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The UMD and PSP Getting Off The Ground
1up is running a piece examining Hollywood's relationship with Sony's UMD format. From the article: "Two UMD movies sold 100,000 units within two months. By contrast, one of the earliest DVD releases, Air Force One, took nine to achieve the same goal. DVD and ticket sales are on the decline, Hollywood needs a new source of revenue while they pick up the pieces, and PSP's handheld UMD format is turning into the glowing solution." Relatedly, Next Generation is running an article taking a look at the increasing quality of original games coming out for Sony's handheld. From the article: "After an embarrassingly slow start, the PSP has begun to find its niche with developers; likewise, Sony's internal studios and publishing division have gotten really adventuresome lately, with big and little games, both in tested genres and genres those games serve to test."
Let's face it people the PSP has a serious problem with games, this is the same problem you laughed at the Game Cube about, but you defend it now? The problem is you don't have people who know how to make handhelds in charge of it.
Nintendo risked a bit with the 2 screens, but notice where they are? Notice they know how to use it. Nintendogs is genius. They tried something big, and it's worked. Sony can't have something like that, they don't have the capablities for it on this system.
It's the same with the Revolution, if Nintendo gets third party in and sees it's a great idea you'll see a shift in power. And they can likely do it. What they need to let out is numbers for the systems and get the dev kits out, I don't know if they have done either, but once that starts it could be something good. It's going to be hard, but let's be honest, if you think games are good now, your kidding yourself, all we are getting are games similar to what we've been seeing for the last 20 years. This might actually give us something different.
The problem is PSP should stand for PS Ports. They might have GTA Liberty City Stories but they need more than one unique game to hold this system together and they failed that test so far. The only game I want for the PSP is Lumines and maybe Liberty City Stories. Where as the DS definatly has the games, and the backwards compatibility too.
They should have allowed everyone to put their own apps on the system. Would Java have worked if they locked it down? Imagine if you can run anything on the PSP and enjoy programming for it? but of course Sony doesn't want freedom (remember they have a huge invested interest in RIAA.)
Ngage failed for the similar reason in the game department, but the PSP is competition for the DS which is good, but it's not going to beat it though. Nintendo is entrenched here where they wern't on the 64. They use the older archaic format for the Handhelds, but I've noticed it's the one that works the best. You can't damage a cartridge like you can easily scratch a disk. I've scratched many discs accidently, nothing horrible but I've done it, I've never ever damaged a cart, even when trying... And when your transporting this stuff, you're going to scratch it after a while.
The more we glorify their attempts at trying to make it live, the worse it will do when it crashes. UMD is a good idea, if they can make other players and get the cost down. I'm not going to pay twice the price (I get DVDs at places like walmart.. 15 bucks a piece on the day it gets released) just so it's portable. That's obscene.