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Is There Anything Wrong With The PSP?
An anonymous reader writes "In the latest 'Analyze This' series of exclusive Gamasutra features, analysts from Screen Digest, ABI Research and DFC Intelligence look at what Sony and developers can do to improve the PSP platform, to generate more excitement for it among developers, gamers and the industry overall — or if they even need to. 'My feelings on the PSP are mixed: It has shown there is demand for a more high-end portable system. The portable market has room for two competing portable systems. We forecast that over the next five years dedicated portable systems will sell just as many units as the new console systems. However, the PSP could really use a new model. This has been the secret to Nintendo's success.'"
It costs too much.
Its load times are obnoxious for a portable.
It's too big to stick in your pocket.
The control scheme is awkward.
The games suck.
The battery life sucks.
Nobody wants to buy movies again on UMD.
It is a steaming pile of dogshit. The fact that they have to resort to slashvertisement phony-news articles to sell it is proof of that.
And c'mon now, daddy pants, own up to it.. All the PSP stories you post are part of the paid "all i want for xmas" campaign aren't they?
I mean, I cant understand a geek site giving a fuck about it. It's an n-gage that cant make phone calls.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
No touch screen. PDA's were around way before the PSP came out, it should have been the first thing they thought of. Both the PSP and GP2x suffer from the same problem. A touchscreen makes the device so much more versatile. Web browsers, calculators, calenders, console type applications, etc are much easier to do with a touch screen. It vastly opens up the possibilities for home-brew stuff.
Both the PSP and GP2x are high-powered cool machines but without a touchscreen I'm going to stick with my Nintendo DS.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
i suspect the main thing the psp needs are games and not UMD movies. All th PSP has are broken ports and the occasional remix. There is a reason why they have a ps1 emulator on it and most people use it for homebrew.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Don't cripple your product!
If the PSP had been able to play movies at full resolution from the flash-card instead of only from the craptastic UMD then I would have bought one instead of the Video Ipod that I own now.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Stop spending time, effort and money deliberately making it hard for people to develop their own software. Sony should be encouraging that, not making it harder. (They could reinstate lik-sang and pay them damages, too).
The PSP needed a 10-20 GB hard disk to be able to download new games. Also an open-ended developer SDK so that anybody could write their own games and port classic games to this mobile platform.
I had one for about 4 months, the screen was beautiful, the controls were acceptable, but the UMB format was unfortunately stillborn. I eventually traded it in for a PS3.
I can throw as many stones as I wish; my house is made of transparent aluminum.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's a much better portable than the DS, supporting movies, music, and far better games. (Sorry, dragging crap around with the stylus and shouting into the microphone don't make a better experience, they just make the thing more annoying.)
But the problem is that it's owned by Sony, and Sony has managed to piss off the gaming community to the point where the mere fact that it's owned by Sony is enough to prevent people from buying it.
It's sad, really.
Sony needs to stop allowing their movie / music division to dictate to their consumer electronics division. They added UMD movies to the PSP that nobody wants. They added Blu-Ray to PS/3 and slipped their schedule out a year and added hundreds of dollars to the consoles cost. They keep putting all sorts of unwanted DRM into everything. Sell it off and get back to making well-designed consumer electronics.
[Insert pithy quote here]
I had to go through a ton of headaches just to get my PSP able to run homebrew stuff. I don't run homebrew because I want to screw Sony, but because there's so much good homebrew stuff! One of the biggest things is emulation. The PSP is great for playing NES and Sega Genesis games. The screen is a good size, controls are good, etc.. but Sony requires apps be signed unless you hack your PSP.
The PSP has had problems from day 1. I own one. I regret it. I haven't touched it in a long time. Their biggest mistake? The control scheme. NO SECOND ANALOG STICK. Considering how Sony really popularized that (during the PS1 time frame) and everyone uses it these days, not having it on the console is a huge mistake. It makes things tough for many of the games out there. Katamari got a weird control scheme, no good camera control in FPSes or 3D platformers (NOTE: I own a DS, which I love, but I think they should have put one analog stick on it). The games draught (as I see it) is the biggest problem. There is only ONE game I can think of that I am looking forward to: God of War for the PSP and I don't even think that has been officially announced.
How to improve it at this point? Better games, pure and simple. There have been so many games I've played in the past year or two on my DS compared to a tiny handful on my PSP.
Opening some kind of homebrew (even if regulated and locked down) would give me new interest because then I could make stuff and try other peoples. That wouldn't solve the games problem, but it would help some.
Interesting system, problems in design, I regret I purchased it (especially considering it's original price).
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
Overall, the PSP seems to have been designed for style and coolness first, with usability second. Consequently, the analog stick is pure shit and almost unusable. The D-pad is better, but not a whole lot so. With my smaller hands, the shoulder buttons are all but unusable as well.
The crossbar interface, or whatever Sony's calling it this month, while lauded on the PS3 - I find to be pretty underwhelming on the PSP as well. Sony should have just thrown this out and again - spent time looking for an interface that was more usable than 'cool'.
UMD game load-times are so atrociously slow that when I still had a PSP, bothering to change games simply doesn't worth it. If I didn't want to play the game that was already in there, or if I actually turned my PSP off rather than simply putting it on standby you couldn't just pick the system up and get that 'quick game fix' that portables are supposed to be so wonderful for.
The only place the developers can help of course is in the games department... fortunately (for them,) this is another one of the PSP's huge failings. Quit with the tired, crappy ports, and come out with more new and fun games on the system. Learn it's limitations and weaknesses, especially the media limitations. Design games that are quick to load, don't rely on that crappy analog... thing, and don't make you sit looking at a loading screen for two to three minutes any time you load a save, or move to a new level, or something along those lines.
As long as the PSP still suffers from THIS, gamers are just going to keep shutting it off and picking their DS back up.
The PSP is great, but sony just keep breaking all the best software with their firmware updates.
I got a PSP before the price reduction (ARGH!) for video and music, with Wifi being a fringe benifit. I now felt like I wasted my money.
First, music is fine, don't get me wrong. The native player is nicely built, the interface is decent, and you can stare at it all the time. Video, though, requires a special subsection of the MP4 format that only a few people have cracked (including the Xvid4PSP utility). Oh, and you can't use a MPEG4 codec eazily ether -- you have to use H264. And depending on the firmware, these requirements can and will change (pre-3.30 vs 3.30).
Second is third party support. There's no cheap UMD burners out there. The UMD format is completely proprietary. You got Memory Sticks which are half-way good, but in order to run anything off of them you need to hack the ROM. Lock-in, anyone?
Third is Linux support. Right now, there's a slow-developing ucLinux port out there. There's no MMU on the PSP so it's not a GPX2 contender by any stretch. Sony did a good thing by opening the door a tad with Linux support on the PS3. Sony did a bad thing by killing the capabilities on the PS3 while running Linux.
I'm selling my PSP. For what I want, the iPod is better.
--
# Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
$Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
Paraphrasing James Carville, " It's the games stupid." There's nothing innately wrong with the PSP other than the price maybe. Sure it's not as innovative as the DS, but killer-ap games are what sell consoles and the PSP doesn't have any killer-ap games like the PS2 had in GTA 3.
The biggest problem with the PSP isn't inherent to the system itself, but to the vision of those utilizing it. It's in the very name of the portable itself, "Playstation Portable".
The PSP is treated as though it were a Playstation console, except portable. Little or no consideration is made that it is any different froma Playstation, save in its hardware specifications. As such, we see ports or sequels to games that fail to take into account the need for a different control scheme and game focus.
At the same time, it's drawing on many developers who are not used to working in the portable sphere of gaming. They know what sells on console, and assume the same is true on portables. It only takes a cursory look at the software library for the Gameboy and DS to see this is not true at all.
The result is a system with great potential that is wasted upon people who don't understand it. The PSP and DS both require a fundamentally different approach to game developement than a home console, but only the DS is seeing that.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
Sony makes it.
It sounds all "Anti-Sony fanboi" flamish but there are reasons. For years, dare I say decades, I was a Sony zealot. They had some of the best audio components available for a while. I loved the home theater products I purchased from them. I still have an AV receiver of theirs from the 90-92 range running in my gameroom.
I got turned off starting with the Mini-disc and moving forward. It became somewhat obvious to me that Sony was, as someone else mentioned, letting the media division push an agenda on the hardware division and hardware innovation suffered. The PS3 for instance was a shameless and unhidden push to get a format into prominence by loss selling a console. Any time you have a company selling hardware at a loss hoping to make up the money on software you no longer have an innovative hardware company. (I'm also looking at Apple somewhat with that statement as well , although on a computer hardware front they're starting to do some impressive things lately)
The fact is if you buy a PsP and use it in accordance with how Sony wants you have a crippled hand-held platform. If the only way to get real performance and value out of the platform involves hacks, that should be a big red flag.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
Sony. Next question please.
It was made by sony.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
XXX#######
Needs a second thumb stuck.
Thats it.
Homebrew would be a nice feature - I quite like MS XBox approch to homebrew more than the Nintendo (ignore it, but don't overly actively stop it) or the PS3 (too cripped).
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
It is my ultimate goal to somehow post something that ends up at 5: Troll.
+++ATH0
I think what you're striking on is that the PSP occupies this uncomfortable edge between "multipurpose device" and "gaming device." It has the power to be a PDA -- or a full-fledged computer, if Sony had put just a little more work into the UI, but its controls work like a game system, and there is no convenient way to switch from one to the other. Sure, you can hook up a keyboard, but that's unwieldy.
So it's too expensive for a portable game system, but designed wrong to be a portable computing device. Must be frustrating for PSP fans.
+++ATH0
For a long while, I thought that the PSP was a big waste of money for me, like others who have posted. However, after installing hacked firmware and playing around with PS1 emulation, I finally feel like I got my money's worth. I own three games for the PSP. I also own about 40 PS1 games. For an RPG fanboy like myself, I've felt that portables have always been lacking in this gaming space. But being able to take a couple Final Fantasy games with me on a large MemoryStick on the airplane when I'm traveling for business makes those cross-country plane rides MUCH more bearable. That said, I wish I didn't have to buy an additional battery to keep the gaming going coast-to-coast.
You cna put movies into the memory card if i remember correctly. Assuming you want to format it yourself. Although burning your onw mini-dvd discs would have been far more awesome.
Hmmm... Pie...
Homebrew! Plus, that little system can run virtually ALL of your old console and arcade games. This feature alone (if you don't mind using a firmware downgrader) is worth $169. The PSP is the most amazing portable piece of hardware that I've ever purchased (and subsequently sold.) Problem one is the lack of new games that take advantage of the platform's strength (Infrastructure WiFi!) Ports from other platforms do not. Problem two is the lousy analog stick. The screen is absolutely amazing.
The new formats came years later. There was a Gameboy pocket but the gameboy was still selling well at that point. GBA SP came after millions of Gameboys sold, the DS lite is a better model of the remarkably well selling DS. None of these created new interest, it just enhanced it.
The PSP's biggest issue is it's a "port" system. A PS2 lite, and not in a good way. You can't use the same discs, or the same data, but you can rebuy your favorite PSX and PS2 games for use on your PSP.
What the PSP needed was a DS line up of unique games. Games we haven't played before and will play again and again on every system. Nintendogs alone sold more DSes than probably any other game while the PSP was trying to sell Burnout 3 and wipeout for the 3rd or fourth time.
That's not to say the PSP is bad. It has at least twice the power of the DS, but the unique and great games (like Lumines) gets caught up in the millions of ports which have a been there, done that feeling. Instead of greenlighting everything the PSP should have told developers no to ports (or at least demanded a non port for every port. The DS does have ports but it also has it's own unique games which is what is selling their system when the PSP is struggling.
Sony sells PDAs and laptops, you know :).
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
And that is just it. It is alright. Damned by faint praise. It is a middle of the road device, so while it doesn't actually totally suck at anything, it doesn't shine at anything either.
Take its size, no it is NOT huge. The biggest is the Nintendo DS. That one is larger then the PSP in all dimensions. The DS Lite is exactly the same size as the PSP if you cut of the rounded sides of the PSP. But it is huge compared to the Gameboy advance mini.
So it ain't the biggest, and it ain't the smallest. I wouldn't want a DS in my pocket, I can't slip the PSP in as easy as a GBA mini.
Its screen is amazing scratch proof compared to other devices (say the GBA), but I won't be as easy going with it as my DS.
It doesn't have to play "lesser" games because of its hardware like the GBA/DS series BUT its hardware while similar to the PS2 is NOT close enough to actually be able to just play PS2 games. If for no other reason then that is lacks the controls for those games. This is perhaps the most damning (is that a word) aspect of the PSP. The GBA and DS are NOT capable of running the "big" games and so they don't. They have their own unique games, made entirely for the handheld. Quite a few of the PSP games are clones of "full" games, wich just don't fit on the console.
Not that Sony/PSP is alone in this. I remember a GBA game that for its save system required you to note down a 16 character code. Yeah that is userfriendly, especially on the go.
But simply put, I at least do not play handhelds as fullblown consoles, I play them on the move. That requires a certain style of gaming, for instance, don't make the game impossible to see in bright daylight.
Other middle of the road stuff that damns it. It is an mp3 player. But Memory sticks are smallish and expensive. Plus the player itself is a bit limited. It is like carrying an old style HD player with you with the storage space of a flash player.
It plays video, and fairly reaosonable, except that its storage space is barely big enough to hold a complete movie (and all your other crap). The dead pixels everyone seem to have don't help. No sony, dead pixels are not acceptable, they are the signs of a broken product and people can't look past them on a screen this small.
So it is bigger then an video iPod, and indeed most portable video players, but its storage space sucks and its screen has defects.
A nice thing about the PSP is that it has speakers. You can therefore do a thing with it that an iPod cannot do. Use it as a jukebox. Nice, except that its speakers lack power. Some people use their phones this way and their music is far louder. So you can use it as a jukebox, but only if everyone is really quiet.
Its screen is bigger then the Nintendo handhelds BUT it has less real estate compared to the DS.
Simply put, what is the PSP trying to be. If it was a handheld PS2 it would be a console on the go. But it ain't. If it had more storage it could be a media player. But it ain't. If it had stronger speakers, it could be a jukebox like system. But it ain't. If it games were more made for being on the move. It could be fun like the Nintendo games. But it ain't.
The sad fact is that I play GTA on my PSP and that is it. I also use it to play movies and such but mostly I use it for as a jukebox for when I am in a hotel or something, while I play games on my DS.
Frankly, with all its faults, perhaps the second biggest mistake by Sony (apart from making few "on the move" games) is that PSP games are just so fucking expensive. I rather buy a DS game then for 10-20 euros less.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
...with features like Bloom and other nice features. The real story is that the engine used for GoW:PSP is being licensed to other developers. Once that happens expect a ton of much better looking games.
The PSP isn't for want of games mind you. If you actually read charts the number of games for the DS and PSP are roughy the same, and the PSP has much more multiplayer titles. Also you can import all the games and add-ons from one territory to the next without installing a modchip. The main difference is brand loyalty from kids that grew up on whatever nintendo released. The DS doesn't appeal to me at all, but I'm not some kid playing pokemon or various minigames. I mostly play Japanese title on mine aside from Metal Gear and Killzone in English. The PSP is the best entertainment you can have on a plane bar none. The new firmware lets you have fullscreen movies too. That's the real killer feature is they keep expanding functionality. They should have had that support sooner however... my wishlist would be a hobby API so I could make a PDF reader instead of using pdftopng and zooming all over. I would even make it for free. =)
I think what might curb this would be when/if the PS2 ceases to be - but by that time Sony will have unveiled the PSP2 or bailed out of the market entirely.
Schnapple
There are lovers of the PSP milling around. Me being one of them. I know im just setting myself up for flamebait, but I think my PSP is awesome. I have a few qualms with it, but even iPod users have problems. Dont get me wrong, I have tons of portables (i even break out the old Lynx and Gamegear from time to time) but the PSP reigns supreme in my book. iPods are too simple for me (although i DO have a shuffle... who doesnt want a flash drive with a headphone jack?) and PDA's are too business-oriented for my tastes as well... the PSP just seems to fit the bill. MyLO, on the other hand, is a peice of garbage.
Open it up to homebrew - make it an option in the settings so homebrew doesn't work by default, but at the same time you don't need to do anything more than go into the settings to (potentially) open up your PSP to homebrew stuff - and if you can put it on a memory stick then surely you can do that...
Change the expansion adapter to be compatible with the iPod - I'm not as bothered about this, but a short adapter cable to let me use any iPod speakers or other expansions, and the added benefit of companies (and individuals) hardware hacking the output (and input?) would benefit everybody.
Do a touchscreen - not necessarily as a new PSP, but as an expansion that plugs in the top (so you've also got somewhere to store the stylus), and have OS supported "if it's there then use it, otherwise use the joystick as an analog device" functions.
Do a tilt detection module (*not* motion detection - the thought of a PSP hitting my head is painful) - same sort of functions as above...
Release games on memory stick - the drive is a *real* power drain...
I've seen - and experienced - the same problems but in my experience PSP Video 9's latest release is able to make videos that show up and play at full res.
...without being branded a shill anymore.
I'm with you, I really like the PSP. I think it has a good library; I actually like the multi-platform releases, since I have more time to play the PSP than I do my 360. And it's multi-faceted in a way that the DS is not. I can't imagine commuting without it.
But:
It should be a little smaller; it's tough to even fit it in my coat pocket sometimes, since you have to keep it in a case due to the unprotected screen and thumbstick.
I also wish it had built-in bluetooth, because once you use A2DP headphones you'll never go back.
If they want me to use it as an MP3 player, it should really resume playing when I bring it back from suspend mode
People are overly hard on the device. I'm not sure if it's fierce territoriality by Nintendo fans or what, but the fact is that the PSP is the first successful handheld gaming device by any company other than Nintendo.
Unfortunately, those 20 million people don't buy very many games - with an install base that big there should be more than 7 or 8 games that have sold more than a million. I think this is because they've captured the casual Madden crowd but completely failed to win over the hard core gamers, as evidenced by the anti-PSP meme you see all over the net.
Defending the PSP feels a lot like siding with Microsoft, but I'm going to do it anyway. There is nothing wrong with the PSP itself; Sony's attitude toward the PSP is the problem.
The PSP is a pretty slick piece of hardware. There are many complaints about it (high price, long load times, large size, awkward controls, lack of games). The people who focus on these easily attacked points seem to miss the strengths of the system:
* The PSP is powerful enough to emulate virtually all video game console systems that are of the PSX/N64 generation and older.
* The despised UMD discs hold quite a bit of data. Games like GTA:LCS are possible because there is enough space for them. The platform is capable of much more than ADHD-inspired mini games.
* The system connects to a computer using a standard USB cable and appears as a disk. You can copy whatever you want to it (homebrew, music, pics, movies).
The PSP has a lot of potential. With a large memory stick and the right firmware you can carry a large portion of video game history with you wherever you go--almost like an iPod of video games.
Though I'm happy with the hardware I must admit that Sony is strangling the PSP. To allow homebrew is to allow the pirating of games. Sony upgrades the firmware to remove exploits that allow homebrew to continue and then forces users to upgrade to play new games.
Sony fails to realize that homebrew ADDS value to the PSP. The PSP doesn't need a new business model. It simply needs fewer restrictions and more games that people like enough to buy.
And c'mon now, daddy pants, own up to it.. All the PSP stories you post are part of the paid "all i want for xmas" campaign aren't they?
Well, if you are going to go that way, then so are all the Nintendo Wii/DS and Microsoft Xbox360 post here and elsewhere.
And Microsoft has been known to astroturf, so who can you really trust?
Give it a 30GB internal hard drive and improve the battery. Even improve the web browser to play youtube and flash in general. Skype would be huge. Make some sort of sharing via wifi possible.
Do that and keep costs down, maybe $350 and you got a huge hit. Maybe save money and space by ditching the stupid UMD altogether. Digital distribution sounds like a better alternative, or maybe get games on Memory Sticks.
God, it's so obvious...stupid sony.
... and I have a whole list.
It's too expensive. HELLO! We're in the middle of a recession! You think the upperclass have time to play video games? You think the middel and lower class can afford these price tags?
It's made by Sony so everyone knows to hate it in advance. Trust me, by the time the early adopters have evaluated it, their prejudice will be vindicated.
DEAD PIXELS! DEAD PIXELS! DEAD PIXELS!
What a PR nightmare. People were bragging to their friends that they were one of the lucky ones who didn't get a defective product. Not only that, BUT! - That is especially awesome, because Sony is telling the not so lucky one's "TOUGH SHIT." The damn thing is already $200 too expensive, and then you have to take in to account that it's a gamble on if you'll get a fully functional product for that. If you want to cut costs on quality control, make a dead pixel edition for $100 and dump them on ebay. Then it's not a kill joy blemish on the shiny new toy because they expected it. I have a fiberoptic borescope with dead pixels I got this way. Guess why I don't mind the dead pixels? Then you have the fashion accessory factor of people wanting the full quality version and being willing to pay the $200 difference. Hell, claim the ebay ones are stolen in a press release so you don't even get ghetto points for selling off your rejects. WORD OF MOUTH SUICIDE.
DRM. Nuff said. No seriously. We're not just talking. We seriously won't tolerate this crap. And guess who's word of mouth has the biggest impact on consumer electronics adopters? That's right, the FUCKING NERDS. You think they ask us for fashion advice while we're fixing their computers?
Firmware upgrades breaking shit.
No keyboard.(the primary reason I never got one.) I wanted to install a hacking distro and use mine as a gaming device/James Bond worthy portable wifi hacking platform. Pretty hard to do without a keyboard accessory.
In other words: Up your ass Sony, for not only not providing an accessory that you said you would, but for not even releasing specs for 3rd parties to work with. You are officially asshole cock-teases. It's like watching a rich man flush money down a toilet in front of a homeless shelter. You're fucking yourself, and if you weren't such an idiot, you could make that last step and offer a product that would IMPROVE LIVES. Instead, you act like incompetant greedy assholes, and nobody wants your useless shit. Do you have any idea how many times someone has tried to sell me a used PSP for $150?
Portable system needs portable games. Not shitty ports.
No second thumbstick.
You decided to cut support for the platform to try and force upgrades to the incredibly forgettable Sony attempt at an iPod killer. So you have a shitty game system, that was almost a good media device, getting it's media support neglected, to try to force upgrades to a shitty media device. GENIUS.
Sony, I hope you're reading this because I want you to listen closely. You should listen to me, because I am a broke motherfucker, and effective use of money is exactly what your company is lacking in. I am an expert in the subject. I want to tell you why a broke mother fucker like me, chooses to spend the money he does have on other brand devices.
1. If my product breaks before it's time, I don't care if I call a decade later, it's a lot cheaper to you to make me happy and fix my product and appologize for the inconvenience, than it is for me to boycott your product's, and make sure the entire world hears my negative word of mouth publicity against you. I SAVE UP to buy things like consoles once. I will sacrifice a lot in performance and even price for reliability and quality. If you get a reputation for making tanks again, I'm fine with your current price tags. Or you can keep making shit, and I want the prices cut in half.
2. Your media devision? Music/Movie Distrobution is dying, gaming distrobution is taking over. Quit killing your gaming/electronics divisions, trying to prop up the dead wei
"Sports titles and FPS's are two genres which I feel have never really taken off on handheld platforms, and the PSP has proven it can execute in these genres." Is this guy smoking crack? FPS's are terrible on the PSP, which can be fully attributed to the lack of a second analog stick. Hell, even if they had just moved it to the other side of the machine it would have worked. The only decent full aiming FPS I've played on a handheld was Metroid Prime Hunters; and that game wasn't spectacular by any means. Coded Arms wasn't horrible; until you factored in the control scheme. Same problem with CoD and MoH. Adding a second analog stick would make me SO happy that'd I'd actually go out and buy a PSP (Been needing a portable movie player). Though adding a touchscreen too (Dare I wish?) would clinche it for me. Imagine! Browsing the net in a non retarded way on a Sony system!
PSP's should have some kind of backup utility so they do not become bricked. Wireless routers do this, why not PSP's? I would pay the extra $5 for a rom chip that prevents a $200 device from becoming useless.
The funny thing is that, with it's touch screen, and two screen interface, the DS seems to have a lot more potential as a PDA... although Nintendo has no interest in taking it in that direction. Basically the only thing the PSP has over the DS is power, and seriously, when was the last time you needed to render complex 3D lighting effects on a PDA?
I just wish Nintendo would come out with a suite of PDA apps. I guess they're releasing Opera in the US this June, but it's supposed to be slow and crippled. But I can understand why they don't: adding PDA functionality would muddy their image of being a system focused on games. I guess I'm fine with that.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Why should that "muddy their image" at all? The only people who would get a PDA cart would be people who don't care about the image of the system. How does Nintendo suffer if one of their machines gains added functionality?
+++ATH0
There I said it. The market was not ready for the PSP because...
1) The technology available to convert a console to a portable (and still be DRM like) is not available for the power hungry PSP, the power and portable battery life to drive the the system was not yet in existence. The PSP was pre-mature, it's an ok concept but the technology wasn't ready. Nintendo is one of the companies that *knows* this implicitly.
2) Handhelds are subject to a lot of abuse, I can't count how many times I've dropped my gba sp and picked it up without having to worry about busting the innards.
3) Battery technology is just not there yet.
4) CD's in a portable game system are a bad idea to begin with, flash is now getting to the point where you can do decent games for cheap on flash media.
And here in America, if you're not #1 you might as well be last. Personally, I think the PSP is successful because it's a non-Nintendo product which succeeded as a portable gaming device. I bought a DS rather than a PSP because I always liked Nintendo and I thought the PSP was going to be the GameGear of this era, but now I'm kinda wishing I went with the PSP. I certainly didn't like the initial price, but the PSP has Tekken, Mortal Kombat, sports, and racing games. And most important, it has MGS: Portable Ops. The DS had some really good games, but Brain Age is the only one I haven't traded in. It seems like most the games coming out for it are just crap for kids. First party titles are where it's at, but Zelda isn't coming out until fall. I probably won't buy a PSP because paying for school is more important than buying gadgets, but I do think it's pretty slick. And really, it's not selling all that bad. I'm sure EA and Sony are making some decent cash off the thing. It's kinda tailored for drug dealers, and I don't think most of them would want to use a DS (not to mention it lacks the multi-media car features/accessories).
Anyway, let's not call #2 a failure, that will just discourage interested buyers from getting one. After all, I doubt any of you would consider Apple to be a failure, despite the fact that their revenues and profits are dwarfed by Microsofts (heh, stock value's another thing, but that weakens my analogy =\ )
psp is the only INTERESTING device out there because its the ONLY portable device with 3d capabilities AS OF YET.
p .org/psp/gl/</a>
*rabble rabble rabble*
Furthermore:
<a href="http://www.goop.org/psp/gl/">http://www.goo
<i>My goal with this library is to provide a efficient, useful and (relatively) complete subset of OpenGL which makes all the PSP's hardware abilities available, either through standard OpenGL mechanisms or with extensions.</i>
please go put that back in your mouth and go smoke it.
then wash that mouth out.
to everyone else, hurry up and get me 12-inch-tablets with 128+-core-gpu's and 5000Hz-refresh-rate input stylus's and army of accelerometer sensors in them, so i can CACKLE MANIACALLY laughing down at the PSP. actually i just want good rfid with a really good phased array, that'd be a much more "robust" sensor solution, albiet a little difficult to pull of technically.
Hi looser!!
Obviously you don't know didn't even get the effort to find out about OE firmware and slew other Homebrew alternatives. And also you could back up your games and run them off the stick cutting load time.
I would think you'd know any better being a Slashdotter reader.
For you info because of homebrew I made several people get a PSP and only a PSP. And I found mine for $100, by now recouped for helping others. LMAO PSP+unlimited games+ hOmebrew+fun=priceless!!! You'd been smarter you could've found one cheaper too.
And it's getting better by the day.
ps: lemme buy your PSP for $50
if you consider the history of the portables. i mean,till now,nintendo portables did squished every single other portable (including some of their own) like bugs,but PSP is still alive and selling a LOT more than any other portable in history that was against nintendo.
perhaps you shouldn't mess with PSP in the first place if you manage to brick it.
Without owning a psp I downgraded several PSP without a brick. Now I own one because I got it really cheap and continue downgrading PSPs.
then you deserved a bricked PSP. One you should've done proper google research and second ask if you don't know how the heck it works.
Besides there ARE mod chips out there if you are dumb enough to brick one.
I used to face the choice of upgrading the PSP for the game I bought, or breaking my homebrew/emu stuff.
Still remember fearfully clicking to run GTA, knowing my homebrew was lost until the next crack came along.
In the end I realized I had to decide between Sony UMD game, or homebrew/emu. As the amount of homebrew rose and the qaulity of the games dropped (well that's how it felt to me) I just gave up patching the firmware.
I can't be the only one, but the outcome is that Sony's forced bios updates to allow you to play the games you've bought has resulted in my just stopping buying the games.
One final annoyance related to the bios. When I was about to get on a longhaul flight, I realized I had no new books/games. Picked up a copy of Burnout in the airport and took my seat on the plane.
After we were in the air, popped my game in the PSP up it started. Firstly it demanded I upgrade my bios, so I clicked yes. Then it demanded I plugged the PSP in to flash the bios.... I had a very boring flight.
No. Sony's lost their way in producing devices that are consistently way more expensive and complicated than Nintendo's, while still making it difficult for people who actually WANT something like that to participate fully in the extended features (hurray for Sony vendor-lock!). PSP is an excellent example of this. It had a huge amount of potential out of the gate, but they made the UI complicated and simultaneously left out a keyboard. Plus they kept breaking all of the hacks people came up with to actually do something useful with the machine.
That said, if a) PSP was $70 cheaper ($129 is the current price of the DS) and b) The games were a little cheaper, I think you would still see a mass uptick in PSP usage. What is really holding people away from the machine is price-per-purpose.
+++ATH0
Nope. I don't buy it. Suppose someone (not even Nintendo) were to release a PDA/internet cart for the machine. You really think this would affect how 10 year olds think of their best friends' DS and how badly they want to play
No. Sony's lost their way in producing devices that are consistently way more expensive and complicated than Nintendo's, while still making it difficult for people who actually WANT something like that to participate fully in the extended features (hurray for Sony vendor-lock!). PSP is an excellent example of this. It had a huge amount of potential out of the gate, but they made the UI complicated and simultaneously left out a keyboard. Plus they kept breaking all of the hacks people came up with to actually do something useful with the machine.
That said, if a) PSP was $70 cheaper ($129 is the current price of the DS) and b) The games were a little cheaper, I think you would still see a mass uptick in PSP usage. What is really holding people away from the machine is price-per-purpose.
+++ATH0
The homebrew scene alone makes the PSP a worthy purchase, and Sony is nowhere near stopping it. Every time they release a significant firmware update, it's hacked and the superior custom version that still plays homebrew pops up a few weeks later.
Nowadays we have PS1 emulation, N64 emulation is coming along, and a whole shit ton of other cool apps, emulators, and games have been released over its life span.
The gp2x is meant for this kind of thing, but it doesn't have wifi, it runs on AA batteries, and it doesn't have wifi.
Its problems are obviously the lack of a second joystick and crap official games.
I agree that there's still homebrew interest in the PSP. There seems to be a lot less than there could be, and I've seen quite a few people who were initially interested give up on it completely. Other systems are much more homebrew friendly, from Palm and PocketPC to the GP2X. Heck, Apple does less to mess with homebrew developers than Sony does for PSP homebrewers from what I can tell.
I feel a little evil for saying this, but I actually like my PSP. Why? Four reasons. First off: emulation. I got my PSP relatively early, so I've always been running it hacked. I have full speed emulators for PSX, SNES, NES, GB/GBC, and GBA, plus a quasi-fullspeed N64 emulator. I can play almost any game released between the 1980s and 1999. Being able to play Super Mario Bros. 3 and Mario64 anywhere you want is awesome. It does say something about the PSP's current game library that I'm mostly using it to play games released for other platforms, though. Second is Lumines. This is easily one of the top 10 games of all time, and definitely one of my top three. If you liked Tetris, you'll LOVE Lumines. It takes Tetris and does it one better, by making it into an actual puzzle game, rather than a mostly twitch-based game like Tetris is. It's also a treat for the ears as well. The music is integral to the game, and almost all the songs are excellent. I can't help but sway in time with the beat every time I play. It's also a marathon, while Tetris was a short fix. One game of Lumines will take me the better part of two hours. Many a plane ride have been made bearable thanks to Lumines. Third is the wed browser. Since I didn't have a laptop till recently, being able to use the internet without having to use the family-shared computer was invaluable. This is really only a selling point for those still living with their parents, though, or those who have to share a computer. Finally, the orgasmic screen + movies. Since I've been running hacked firmware, I've been able to play full screen 480x272 videos since I've gotten the thing. I have a 1GB mem stick, which runs about $70 dollars or so, and I can fit about three decent quality movies on a stick, along with about 20-30 SNES, NES, GBA, and N64 games. However, the sobering point for Sony is that I've only liked their device when I've hacked it. They should really be questioning their business strategy when customers have to exploit their devices to enjoy them.
problem with the PSP is that it's *too* powerful.
Making it almost equivilent to a PS2 means that developing a game for either system is going to cost roughly the same amount. So therefore any developer with half a brain is going to release their game for the PS2 (install base 140m), rather than just the PSP (install base 25m).
This means the PSP has ended up with many bad PS2 ports, and very few exclusives.
When PsP came out I decided I woudl get it IF I could find one game for it that I would play. Years later I gave up my search.
The hard fix: replace UMD with DS-like memory cards. Explore possibility of introducing touch-screen technology.
To be honest, the system isn't bad. But I don't like the UMD drive at all. I never felt like the lack of a touch-screen was a problem, but it would certainly enhance the system.
Although the design and build quality is quite high, there's this feeling of fragility I have every time I handle the system. I'm afraid of banging it against something, let along dropping it. . I think the overly-complex loading system for those discs is the culprit. I have experienced first hand that flexing the device can cause the discs to eject.
The easy fix: more unique games.
This is an obvious solution. I do find it interesting, however, that the PSP has a surprising number of good games. Looking specifically at RPGs, for example, the PSP has a better selection of highly rated games than the DS. The problem I find is when I walk into most stores. Most DS games are easily found anywhere. However, in most stores the selection for PSP is crap. Most is it is the usual garbage and a few EA games and a handful of PS2 ports with a few UMD movies thrown in to fill up the shelf.
This poses a problem for the PSP because the consumer's impression is inevitably affected by what they see on the shelves. Look at the PSP rack and it's a dreary collection of sports and violent shooters. Because of the more adult themes of the games inevitably the color scheme is monochromatic. Look over at the DS section, sitting right beside it and everything is bright and colorful. It looks like plenty of fun to be had.
I precently got a DS, but I have to admit the PSP is an impressive system. The price drop makes it more attractive, but I don't like the UMD format at all and I'm not too interested in many of the games available. There's too much of an emphasis on 3D for my taste.
Companies like Sony and Microsoft (and I hate to say it, but more recently: Apple) are constantly hitting
...As Sony is finding
consumers with products and policies that are painfully none-too-subtle efforts at benefiting the company first
and consumers as a distant second (if at all). Take the last 25 "upgrades" to iTunes, or XP that I've received.
What's the improvement to functionality? Zero. Improvement to our corporate overlords? Priceless.
The PSP falls into this category in at least a dozen ways, from UMD movies, inability to play movies
off the memory-stick at full resolution, bluetooth limitations, etc. In a nutshell, protected platforms
are anti-consumer. They limit consumer options in an effort to protect corporate profits.
I recently bought a no-name MP3 player which has one feature that Sony, Microsoft and Apple can't ever hope
to touch: it has no software. It plugs into your USB port and you copy music to it. Done.
This, to me sums up the entire problem with big electronics corporations: they've stopped focusing on
electronics and they've become crack-addicts for the killer business model. And its the easiest thing
in the world for us to destroy. Consumers just have to say "no. enough is enough".
out the hard way...
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
I don't know how long you expect the PSP's battery to last for, but mine lasts for around 5-6 hours of non-wifi gameplay, or about 3 hours of online multiplayer. It doesn't seem like something to make such a fuss about. I can hardly remember the last time it ran out of batteries while i was playing it. I don't know how long the DS battery lasts for, but if I can play for more than 3 hours a day without having to recharge in between, I sort of stop caring.
was the prices mostly. The screen looked gorgeous, the design slick. The games I figured would come. Movies/video I could care less about, I love movies but I want a great portable gaming system first and foremost, not a video player so much. I'll admit the lure of the GBA and NES also in it's homebrew capabilities. A interesting thing though, buy the time I bought a GBA with homebrew rom device, a DS with homebrew rom, and a newer brighter DS I could have bought a PSP and a gamer or two. Greanted I don't buy hardly any GBA/NS games anymore though thanks to homebrew and that's saved me a lot of money. I'll prob get a PSP someday, maybe when the price gets down to around $120
Gaming for over 25 years
While I wouldnt say the PSP is a failure. Its actually done much better than other portable systems competing against Nintendo. However, Sony totally ignored what made the Nintendo portables such a success and tried to give the home console experience on the road. That does not work very well in the portable world. When your on the road and want to play a game, you need to be able to get to actual gameplay very quickly. You also need a good library of games that give can be played in short bursts. Battery life is also important if you're going to be without a power supply for several hours. This is something that Sony ignore with the PSP.
#####Free and Open Source Game Directory#####
I think Sony's major flaw was not harnessing the previous library of games released for the PS1.
Having previous generations of software (Along with a decent amount of backwards compatibility.) made Nintendo very parent friendly especially during the holiday seasons.
Personally I believe that the PSP costs too much. You have to rebuy all the games and in the end the amount of money you pay for it is just not worth it. It takes way to long to load a game. Half of the time during games you have to wait for a new page to load. It doesn't run smooth at all.
For being portable and small it is still not small enough to fit into your picket and carry around. Its more of a hastle than anything. The buttons are not consistent with the regular ps2 games. So it just becomes weird when trying to switch over to play. The battery life is a huge issue. At most you get about 2 horus of solid playing time in. Which doesnt come in handy when your in the middle of your franchise. But other than that its a top notch product
Yes, i think that both consoles are great, what makes it better is that i got both for free using www.freewebs.com/freethings4u/ DS lite Pros: Easy to just pick up and play - fast loading Touch screen integrates into MOST games well. Small, and can fit in your pocket Attractive, shiny and alot better looking than the original DS DS lite Cons: Weak, graphically and with sound, no great music soundtracks and to be fair, rubbish graphics especially when doing 3D Touch screen gets annoying in games with stupid touch functions. Games are worse because of rubbish storage capacity Not many "adult" games, and many racing games destroyed by having to control the wheel with touch. PSP Pros: Strong with Sound and Graphics Multimedia functionality Very good, 1.8GB storage, OK for even GTA games! Very Very Very Strong Homebrew capabilities PSP Cons: Slow load times, can be counteracted with Homebrew that overclocks your PSP CPU speed. Need to have large memory sticks for multimedia such as video and alot of homebrew require more than 32MB. Game droughts, has many good games, but they either all come at once, or are spread out, never a decent steady supply of good games, e.g. recently Virtua Tennis, Burnout and Prince of Persia all come out close to each other. Overall, i think it's your personal choice whether the PSP is disabled, i personally think no, it has done well, and although it needs a re-design (and should have one), the original is fine as it is. Sony just needs to lower the price and get a steady flow of games coming.
Check this out about starkruzr from his posts here and prepare to laugh your asses off about him and his problems telling the truth, or what sex he is even, hahahaha.
4 94155 [slashdot.org]
Nobody should trust or believe anything you state starkruzr. You've been caught lying with your own words.
Are you a girl, or boy? You are not sure yourself:
"Also, I never said I was from Staten Island. You did. I never said I was the girl in that picture either, you did." - by StarKruzr (74642) on Thursday March 29, @06:16PM (#18536049)
No one ever said you were a girl, YOU did, here:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=227475&cid=18
"Okay, seriously. Let's drop the act. Okay? Yes? Let's quit pretending. I am quite male. I only said I was female to mess with your head." - by StarKruzr (74642) on Monday April 02, @08:18PM (#18581257)
starLOSER the arstechnica liar, caught no less in it a few times here with other reprehensible behavior, and the arstechnica member trend and typical pattern continues, lol, BUSTED as a liar.
(Very bad showing starkruzr. Grow up above all else).