendo's moronic pricing ($20 for a repackaged NES game on GBA? For that price, they should be 4-in-1 packs).

I'd like to believe that Nintendo will price this functionality reasonably, but I've stopped expecting anything "reasonable" from Nintendo, when it comes to the re-selling of their old games.
Re:Ain't it funny... by bynary · 2005-06-01 05:00 · Score: 1

I agree whole-heartedly. I for one will be first in line to buy a Revolution. Nintendo really seems to have gotten this one right.

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:Ain't it funny... by Zigg · 2005-06-01 05:21 · Score: 1

well, i will still wait and see. the revolution is "supposed" to play old titles perfectly, but i have not seen one screenshot, heard from a single developer. actually i dont know of any developer that has a dev kit for one yet. funny enough, i trust nintendo. im sure they will get one up and running, but until i see the goods... forgive me for not giving them the benefit of the doubt.

Nintendo has released both emulated NES and N64 games on Gamecube already (and both are absolutely perfect... with the possible exception of some slight bugginess in the Majora's Mask emulation, most likely due to the cart being more than can fit in the Gamecube's RAM.) Revo has already been confirmed Gamecube-compatible as well as boasting similar APIs; I'd think NES and N64 are already a lock just based on that.
Re:Ain't it funny... by LordIvan · 2005-06-01 06:33 · Score: 1

it IS a sweet little machine (I own one)

Only problem is a lot of the 'coming soon' games on their website never materialised in the end.
Some titles I was particularly interested in have vanished from mention (Like Neverwinter Nights).

Thats why I bought a PSP in the end :)
The Zodiac still serves me well as a PDA, portable library, media player, etc.

I just hesitate to mention it to anyone else as a games machine - It sounds like a great idea - a combination games/PDA - but you're better off with a PSP or (the much cheaper) GBA if you want gaming.
Re:Ain't it funny... by rAiNsT0rm · 2005-06-01 07:14 · Score: 1

I kinda agree, $20 for the classic line was a bit of a stretch for sure, especially when they weren't exact replica's like Zelda where the resolution was screwed up a bit. Those were perfect candidates for $9.99.

I have a feeling the NES/SNES titles will be ~$5.00, I'm hoping for $1.00 for 30 days or $5.00 for unlimited like cell phones.

I, for one, am glad to pay for digital content, just not out the @ss for a digital medium that is virtually costless. A cartridge based game costs money to produce and circulate/market a file does not.

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http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Re:Ain't it funny... by rAiNsT0rm · 2005-06-01 07:19 · Score: 1

I find it even MORE funny that people would think Nintendo couldn't fully emulate its own hardware on its own hardware!!! What are you, a nut?!? How do you think they create dev kits? They can 100% emulate their own hardware, they have all the design docs, API's, etc... THEY BUILT IT ORIGINALLY!

If a group of high school/college kids can get 90% complete emulator by reverse engineering I'm pretty sure it's a lock that Nintendo can emulate their own 20 year old systems perfectly on new hardware. Sheesh.

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http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Re:Ain't it funny... by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 07:43 · Score: 1

Paying for new things is fine, but in a couple of years some of the first Nintendo games ought to be close to becoming Public Domain (if we had sane copyright laws). Nintendo has already made their money; those games should belong to society by now.

Now, Nintendo should absolutely be able to charge for the ability to play the old games on their new hardware; however, something like a one-time fee to enable the feature is much more reasonable than paying on a per-game basis.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:Ain't it funny... by rAiNsT0rm · 2005-06-01 08:55 · Score: 1

heh, your post made me remember a funny story. My father when I was a bit younger wanted to buy a NES for us and he waited at some ungodly hour of the morning at Toys'r'us only to find they never received any. He then just walked to a nearby Kmart in desperation and they had a stack to the ceiling :)

I too will be one of the first to snag a Revolution, I can't wait for the tables of the game industry to swing back to Nintendo where the game is king, not the hardware.

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http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Re:Ain't it funny... by apoc06 · 2005-06-03 02:00 · Score: 1

hmm... seems like i forgot just how many fans nintendo has. im actually on your side guys, im just reinterating the fact that since there are no screenshots, no hardware, and no dev kits, this is just yet another empty promise; a la the sony pres talking about using the ps3 to turn regular resolution video into HD. i hope that everyones promises are true, but until i see it...

the fact is that no emulator is 100% perfect if running on a different set of hardware than was initially intended. like you mentioned, there was slight bugginess in majoras mask. that happens. its usually an iterative process. sure they can keep at it, but 100% "perfect" compatibility is a lofty goal. they are under the gun, they basically have until launch to make good on their promise. with the revolution having internet connectivity im sure they can update the firmware as they make more and more progress with the emulation. thats a good thing.

im sure that they can emulate the NES and n64 pretty well; its GC emulation that i think may give them problems. despite its reputation in some circles, the gamecube is a pretty powerful piece of equipment. its going to be hard to emulate all that poly/ pixel processing perfectly. that and the whole controller aspect. it will be interesting to see how nintendo will alter the controller design to incorporate all of their radical controller designs.

i hope that the big N can do it, because that lends high hopes to the mod community.

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[now, can i have my karma back...?]
Re:Ain't it funny... by apoc06 · 2005-06-03 02:20 · Score: 1

nintendo promised that their ENTIRE catalog would be available.

as for the legal implications, nintendo may be the distributor, but the IP still belongs to the developer. that is why third party games can be released across several platforms. they pay nintendo to distribute their games. if a company had that much control over their development and third party companies, you would have never seen ports of the nintendo final fantasys on the psx and ps2. some titles like metal gear or GTA usually are sometimes created under exclusivity contracts that say that a game will not be available to other platforms until after x period of time. the developers have a bit more power and say than you think.

think about it. if nintendo had that much power over games created for their consoles, why wouldnt they rerelease every hit title when it suits them? or when people start complaining about the lack of certain genres?

not enough titles at launch? just rerelease the older carts like they did with mario DS. they can only do that with first party titles. IE games that were developed by nintendo in the first place. thats why launch remakes are usually mario, metriod and zelda deals. they own both the distribution and development rights.

im sure that someone here works for a development company and can correct me if i have the wrong assumptions.

oh, and yeah youre right... someone WILL buy acclaim's catalog, if they havent already.
Re:Ain't it funny... by apoc06 · 2005-06-03 02:34 · Score: 1

true. they DO own and have access to all the documentation on their own consoles. thats not a question. the question is will the new hardware be capable of running the high level games through an emulation layer effectively.

if everything was done through hardware. it would be trivial to add an cartridge slot for each of their old systems and add a chipset for each console. but there arent any slots; just the dvd drive. the emulation will be done through software.

the older games will undoubtedly have no problems being emulated. the gamecube games will probably cause them some headache. in order to emulate something, you usually need to have processing power in an order of magnitude much much higher than that of the original hardware.

look at the specs that n64 emulators require of pcs to run them full speed. the specs are MUCH higher than the specs of the original n64 hardware. you can optimize and optimize, but there is a point where you are capped due to hardware limitations. can nintendo fit a GC and n64 dev kit into the revolution? i hope so, but we will wait and see.
Re:Ain't it funny... by bynary · 2005-06-03 04:02 · Score: 1

the developers have a bit more power and say than you think

You mis-read my post.

I'm not talking about FF, Madden NFL, or any other third party games. I'm talking about the Nintendo-Rare partnership. Again, I could be mistaken, but I believe Rare developed games for Nintendo on the SNES and N64 that were Nintendo First-party titles such as DK Country.

Nintendo owned 49% of Rare at the time they sold to Microsoft. From this article over at GameSpy.com, "Nintendo indicated that it retains exclusive rights to franchises in which Rare had a hand recently, such as Donkey Kong and Star Fox." You will not see Donkey Kong Country or Diddy Kong Racing sequels on Xbox (unless, for some reason, Nintendo decides to sell the rights to Microsoft, but DK is one of Nintendo's biggest franchises).

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http://www.bynarystudio.com
Re:Ain't it funny... by rAiNsT0rm · 2005-06-03 06:25 · Score: 1

for your information the Revolution will have power on par with the Xbox 360... so yes it could easily handle GC, N64, etc. Nintendo never said it was EMULATING GC titles, it is fully backward compatible. the data on GC disks was no different than a DVD just a different disc, no emulation is needed here. and My P166 was able to emulate a N64 so no matter the efficiency this is a non-issue too.

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http://teasphere.wordpress.com - A little spot of tea
Re:Ain't it funny... by despisethesun · 2005-06-05 10:06 · Score: 1

nintendo promised that their ENTIRE catalog would be available.

There's the catch. Nintendo's entire catalog would be available, not necessarily all the thrid-party stuff. You can probably expect every game Nintendo made or published available for Revolution, but that may not necessarily include all of Capcom's NES titles, Acclaim, Activision, etc.

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This poo is cold.

Atari Lynx by suedehed · 2005-06-01 03:05 · Score: 1

Give me Lynx Emulation and I'm all over one of these! I've actually been holding off on buying one because no stores I've been to, have a demo unit. They all claim "it sells itself, and Sony won't give us floor units". Maybe it's just me, but if I'm going to drop $250 (plus the cost of accessories, games, etc) on something, I would like to see it, feel it, play it before I do so. I guess hitting the ripe old age of 30 has changed my views and my general impulsiveness.

Re:Atari Lynx by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 08:14 · Score: 0

Same for me -- I really liked many of the games for the Atari Lynx -- which I still have, along with a large library of games.

I'll buy a US version PSP if someone demonstrates a working Atari Lynx simulator. Otherwise, I'm in no particular hurry to aquire one.
Re: Atari Lynx by FromWithin · 2005-06-01 08:51 · Score: 1

Well I would compile one for my Zaurus if the author of Handy/SDL would release the source code. I don't understand the need to keep the source closed, and I haven't got time to convert the original Handy code myself. But I *really* want the Lynx on my Zaurus, it's much smaller than the real thing. If anyone knows any different about the availability of the source code...

Re:Living under the law by dogbowl · 2005-06-01 03:09 · Score: 1

They can put in any clause they want in the license, but they still cannot take away a person's rights.
Just like store with signs that say "We reserve the right to inspect your bags" .. they can hang that sign as much as they want, but they still cannot take away a citizens right to privacy.

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These pretzels are making me thirsty.

psp-hacks.com by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 03:18 · Score: 0

They didn't mention the best of all the psp sites PSP Hacks they have all these emulators and report all psp hacking news.

Re:Living under the law by RichardX · 2005-06-01 03:27 · Score: 1

How about the GP32?
It's a completely open handheld gaming system
more info at GP32 Xtreme, one of the biggest GP32 community sites

--
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.

Re:Living under the law by aliquis · 2005-06-01 03:28 · Score: 1

Looked at the GP32? I don't know how large it is in the world, but it has/had decent hardware and a homebrew scene. Console done right.
GP32 xtreme got news.
GBAX sells it.
Emuholic got emus.
GP32 devrs got the tools.

You forgot the ZX! by Spacejock · 2005-06-01 03:33 · Score: 3, Funny

Never mind emulating all those trashy modern toys, I want to know when I can run Sinclair Spectrum games on it!

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Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts

Re:You forgot the ZX! by nother_nix_hacker · 2005-06-01 08:57 · Score: 1

Sony will be releasing the tape drive add-on in the first quater of next year.

Re:Living under the law by akac · 2005-06-01 03:45 · Score: 1

You are right and wrong. They CAN inspect your bags if you enter their store. But you have the right not to enter that store.

Its their property. Their store. As long as its done in a uniform, non-discriminatory manner, its all right.

News of 1.5 firmware hacking by AvantLegion · 2005-06-01 03:46 · Score: 1

People have of course pointed out that none of this works with the 1.5 PSP firmware (which is what the US PSPs use).

Well, Team Xecuter has some good progress news for you:

"Our current work involves busting the firmware - the firmware dumper is already working and there has good progress been made in booting games and also homebrew on different firmware versions (v1.5 etc). We are giving support and advice to other underground teams as well as receiving help ourelves - its an excellent "group" effort without anyone actually knowing about who or what is involved. Apologies if the odd spoiler we throw your way freaks one or two minds Razz"

So, folks, it's coming, just sit tight.

Re:Living under the law by TobyWong · 2005-06-01 03:49 · Score: 1

Fortunately where I am from laws are made by the government, not by Sega. Here we are legally allowed to maintain backup images of software that we own so ROMs are perfectly legal so long as you own the actual cart/CD/etc. This is not open to individual interpretation, this is simply the law as it stands here right now. Now I don't know where you are from so YMMV.

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- Toby

Re:Living under the law by jvmatthe · 2005-06-01 04:01 · Score: 1

Fortunately where I am from laws are made by the government, not by Sega. Here we are legally allowed to maintain backup images of software that we own so ROMs are perfectly legal so long as you own the actual cart/CD/etc.

That may be true, where you live. However, in some places the law may interpret software stored in chips (more akin to hardware) differently from software stored on a CD or magnetic medium like floppy disk.

I don't know enough of your specific situation, but simply cautioning that not only does the law vary from place to place, but it also varies in how it treats different media. And, as you say, YMMV.

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Curmudgeon Gamer: Not happy

perfect compromise by apoc06 · 2005-06-01 04:06 · Score: 1

considering the number of companies that have an outrageous backcatalog and the number of "franchise" games. much like DVDs do with the extra added content, when will developers create emulated version of their older games on the same disc. i know that tekken5 for ps2 has the first three tekken games as available content. i know that dead or alive ultimate came packaged with an older versions, ninja gaiden had the first three versions as extras. zelda rereleased older emulated versions as well. its just an added incentive and an added value when you are shopping for games/ movies. sure many of us dont care and probably never watch all of the director commentary on our dvds, but i prefer buying the copies with it than without it.

i guess we just have to get on the publishers to give us more game for our buck... nintendo realizes the strength of the emulation and throwback game community; why else would they now be embracing the "virtual console" idea? look at how many people are excited about the revolution simply because of that fact? look at the xbox360, MS saw how popular the media center addons etc has been with the original xbox mod community. so what do they do? incorporate it into the design of the updated version and there you go...

using wipeout pure as example. i would love to buy the next iteration of the wipeout franchise if it came with emulated versions of the first couple games. [maybe with a wider screen] i can think of plenty franchises that could greatly benefit from something like that. i'd love to be able to go to a website and design a custom track and have the site spit it out in a form i could keep on my memory card and share with friends.

we are the gamers. we have the power really. who knows better what gamers want than gamers themselves? i know what kind of game i would love to buy. i know what i want to be able to do with my consoles/ handhelds. they know what we do, if we speak loud enough, im sure they will find a way to bring it to the public. [the paying public that it...]

Re:perfect compromise by SScorpio · 2005-06-01 04:51 · Score: 1

I'm still not convinced on the Xbox 360 media center . You'll be able to view pictures and play mp3s off usb thumb drives and samba shares, but to view videos you have to have a Windows XP Media Edition 2005 PC, and from what I've read the videos will have to be in WMV format so you have to deal with DRM. If it fully interfaces with ME2005 though, you should be able to stream live TV off the PC to the Xbox 360 which is kind of cool I guess, but it's still no where near as featureful as the current homebrew Xbox Media Center.
Also Microsoft released something called the Xbox Media Entender for the original Xbox. This allowed it to play content off of Media Edition PCs, but I never wanted to play the $80 or so dollars to check it out.

Screw emulation by spicytuna · 2005-06-01 04:09 · Score: 1

... give me the capability to homebrew with ease and now yuo're talkin'.

Re:Living under the law by iamacat · 2005-06-01 04:10 · Score: 1

But why would you want to rely on the government to protect you when you can just go to a shop next door and reward them for decency? Just buy a Linux PDA for games and let Sony's closed platform be as "successful" as their non-MP3 music players.

Re:Living under the law by bruciemoose · 2005-06-01 04:10 · Score: 1

I'd feel much more comfortable copying the game and giving £3 to charity.

Compiler? Debugger? Anyone? Anyone? by xtal · 2005-06-01 04:17 · Score: 0, Troll

Whatever.

Call me when we can actually write code for this thing. At least the GBA has been broken and documented to the point where you can actually develop nifty third party applications.

--
..don't panic

Nice List Of Emulators For The PSP .. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:25 · Score: 0

http://www.emufanatics.com/files/category/33/81/ Was searching around for more emulators and came across this site. They seem to have a nice list of emulators if you guys are looking for more.

Did you know that... by bogie · 2005-06-01 04:25 · Score: 1

"so I'm then completely legit in downloading a ROM of that cartridge and running it under emulation."

You can download any movie, game, or piece of software from the Net as long as you delete it in 24 hours? Its true.

Oh btw, want to buy a bridge?

--
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch

Re:Did you know that... by MoonBuggy · 2005-06-01 04:42 · Score: 1

I didn't say that. I said buy the cartridge and then download the ROM [to save the effort of building yourself a board to dump the ROMs into your computer from your own cartridge]. It's just media-shifting via a third party - I was under the impression that it's legal to do that, although I may be mistaken.

And yes, I'll take three bridges please.
Re:Did you know that... by Zigg · 2005-06-01 05:13 · Score: 1

Actually, the case seems to be that you can media-shift on your own, but it's still illegal to take a copy from a third party.

Remember the whole MP3.com thing where you could listen to tunes once you proved you owned the CD by inserting it into your PC? That is, effectively, what you call "media-shifting via a third party".

Damn I want more games! by Builder · 2005-06-01 04:34 · Score: 1

I bought a PSP recently... imported it from Japan to the UK. The only downer is that my game selection is not exactly huge. I'd love to get my hands on Hot Shots golf and Mercury, but places like Amazon.com won't ship to the UK.

I personally think that Sony has screwed the UK games retailers pretty bad. I know that Game Ltd was counting on sales of the PSP to make up a significant portion of this years budget. Because of the silly Sony delay, when the PSP finally launches here, both people who don't have one will go out and buy one. Everyone I know who wants one has either bought one over the 'net or had someone bring one back from the US.

When will people realise that the world isn't segmented neatly any more ?

Re:Damn I want more games! by topper24hours · 2005-06-01 05:54 · Score: 1

FYI.... Mercury rocks! Get it off eBay, do whatever you must, but OWN this game soon!
Re:Damn I want more games! by Wiz · 2005-06-01 06:49 · Score: 1

Where did you import it from? You can also import games!
Free international shipping!

It's called the Tapwave Zodiac by J-1000 · 2005-06-01 04:39 · Score: 1

http://www.tapwave.com/

Re:Living under the law by dubbreak · 2005-06-01 04:41 · Score: 1

On the other side of the coin, if I wanted to play Sonic 3 on my PSP (since it's one of my favourite games) I'd be quite happy to pay a few £ on eBay for an original cartridge so I'm then completely legit in downloading a ROM of that cartridge and running it under emulation.

Can anyone explain to me why this would make it ok to copy/download the game? The original creators do not get any of the money you spent on the used cartridge, so why bother buying a used cart? It would make more sense to me to mail a check for $5 to sega and say, "I'm using sonic on my psp, thanks." That way at least the creators (if sega actually made that inhouse, don't know and it doesn't matter for my point, lets just assume that is the case) get some money out of you. Buying a used cart they get none. Sure the original owner can not play the game so you are "transfering" the right to play the game, but come on, you are paying next to nothing for it and not actually using it at all, so why own it? Whether you buy it or not the orignal company has gotten all the money they can out of it, unless they are remarketing it (see further)

I myself have no problem morally with using roms that aren't available for current systems, it's their fault for not capitalizing on it. Look at midway, they've created some great collections for new systems which I have purchased. Some examples here here and (as you guessed) here. Oh and I shouldn't forget Namco .

Until more companies start doing this people will just download the games, not only is it easier but it makes a lot more sense than tracking down an old cart so you can feel good about downloading the roms. If people want to play old games on the psp the marketing groups of the companies that have all these great legacy games should be taking notice and doing something about it.

--
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

My ape brain can't figure out the reply buttons NT by J-1000 · 2005-06-01 04:42 · Score: 1

nt

word on MAME? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 04:50 · Score: 0

Not really interested in the whole PSP thing... but it looks like a great MAME machine. Gotta love that Mr. Do!

Re:Of course legally... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:07 · Score: 0

Backup copies have to be on identical media.

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:08 · Score: 0

"Can anyone explain to me why this would make it ok to copy/download the game? The original creators do not get any of the money you spent on the used cartridge, so why bother buying a used cart? It would make more sense to me to mail a check for $5 to sega and say, "I'm using sonic on my psp, thanks." "

Have you ever bought a used CD? You can buy the used CD, rip it to MP3's, and be perfectly legal. Just because someone made something originally doesn't mean that they need to profit each time it is used. If I sell my car the buyer doesn't have to pay ford a dime.

Re:Living under the law by bloo9298 · 2005-06-01 05:10 · Score: 1

Um, are you sure? First off, if the sign is at the exit only, then I very much doubt that it carries any weight whatsoever. Even if the sign is at the entrance to the store, I have not agreed in writing (nor even verbally). How on earth can they enforce that? Would they sue me if I left the store without allowing them to inspect my bags (I understand anyone can sue for anything at any time)? Could they restrain me without reasonable grounds for suspicion? If the guard at the exit is a off-duty police officer, do they have any more right to detain me if I refuse to let them inspect my bag as part of their normal routine (I am thinking of the "inspect every bag" routine, not the "that person was seen stuffing items into their bag" search)?

Not quite by kalirion · 2005-06-01 05:13 · Score: 1

What Nintendo needs to do is fund a PSP emulator for the DS. That way the DS will by default be able to run all the PSP emulators!

Re:Living under the law by aziraphale · 2005-06-01 05:25 · Score: 1

> Have you ever bought a used CD? You can buy the used CD, rip it to MP3's, and be perfectly legal.

Of course, the person you bought it from has to make sure they delete their MP3 rips of the CD, right?

Re:Living under the law by dubbreak · 2005-06-01 05:35 · Score: 1

Yes I have bought used cds. But what's the difference in buying a used cd vs downloading mp3's? The complaint on dl'ing is that the original artist and the record company get nothing, but when I buy a used cd they still get nothing and i get the music (albight higher quality). Same deal here. The company will complain about a dl'd rom, but they aren't getting anything from you buying a used one anyhow and there is no way to get a new one. So why bother buying the used rom? If there is no new option why would they force you to buy a used one when they get nothing out of it?

To clarify, the difference with cd's is that there is the option to buy a new cd. The recording company can't complain about the used purchase, but they can call dl'ing mp3's stealing and threaten lawsuits. In the case of many roms, there is no way to buy new, and no way for the company to make money via your options on getting the roms. So why buy a used cart to make it "legal"? If they aren't actively trying to make money off the games what do they care if you actually have a cart at home (not to mention that many carts/aracade roms claim you don't have a right to have ANY copy of the data elsewhere, which is a different discussion on fair use etc).

--
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

Re:Of course legally... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 05:37 · Score: 0

Provide proof, or I call bullshit.

Also remember that the DMCA only applies to circumventing access control, and merely being on a ROM chip is not 'access control'. GBA games have no encompassing access control as far as I know.

This "ONLY" works on the first Japanese PSP. by JackAxe · 2005-06-01 05:56 · Score: 1

So the title should be "Japanese PSP version 1.0 Emulation Madness."

lucky Japanese PSP owners. :(

Re:Living under the law by mad.frog · 2005-06-01 06:23 · Score: 1

The Tapwave Zodiac was (is) a PalmOS machine with an analog game control stick: http://www.tapwave.com/

I say "was" because, though it's still in production, it also seems clearly to have a limited lifespan with the PSP out...

Re:Living under the law by Elshar · 2005-06-01 06:37 · Score: 1

I think they are actually starting to. I've recently seen sega action packs that contain ALL of the sonic games for one of the consoles (all of them?). I've also seen another one I could've swore was put out by sega that seemed to have alot of old sega master system games on it...

Point is, they ARE attempting to redistribute them. I know I've seen all the nintendo favorites out for GBA recently, along with those stupid smart/magnetic trading cards with games on them.. Granted in Nintendo's case, they're trying to pawn off Zelda 1 for $40 when you can probably get an original NES + Zelda for half as much at your local used game store, but I digress...

Point is, if you want this stuff, its there. If its not there all it takes is writing a few letters and some patience. Well, and the willing to dish out another $40 for some 15-20 year old games you played as a kid.

I think the video game market needs to start rethinking the way they distribute their content. Look at stardock central or steam (Others?). Those two have GREAT content management systems. Just pay them some money, and download your games. That's where we should be going.

I think it'd be awesome to pay like $5 a month or something and be able to download any game that's over 5-10 years old. Hell, I'd be willing to pay that much to ALL the console companies and have a virtual library of games at my disposal.

Hrm, almost makes me want to start a company to do that for old PC games.

N-Gage has been there, done that. by Jagasian · 2005-06-01 06:41 · Score: 1

My $99 N-Gage QD can emulation the Gameboy Color, NES, SNES, Genesis, Master System, Mame, etc. But of course, a PSP is considered "cool" by the gaming elite. Meanwhile the N-Gage QD is considered "lame". Oh well. How many people really use their PSP as a portable anyway? Do they really carrying it around with them?

Re:N-Gage has been there, done that. by sarabob · 2005-06-01 08:41 · Score: 1

Erm.. Except the screen is just a *teeny* bit smaller than the humungous psp screen.
Re:N-Gage has been there, done that. by cableshaft · 2005-06-01 10:50 · Score: 1

Hear hear! So the PSP gets one full speed emulator and a few others in early stages, and now it's the "ultimate in handheld emulation"? Right. I'm sure it WILL be in a year or two, but I've got lots more on my N-Gage and I've had the sucker for a year and a half now (not to mention GP32 and Zodiac). I can play just about any game I played from the ages of 6-17 whenever I want, and that's just awesome. As well as not having to carry a PDA, cellphone, and/or MP3 player with me at the same time.

The emulator I'm playing the most at the moment is the Master System. Once I finally realized I could play my old love, Shining Force 2 for Game Gear, on it, I've gotten addicted again. And my N-Gage doesn't devour batteries like my Game Gear used does :).

--
Creator of the popular web game Proximity
Re:N-Gage has been there, done that. by Jagasian · 2005-06-01 14:42 · Score: 1

My Playstation 2 has a huge 100 inch screen. But that doesn't make it a good portable gaming system. What is the point of a portable gaming system if you can't always take it with you?
Re:N-Gage has been there, done that. by Jagasian · 2005-06-01 14:44 · Score: 1

Everybody always takes their wallet, keys, and phone with them. A separate gaming system just doens't fit into the equation for day-to-day activities. Yet often you find yourself somewhere with 5 to 10 minutes of nothing to do. The N-gage will be in your pocket in such a situation. A PSP, however, will not.

Economics lesson by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:52 · Score: 0

The value of a CD, reflected in the price you pay for it, includes the amount of money you can get by reselling it. Same with anything, cars, houses, games, etc. By supporting the resale market (by buying a used game) you allow the game makers to charge a few extra $£EUR for it, which people won't mind paying since they'll make it back when they sell it on.
You're not directly giving the makers any money, but they still get more than they would if no-one resold games.

Of course, it's more complicated than that since not everyone buys a new game with the intention of re-selling it, so that's factored into the extra they charge. If a game is out of production then the makers don't get that money, although it has a knock-on effect of allowing them to charge more for future games, since people will be confident they can re-sell them in 10 years time (in my opinion copyright should lapse and they shouldn't expect anything by then anyway, but that's beside the point). Furthermore it increases the prices of videogames in general.

So in summary, unless the game maker is totally out of business, they do benefit indirectly from second-hand game sales. Even if they are out of business, somebody will own the copyright to the game you bought, and they benefitted since it increases the value of a re-release or sequel.

Thanks for taking the trouble to read that.

Re:Living under the law by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 06:53 · Score: 1

I think the video game market needs to start rethinking the way they distribute their content. Look at stardock central or steam (Others?). Those two have GREAT content management systems. Just pay them some money, and download your games. That's where we should be going.

I think it'd be awesome to pay like $5 a month or something and be able to download any game that's over 5-10 years old. Hell, I'd be willing to pay that much to ALL the console companies and have a virtual library of games at my disposal.

The only problem is that that sounds almost like a subscription service, which scares me. If it's like Steam where you buy the game and own it forever,* that's okay. But if you're paying just for access to the game (which goes away if you stop), then that sucks and I won't do it.

*theoretically -- I don't trust Valve. If anything goes wrong (e.g. they go out of business) the default result is that you lose access to all the games you "bought."

--

"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 06:54 · Score: 0

I think stores count as private property and that has something to do with why they are allowed to do such.

Tapwave Zodiac: Great Emulator Gaming! by rbeattie · 2005-06-01 07:32 · Score: 1

I just picked up a cheap Tapwave Zodiac, and combined with a Palm-based emulator app called Little John Z (http://yoyofr92.free.fr/ljz/), it's a killer handheld emulation device. GB/GBC and NES ROMs play perfectly, and some Genesis and SNES games as well. The best thing is that it doubles the resolution for the games *and* adds antialiasing so no jaggies.

While waiting for the new PSP to be hacked (or for Sony to get a clue and open the platform up) go get yourself a Zodiac.

More thoughts on my weblog: http://www.russellbeattie.com/notebook/1008484.htm l

-Russ

--
Me

lets all just run out and buy one.. by Spoobis · 2005-06-01 07:39 · Score: 1

Is this really even news and if so its old news. people have been drooling over the prospect of emulation for a month now. sony is going to force you update your firmware with new game releases so even if you manage to hack your system you then will be force to miss out on playing gta or whatever killer app they have in store. the current batch of games is quite lackluster. I own dynasty warriors, lumines, untold legends and ridge racer.. out of those i have not beaten lumines yet. I have real doubts the psp will really be good for emulation its bearly good for playing movies. how long do you think it takes to convert a dvd to mp4 format. umds lick green donkey balls the movie selection sucks. and for the price of an expensive dvd you get a movie with no special features. I am trading in my psp and the games for 2 ds units and some games. oh and a flash linker card. why do I need emulation when I can play the 1500 gba games. this is called hype. goto the playstaion psp boards a lonely place it is. wait till the holiday when they drop the price a $100 bucks.

Re:lets all just run out and buy one.. by superpulpsicle · 2005-06-01 10:41 · Score: 1

If they really drop it to $100, it's a different war.

wrong. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 07:39 · Score: 0

Why not just use a laptop with a DS emu then? And going by the specs the PSP screen is not large enough for both DS screens, they would have to be noticeably shrunken.

Re:Of course legally... by cosinezero · 2005-06-01 09:34 · Score: 1

Entirely false, and you're missing the point of "intellectual" property. A digital copy of intellectual property is a digital copy regardless of the medium; the copy is not of the material / medium but of the program on it.

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 10:54 · Score: 0

Of course, the person you bought it from has to make sure they delete their MP3 rips of the CD, right?

If they want to follow the law then yes, they do. What exactly is your point?

I want my Mazogs! by SuperKendall · 2005-06-01 11:27 · Score: 1

I want to know when I can run Sinclair Spectrum games on it!

Yes, the ultimate platform for a rousing game of Mazogs.

--
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:I want my Mazogs! by Spacejock · 2005-06-01 22:09 · Score: 1

Mazogs was the Sinclair ZX81 version, on the Speccy they called it Maziacs. Still, your link is for Mazogs so we can both be happy ;-)

Would you believe I still play this from time to time? I've been debating whether to write a remake for about 15 years.

--
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts

Re:Living under the law by qurk · 2005-06-01 11:32 · Score: 1

That looks really nice! It could really use a couple more buttons for SNES games though.

Don't support RIAA/MPAA members! by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 12:00 · Score: 0

Every dime you spend on Sony products furthers the repressive goals of RIAA and MPAA.

While you're at it, you should avoid Hollywood movies and signed artists, too.

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 12:06 · Score: 0

Look, the point which is made, is not that your buying the game used from Sony, and that Sony is losing money, because your point there is correct. But I think you are overlooking the fact that buying something USED means that the product is no longer being used by the previous owner...which means if both of you wanted the product you would both have to purchase the game...Can't you see why Sony would get upset over this? I would if my product were being redistributed everywhere...

h2opolojack@gmail.com

My two cents on PSP by aka_big_wurm · 2005-06-01 12:09 · Score: 1

I saw big things for the PSP and was one of the few waiting to get the psp at launch. That 2 hours I can never get back.

For me I have never had any problems with the unit it self, no dead pixes or anything. Its a great system. However where are the games? I love lummies and been playing Ridge Racer alot lately. But I want some real games. Like a RPG or something with internet play.

Homebrews: when will a system maker support the homebrew commuinty. People want to make there own games, and if they released a special SDK they might cut the people trying to hack there system by half.

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 12:13 · Score: 0

Don't get me wrong--I don't think that intellectual "property" is even property in any meaningful sense, but I seem to remember them including enough weasel-words & whatnot in those license documents they include claiming that anything they didn't like constituted piracy or whatever.

In other words, they probably will hate you for downloading ROMs whether or not you own the game. I don't even know if it's true or not (I don't have laws to cite, IANAL, and I don't know how many rights we can even contract away when I never agreed to a single one of those terms), but I'm just saying it anyway so that you have fair warning or so anyone who can cite applicable law will do so.

Personally, I'd like to strip "IP" law down to nothing but copyrights and maybe limited forms of trade secrets, and cut their duration down to some short, fixed term. But that's probably a pipe dream :/

Re:Living under the law by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 12:49 · Score: 0

I'm totally confused. I own a PSP. If I wanted to sell my copy of, say, Metal Gear Acid, why should I care if Konami doesn't get any of it? They already got my money, if I want to sell it, then there's nothing (in the US anyway, YMMV) they can do about it.

Why shouldn't I make money selling used games?

Re:Living under the law by G-funk · 2005-06-01 14:16 · Score: 1

Nope. Only licensed security has the right to do anything to you, and then only if they witness you stealing some shit. The ONLY thing the store has a right to do is ask you not to come back if you refuse them permission to look in your bag.

--
Send lawyers, guns, and money!

Sega? Bah Atari was where it's at. by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 15:52 · Score: 0

The gamegear really was a POS when compared to the other full colour portable of its time. The Atari Lynx. I actually had the pleasure of owning two of these (a Lynx1 and a Lynx2) and they truly were a pleasure to play on, although they did suck through way too much juice to use regularly.

Re:Living under the law by Elshar · 2005-06-01 16:46 · Score: 1

That's true. It does become a subscription service. But, if you're like most gamers, you probably spend an average of $50-100 a month on new games. What if you could get all the new old games you wanted for $10 a month? Sure, it'd be a subscription service, but really. How often have you honestly played say Stellar Empire lately? Or Darksun? Or any of the old gold box games? It'd be nice to 'own' them, but you probably won't care after you've mastered them again anyways. And with new stuff always coming out, it's one shiny after the next..

As for steam, who cares? If valve goes away, so do all those cd key validation servers that allow you to play multiplayer. And chances are there won't be a legal patch to fix it anyways.

I would actually save money with a subscription service. I'd just constantly play new to me older games. :)

Re:Living under the law by mrchaotica · 2005-06-01 17:10 · Score: 1

Well, first of all, I apparently don't buy nearly as many games as you do, and play them for longer. Maybe hard-core gamers like you would like subscriptions, but I'd guess that most casual gamers wouldn't.

As for steam, who cares? If valve goes away, so do all those cd key validation servers that allow you to play multiplayer. And chances are there won't be a legal patch to fix it anyways.

What do you mean, "who cares?!" That's exactly the problem, both with Steam, and with CD key validation! For my property to exist only by grace of the company that made it is unacceptable, and legally disallowing me from patching it to make it work is completely absurd! This is why I don't own Half-Life 2, even though it's a great game, and also why I'm so glad I have physical CDs for Half-Life.

Incidentally, this is also why I will never buy another Blizzard game. If they hadn't got their panties in a twist over Freecraft and Bnetd it'd be different...

--

"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

already done.... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-06-01 17:37 · Score: 0

on my GBA SP that is... no need for a $300+ lumines carrying case :p

Nintendo Revolution by tepples · 2005-06-01 20:25 · Score: 1

I myself have no problem morally with using roms that aren't available for current systems

How will the ramifications of your morals change in spring 2006 when the Nintendo Revolution console comes out and 90 percent of first-party games released in your region become available for online purchase?

DMCA by tepples · 2005-06-01 20:40 · Score: 1

Actually, the case seems to be that you can media-shift on your own

No, you can't do that either. Media-shifting a work protected by a technological measure requires possession of a circumvention device, and possession requires manufacture, distribution, or importation, all of which are a federal crime in the United States. Slashdot's server is located in the United States.

And miss out on movies by tepples · 2005-06-01 20:57 · Score: 1

PSP UMD movies are region coded. A machine with Japanese or North American firmware will not play forthcoming movies designed for European firmware.

Re:And miss out on movies by Builder · 2005-06-01 23:38 · Score: 1

You sure about that ? I thought they were going to follow DVD region encoding, which would put europe in the same region as japan.
Re:And miss out on movies by mrchaotica · 2005-06-02 06:59 · Score: 1

That's what happens when you buy DRM-encrusted shit. I have no sympathy.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

DS resolution vs. Warcraft 1 resolution by tepples · 2005-06-01 21:19 · Score: 1

I don't think the RTS would translate well to a small screen.

The original Warcraft ran on a 320x200 pixel display. Only about 256x192 pixels of that were used for the game; the rest of the screen was used for status bars and toolbars. Each Nintendo DS screen is also 256x192 pixels.

Re:DS resolution vs. Warcraft 1 resolution by mrchaotica · 2005-06-02 05:32 · Score: 1

Yeah, and compared to something even as old as Starcraft, Warcraft 1 is pitiful. If that's the best an RTS can be on the Nintendo DS, it's just not gonna work.

--
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:DS resolution vs. Warcraft 1 resolution by KDR_11k · 2005-06-02 05:37 · Score: 1

Namco has an RTS in the works that looks like it took a lot of inspiration from Shogun: Total War, called Samurai: Total Warrior. There is a TBS port of AOE2 (sounds like Civ lite, done by Majesco so feel free to ignore) upcoming and I think some other RTSes are going to be ported as well.

BTW, according to what I heard about the MP Hunters Demo (I got a japanese import so no demo) and Golden Eye DS FPSes seem to work really well on the system.

--
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Re:DS resolution vs. Warcraft 1 resolution by mrchaotica · 2005-06-02 06:34 · Score: 1

Heh, that "Samurai: Total Warrior" thing sounds appropriate, since it's a smaller scale than "Total War." And that's my point: I just don't see how a full-sized RTS could fit comfortably on this device.

The fact that AOE2 will be turn-based makes it more similar to DopeWars (as per my example a few posts ago) than to Warcraft, which I admit will work well on the DS. But it's also not a RTS anymore.

Incidentally, I did some googling, and I found this:
Age of Empire II port and Advance Wars are turn based, not real-time...

And Namco's Shogun Warrior will be a pure action RTS; no resources...
This confirms what you said about AOE2, and what I suspected about Samurai. It seems to me that the game makers have realized the same thing I have; otherwise, why wouldn't they leave the things as RTSs instead of turning them into something else?

Don't get me wrong, I agree that the stylus would work well for RTS, but you need the stylus and a screen big enough to show a decent chunk of the map to have a good game.

As for GoldenEye, well, I hated trying to play that with the N64 controller too. For FPSs I like using a mouse -- not a joystick, not a thumb joystick, not a trackball, and probably also not a stylus!

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"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Re:DS resolution vs. Warcraft 1 resolution by KDR_11k · 2005-06-02 08:10 · Score: 1

Command and Conquer ran at 320x200 with a large part of the screen taken up by the build menu. Warcraft could probably have been the same as WC3 had those mechanics been invented back then. Serf City (Die Siedler) ran perfectly well at 320. With smaller unit graphics you could fit Starcraft on the DS. You just need to make the units smaller to fit enough onscreen, might require a few redesigns to keep them recognizable at that size, though.

Last I heard Samurai involves land management and taxes and stuff like that for ressources, did they change that?

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Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.

In which region? by tepples · 2005-06-01 21:39 · Score: 1

Yeah. A whole 21 days.

What you say would be true for most of the audience of slashdot.jp (read in Japan, where the PSP did come out within a month of the Nintendo DS) but is not true for most of the audience of slashdot.org (read in North America, where the DS had a head start of several months, and in Europe, where the PSP still isn't available at retail). "It doesn't matter; everybody who wants one already imported it" isn't an answer, as PSP UMDs are region coded (following the DVD Video region map?).

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Think the link was from a remake... by SuperKendall · 2005-06-02 02:51 · Score: 1

If you do a search for Mazogs, one of the links looked liked a remake of Mazogs - the picture might even be from there for comparison. I did like that game a lot...

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"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley

Re:Think the link was from a remake... by Spacejock · 2005-06-02 03:39 · Score: 1

They show both shots, but they're maziacs remakes. Doesn't matter, VB81 is a nice emu and you can play Mazogs full screen with it.

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Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts

Was NGPC ever in Wal-Mart? by tepples · 2005-06-02 05:50 · Score: 1

Nintendo has never been the only company in the portable gaming market.

For a lot of time before the PSP came out, Nintendo was the only company in the North American market whose entry was not an absolute joke.

Tiger has had handhelds for quite a bit longer than Nintendo.

Even before Game & Watch? And as for dot-matrix based games, Game.com flopped horribly because its screen was way too motion-blurry to play the version of Sonic the Hedgehog that was ported.

Remember the Wonderswan? NeoGeo Pocket? Sega Game Gear? Tapwave? N-Gage?

Of those five, only the Sega Game Gear appeared in U.S. Wal-Mart stores to my knowledge, and it had horrible battery life, though admittedly at a time when too many console makers' management underestimated the value of battery life.

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