PSP Go With 16GB Memory and Bluetooth Leaked

Lyonhrt writes "Engadget and Gizmodo have spilled the beans on the news of the new UMD-less PSP Go that comes with 16GB of memory and a slide screen; also among the features will be built-in Bluetooth and an undisclosed memory slot. The console will be sold alongside the PSP-3000, but there are no details on price at this time. This is obviously Sony's answer to the lost battle with the PSP Homebrew and Hacking Communities, which have cost many thousands of lost sales with custom firmwares."

Comments

Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Mobile phones are good enough at playing games that portable consoles arent worth it.

Re:Who cares?

[Dwedit]

The directional controls on mobile phones are crap compared to a Gameboy. Only touchscreen-based or simple puzzle games work well on a phone.

Re:Who cares?

[linhares]

The directional controls on mobile phones are crap compared to a Gameboy.

Yes but the AC has a point. Imagine an android phone with the directional controls done right. Or maybe an ipod touch/iphone if the holy saints from apple design were to allow such sins to happen. Sony seems to be in a tough spot here. The lack of a 2nd analog stick is making the rounds in the early comments over the blogs that leaked it. The memory chip might be a proprietary sony lock-in attempt, yet once again. You may need to rebuy your previously bought games to play here. And of course it must have all functionality of the previous PSPs, including SKYPE.

Memo to these failing phone hardware makers: go for android, include skype, perhaps settle on a "gaming standard" of buttons and controls, and let "hackers" (i.e., someone else to take the blame) provide "nintendo/ps1/ps2/psp/amiga etcetc emulators".

Of course, there may be probably some surprise in store, and I hope Sony has something interesting, even if I'm not planning to get it

Re:Who cares?

[Shikaku]

Imagine an android phone with the directional controls done right.

http://openpandora.org/

Re:Who cares?

[tepples]

There are still three hurdles before the Pandora platform becomes established:

1. it needs to get finished and the first 4,000 units shipped,
2. it needs to enter mass production (thousands of units a week at least), and
3. it needs to be promoted in the mainstream media. Word of mouth isn't always enough when the competition has both word of mouth and advertising.

Have you any estimated time of arrival for these three?

Re:Who cares?

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Unfortunately that's not a phone. The only open phone (openmoko) has 2 buttons : power and aux. Not quite enough for a good game experience.

I keep wondering why this is so hard. Nokia's 5500 and 6820 have such useful and quick keyboards. Nokia Ngage is a freaking game console (didn't sell all that well though), and has lots of phones supporting it.

Nothing open source though. An ngage-style-controls phone with a few emulators, and a large screen ebook reader (perhaps simply by combining a pico projector and a screen flipping up or something*). Something that can run nes, snes, sega megadrive, and n64 would certainly cover all I want (psp games and the necessary controls for those would be a great bonus). And, of course, a pdf reader and some storage slot that isn't limited to 2 gigabyte.

* yes it wouldn't work well in direct sunlight. You don't get much of that up here though, besides you won't find me outside all that much either.

Re:Who cares?

[tepples]

The only open phone (openmoko) has 2 buttons : power and aux. Not quite enough for a good game experience.

Who said games need to use a joystick and buttons? Three words: Kirby Canvas Curse.

Something that can run nes, snes, sega megadrive, and n64 would certainly cover all I want

But how would you get the publishers of games for "nes, snes, sega megadrive, and n64" to cooperate?

Re:Who cares?

[wertigon]

As for 1 (and 2); The first batch is due early summer. Mass production due fall. As for 3, once it has proven it isn't vaporware, I believe it'll gain lots of traction. But, it'll probably never reach more than 1M units. However, it will be the king of homebrews once it arrives. :3

Re:Who cares?

[Toonol]

True. A handheld gaming console is designed AROUND the controls; it's probably more important than graphics. Most mobile phones would be terrible for playing games, even if they had the equivalent of a PS3 condensed inside.

There's a reason Nintendo dominates the market; they are sticking to the idea that consoles (and handhelds) should be for playing games, and other uses are secondary. There's also a reason that Sony failed miserably this gen, and it closely follows...

Re:Who cares?

[Shikaku]

It has a mic. It has wifi. It can be a phone.

Re:Who cares?

[PopeRatzo]

But, it'll probably never reach more than 1M units.

Note that 1 million units constitutes a failure.

Re:Who cares?

[wertigon]

If the Pandora sold 1M units it'd be a runaway success. Market share isn't everything you know... :)

Re:Who cares?

[LordVader717]

It may seem that way to an outside observer, after all, the iPhone e.g. is probably better than the DS in all technical aspects.
But for people who really understand the traditional gaming market, there's so many blindingly obvious faults with all devices that we've seen so far, that it's not worth going in to.

One key thing to understand is that what makes consoles successful is a concentrated and standardized market. As long as Apple or other Phone makers show off their technology on contract-exclusive or $600 devices they will fail.

The same way as PCs being good enough didn't make consoles obsolete.

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Most casual gamers want games that they've heard of. Decent homebrew games are rare...

So really, to be a runaway success it needs fun games, not just remakes of tuxracer and ripoffs of bejeweled.

Re:Who cares?

[KibibyteBrain]

The last time I checked, portable consoles were the most popular in the marketplace, so that might be a reason to care. Also, name me a mobile game that can satisfy someone with an interest in most genres people in portable demographics care about. Good tRPGs on a phone? Sure.

Re:Who cares?

[ShieldW0lf]

Ok... I need to know...

What the hell is a UMD, and what makes a UMD-less device significant?

Re:Who cares?

[TrancePhreak]

I don't think that word means what you think it does.. Also, who's going to give a 5yo a really expensive mobile phone.

Re:Who cares?

[feepness]

they are sticking to the idea that consoles (and handhelds) should be for playing games

If by "sticking to the idea that consoles should be for playing games" you mean "have the lowest rated selection of all consoles" then you would be absolutely correct.

Re:Who cares?

[Trahloc]

Some of us own lots of games and feel that using an emulator to play them where we want to is a perfectly moral thing to do, whether or not "Fair Use" laws agree.

Re:Who cares?

[feepness]

Flamebait? Truth hurts I guess.

Re:Who cares?

[A12m0v]

Let's see your sell phone do this:
http://www.psphyper.com/psp/whats-new-in-growlanser-psp/
http://www.atlus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3150
+40hr Japanese RPGs.

Re:Who cares?

[impaledsunset]

Unfortunately that's not a phone. The only open phone (openmoko) has 2 buttons : power and aux. Not quite enough for a good game experience.

Erm, point and click games work nicely on the OpenMoko phones, it also features acceleratometers that can be used as game controllers, too. The only problem is that the phone is damn slow for anything more sophisticated. And while software can be improved, the hardware sucks, or at least the video subsystem, so you would have trouble with anything utilising the full resolution of the display, for example.

But if the graphic subsystem didn't suck (and SD I/O), it would make a great device for many sorts of games. And it is already enough for the games that I play on it (most supported by ScummVM, though the sound is choppy at times, but I believe this is a software issue).

Re:Who cares?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cunt

Re:Who cares?

[Toonol]

Sorry, but the Wii won this generation by a wide margin... and it was because the console was about providing a fun experience, not about cutting edge graphics with HD resolution and BluRay storage formats.

Re:Who cares?

[feepness]

Again, the idea that it won due to fun gameplay completely conflicts with the fact that it has the lowest rated selection.

It may have won. Why it won is most decidedly not the gameplay.

Re:Who cares?

[plague3106]

There's also a reason that Sony failed miserably this gen, and it closely follows...

It depends on what market you're talking about. If your talking about 12 yr old girls and casual games, the DS wins. But I can think of exactly zero games on the DS that interest me. For my wife its fine, but she's glad she got me a psp... and I am too.

Re:Who cares?

[vuffi_raa]

well bluetooth prolly means some sort of ps3 integration beyond the virtual desktop thing you can get with it right now- I do have to say though that I agree with the fact that dedicated controls on a psp or ds are far better than on a phone, though what both nintendo and sony are missing out on are MID functions. Nokia has pretty well proven that a game driven phone is not enough to get people to buy it, but an internet driven mobile gaming platform would be a step up since there are still few games on either psp or DS that allow internet PVP and the PSP is much better than the DS as a browser but still has a number of flaws- it seems that if the pandora ever comes out it is moving in the direction that people want in a gaming machine- 2 analogs, open GL support for higher end graphics, dual storage slots, keyboard, full MID functioning, emulators, etc.- if sony were to come out with something like this that also played high end, protected, licensed games like the psp they would have a big winner

How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[SuperKendall]

To run custom PSP firmware, you would in fact need a PSP to run it.... custom firmware only increases sales through increased usability and features.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[TheKidWho]

Because almost everyone who runs with customfirmware just downloads the game files via torrent?

Most consoles are sold at a loss and makeup this loss through licensing fees for games.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[wjh31]

two ways i imagine:

1-if the firmware makes your current version of hardware better, you're less likely to buy a PSP V2

2-custom firmware and other software could be used to add free software to the console (either legitimate free, or pirated paid stuff) which could mean they arnt getting royalties from games/etc being sold for the PSP

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

lose sales of games, etc.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[MoFoQ]

I was thinking the same exact thing.
not only that...but it probably positively affect the sales of various munchies and energy drinks as those homebrew hackers need to get their snack-on and their caffeine-on while they code and hack and stuff.

the only lost sales I can think of is with condom manufacturers and restaurant industries as the homebrewers are more like to stay home and code and ignore their significant others.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[MoFoQ]

true but one of the many things custom firmware can do is bypass regional lock outs and allows people to buy imported games.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[DrXym]

It loses sales because the majority of people running custom firmware do so to play pirated games. Same goes for the R4 device on the DS. Piracy means less revenue for Sony and less revenue to the publisher. It also means less incentive for publishers to bother with the platform, or if they do to spend as much on development.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Darkness404]

It loses sales because the majority of people running custom firmware do so to play pirated games. Same goes for the R4 device on the DS.

[Citation Needed]

Sure, custom firmware can be used to play pirated PSP games much as how a candle can be used to burn down a house, yet that isn't necessarily mean thats the reason for having a candle burning in a house. There are many applications such as Nintendo emulators, etc. that will never be released on the PSP with an official release yet you can get them via custom firmware.

Same thing with the DS, as someone who owns a flash cart (purchased oddly enough at Wal-Mart) there are many, many, many quality applications that are DS homebrew. Some things such as emulators will never be released for it legitimately and there are also many homebrew games that will never be officially released for it.

In most homebrew circles piracy is frowned heavily upon.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Crookdotter]

I wonder, what if it was sold at a profit, how much would it cost? And then maybe the manufacturer wouldn't whine so much about piracy, and the publishers of games can try new models of game production that halts piracy, like regular updates to games similar to valve's steam platform. You'll never get a model that pleases everyone, but you can fight the general piracy of games without a negative lock-down policy, but an open, content driven policy.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[V50]

Because despite the people who get up in arms over how Sony is attempting to crush the poor, innocent "homebrew" community, every single person I know IRL who has run custom firmware has used it to pirate games, and maybe an emulator.

And these are very much lost sales, I've seen people go from regularly buying PSP/DS games to not buying any at all once they discovered they could pirate them. :-/

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Niris]

I'm sure Palmula gets plenty of attention.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Darkness404]

Exactly, I really don't understand why consoles/movies are made with region lockout. Its totally stupid in a global economy, if I want to play a game in Japanese rather than English and buy a Japanese game, how do they lose money? They actually *gain* money, heck, most of the people who import games are the same people who spend tons of money buying and playing games.

If we had the same stupid restrictions on books as we do on movies and games, manga wouldn't have become popular and as a result anime wouldn't have either and there are both huge industries in the western world.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[DrXym]

There is no way of quantifying how many people using custom firmware do it for piracy and how many for homebrew. But common sense dictates that the vast majority use it for piracy.

If genuine homebrewers are shocked by this accusation, there is a simple solution. Disable iso record / playback functionality in custom firmware. Let people build homebrew apps but prevent people from playing warez. Let's see how popular custom firmware is then.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Crookdotter]

I own a DS lite, and an R4 cart. Guess what game I play most often? JetPac, run on an emulated 48k speccy. Emulation is a massive market that is being left behind by these handhelds. The d joypad and buttons are perfect for jetpac, I love it. That and manic miner, JSW etc. There's a c64 emulator as well but it's just a little bit too laggy for me, although I still fire it up for Uridium or Paradroid.

Not all r4's are for pirate games. I want a decent, open emulation handheld, and the DS is pretty good for that if you like the speccy. Not investigated the DSi for how powerful its CPU is, but I may decide to get one if it will do c64, mame or maybe an atari ST?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Darkness404]

On the DS there actually *are* flash carts that don't have enough included RAM to play commercial games however they can't play some homebrew titles.

But common sense dictates that the vast majority use it for piracy.

But are the developers actually losing money from piracy? Often the people who use and develop custom firmware are some of the people who buy the most games for the system. Then there is the need for legitimate backups of your UMDs. UMDs while protected still are optical disks and as such are quite prone to scratches, etc. If the UMD filesystem isn't cracked then whenever the last UMD drive fails then the entire library of UMD games gets wiped out forever. If you can save them you ensure the survival of them for future generations or for yourself whenever your PSP breaks.

If genuine homebrewers are shocked by this accusation, there is a simple solution. Disable iso record / playback functionality in custom firmware

I haven't really been much in the PSP homebrew scene but I know that for the DS/Wii most of the time the real developers who develop the technologies do disable it, however because its an open platform any coder can code and run something that helps piracy.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[kjart]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code#Purpose

That's not entirely true. While I agree that it's kind of stupid, they do this so they can sell things at a higher price in more wealthy areas of the world. Nobody making $20/month or whatever in a poorer country is going to pay $20+ for a DVD (or Bluray) - this is intended to stop you from buying thing from countries where things are priced cheaper.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[V50]

In most homebrew circles piracy is frowned heavily upon.

Honestly, in my experience with people IRL, every single one of them running custom firmware on their DS or PSP uses it to pirate games. Heck, I'd gotten to the point of where I was almost translating "homebrew" into pirated games.

While there might be a small number of people who actually do run custom firmware and don't pirate games, for the vast majority of the public custom firmware = free gamez. Same as modchips.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[3vi1]

You may be right, but you can't prove it with a made up construct like "Common sense". Common sense infers common history and experience.

I've always used custom firmware, for hacking around with the IR and running emulators of my old systems. I've never copied a single PSP game. Common sense for me would say that very few people use custom firmware to pirate games.

If you think the opposite, it's possible that you're projecting your own wants and moral position.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except PSP games aren't region locked. Next excuse.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[yourassOA]

If they sell something at a higher price just because you come from a wealthy part of the world are they not ripping you off?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[DrXym]

But are the developers actually losing money from piracy?

Yes is the answer. You can't assume that if there are 100,000 pirate copies that the publisher has lost that many sales. There are lots of lamers who wouldn't pay for anything. But even if 1/5 of those copies could have been legitimate then that is still a very substantial loss of revenue.

I haven't really been much in the PSP homebrew scene but I know that for the DS/Wii most of the time the real developers who develop the technologies do disable it, however because its an open platform any coder can code and run something that helps piracy.

The R4 ships out of the box to play .ds files. I doubt very many people are buying it to run moonshell.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[LunarEffect]

I agree wholeheartedly. The homebrew community has released a huge amount of incredibly useful software to enhance the whole PSP experience. Filemanagers, VNC clients, Emulators, Infrared Remotes....etc. Actually, the Homebrew community is the only reason I bought a PSP in the first place. I own every single game I have for the PSP, I actually bought every UMD. They definitely didn't lose any sales on me.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Darkness404]

Yes is the answer. You can't assume that if there are 100,000 pirate copies that the publisher has lost that many sales. There are lots of lamers who wouldn't pay for anything. But even if 1/5 of those copies could have been legitimate then that is still a very substantial loss of revenue.

But similarly there are many cases that people have pirated games, loved them then bought newer games when they came out that were part of the series that they wouldn't have ever bought if they hadn't been exposed to it via piracy. Yes, there will be people who will never pay for anything, but there will be far more people who will use it as a demo service. Not every game system will be pirateable within a reasonable amount of time (such as the Wii which took ages to crack), and if someone became hooked on a series they would buy the other games in the series for the un-pirateble system. Its the same way with music too.

The R4 ships out of the box to play .ds files. I doubt very many people are buying it to run moonshell.

Someone is confused with the DS homebrew scene ;) Basically it started with PassME, it was this circuit board that you put your DS card on top of and the DS booted using the authentication from the DS card and then had instructions to load whatever was in the Slot-2 which could be a flash cart. Then came Wi-FiMe which could send homebrew via Wi-Fi but still required the Pass-Me. After that they cracked the encryption on commercial games in order to make a no-pass device that was just a DS card that required no commercial game. Then after that came Flash Me, some libraries to make homebrew, etc. Then after that came the piracy stage, but it wasn't the original developers of PassME, Flash Me, Wi-FiMe, etc. But rather an entire different scene, the warez scene. Then basically the warez scene used all the prior work to make nice slot one devices such as the R4.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[mwvdlee]

In most homebrew circles piracy is frowned heavily upon.

In most maffia circles violence is frowned heavily upon.
Atleast, that's what they say.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Darkness404]

Then why not release things with only one or two native languages in the poorer areas and release them with all sorts of languages in the wealthier areas. For example, I don't speak Japanese, I'm not going to go out of my way to buy a Japanese copy of a game that I can get in English thats more available. However, I do own several Japanese games but they aren't (or weren't for a long time in the case of Fire Emblem: Dragon of Darkness and Sword of Light) in English anywhere I'm however a fan of the series and so bought the game to play. Just because I can get Halo 3 in Mandarin and its cheaper doesn't mean I'm going to buy it because I prefer my games to be in English where possible. Plus most languages are in similar economic zones most places that speak English are relatively wealthy, etc. About the only ones that are different are French ranges from wealthy (France) to poor (in some poorer areas of Africa), and Spanish that ranges from wealthy (Spain) to poor (Cuba)

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[psych0fred]

Games and movies are region locked for licensing purposes. A title isn't always licensed for all territories.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

"Common sense is the collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen." - Albert Einstein.

Common prejudice you mean.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[DrXym]

No, common sense. As in a polite way of saying OBVIOUS. It is OBVIOUS that custom firmware is being predominantly used for piracy. It is OBVIOUS that the R4 is being predominantly used for piracy.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[tepples]

if I want to play a game in Japanese rather than English and buy a Japanese game, how do they lose money?

The company that has bought exclusive distribution rights in the United States loses money to the company that has bought exclusive distribution rights in Japan. This can get complicated in the case of video games based on animated TV series originating in Japan, whose exclusive rights often get parceled out to a different distributor for each major developed country. Or the company with exclusive distribution rights in the U.S. to an underlying work whose foreign copyright has expired loses money to the public.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[tepples]

Let people build homebrew apps but prevent people from playing warez.

How is that possible? Homebrew apps include emulators such as PocketNES, and emulators can play pirated ROMs. Homebrew apps include Tetris clones such as Lockjaw, and The TetriSCOmpany thinks those are pirated.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[tepples]

I own a DS lite, and an R4 cart. Guess what game I play most often? JetPac [...] manic miner, JSW [...] Uridium or Paradroid

But how did you copy those games from authentic Speccy tapes or Commodore 64 disks to the microSD card in your R4?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that there is to date only 1 PSP game that has implemented region lock-out, likewise there is no region lock on PS3 games, I think you may have mistaken Sony for Nintendo, who pretty much invented the practice.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

In most homebrew circles piracy is frowned heavily upon.

Ah, frowning always works doesn't it? :) But that's a very fine line between black/white hats. Homebrew and using devices for more than they are meant for is a passion of mine. However, speaking as an imperfect and unwealthy human, if I can get a hold of something that I can live without, for free, I will put my time and cash towards buying something else I feel I must obtain. And somewhere that I want my dollars to go, to say "more of this, please". And that money may go towards used games, to say "I want my mom'n'pop game store to stay in business," since I eschew the large chains.

My own behaviour and common sense says, that in a world without piracy, content creators would not see their earnings visibly increase.

Our whole commercial society (and the current economic crisis) is about living beyond our means. Having the most toys. Huge credit bills to buy huge TVs. If someone has a $300 budget every year to buy games, and piracy is not an option, does their budget magically double to $600? No. Maybe their credit card fills in, and.. cue economic crisis. I spend more on games now than I ever did as a teenager, and I've played an order of magnitude more games than I've ever owned, simply by virtue of having more time than money.

If I rent a game, the publisher feels they got their cut. If I borrow a game from a friend, the publisher feels they got their cut. Even public libraries are offering games. There are also warez groups that encourage purchasing the games you actually play and enjoy. Indeed, I have purchased PC games after trying out a rip, since we've moved past the days where you could actually rent them... With PC games the trial matters more, to see if they will run properly on my system (and the bonus of DRM-free, etc.) To me that's akin to owning a cartridge and playing the emulated ROM, for the bonuses it brings like save states and no physical media to lug.

As a society we will continue to live beyond our means. We will continue to take advantage of every edge we can grab. We will continue to give in to temptation. We will always have different and conflicting ethics and morals. For as long as money exists, we will want to get more for less.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[funkatron]

this is intended to stop you from buying thing from countries where things are priced cheaper.

Please explain how getting a good price for something is objectionable.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

you are right, by the way

if you have some spare time try mybrute.com awesome game! bet you'll like it.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, so it's to gouge the wealthy. (Read: Working Poor in North America)

Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

...this is intended to stop you from buying thing from countries where things are priced cheaper.

And yet, many of those exact same companies in favor of various regional lockouts are more than happy to send jobs to whichever region has the cheapest labor. The only difference is the product (human labor instead of games/movies/software).

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[_133MHz]

Speccy: Tape recorder to Line-In of PC + Taper software
C64: 1541 drive + XM1541 or similar cable + Star Commander software

then it's just a matter of copying the resulting files to the microSD card.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Because when corporations do it, it's called outsourcing. When individuals do it, the corporations see it as theft.
Warped logic indeed.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Your.Master]

No.

There's economics of scale in here. Selling it in all territories for the price they do in poor territories is not profitable. However, selling it in poor territories for the price they sell it in rich territories is pointless because they will make 0 sales.

They can sell these things for barely above the DVD pressing and distribution costs, but they also need to recover the upfront costs of making the movie.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[yyttrrre]

Protip: Don't sell consoles at a loss.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

'obvious', 'common sense'? I'd say your stuck in doing medieval style reasoning that plagued the western world before the renaissance. Maybe you should throw in an analogy with that as well.

The only thing that's obvious is your stupid reasoning & generalizations without any sources.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Rinikusu]

It's the same head-in-the-sand people that try and say "but but but.. bit-torrent is used for legal purposes!" and ignore that 99% of the bit-torrent traffic out there is "copyright infrigment activities". Yes, the other poster and his 12 internet buddies only use it for legitimate purposes, but the other million people (including myself) pirate the fuck out the games.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Very true, the problem is that the companies believe that people who use custom firmware are using it solely for the purpose of pirating games but the truth is that many people are not pirating the games for it. Homebrew does not = hacking or illegal activities intended. In its most purest definition it is the act of enabling a device to perform far more than what was originally intended.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

while that's true, i think one the main features is the ability to rip your UMD to your memory stick. it conserves battery life by not spinning up the UMD drive to run your game. The sad part is that Sony had to build new hardware to do what homebrew developers figured out how do with their perfectly fine older hardware.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Asclepius99]

How is that you ask for a citation when someone claims that a majority of people running custom firmware do it to pirate games, but then you go ahead and say "Yes, there will be people who will never pay for anything, but there will be far more people who will use it as a demo service" without anything to back that up? If these guys need to demo games before buying them can't they rent them first?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[feepness]

Ever bought a beer at a baseball game?

A coke at a movie theater?

Maybe you think we should pay the same total amount of taxes (not percentage) as they do in China?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[hansamurai]

Not that I necessarily agree with this, but there might be different publishers of a game depending on the region, and publishers want to make sure that if they're selling a game in a particular region, they want to get the sales exclusively.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[trytoguess]

But similarly there are many cases that people have pirated games, loved them then bought newer games when they came out that were part of the series that they wouldn't have ever bought if they hadn't been exposed to it via piracy. Yes, there will be people who will never pay for anything, but there will be far more people who will use it as a demo service. Not every game system will be pirateable within a reasonable amount of time (such as the Wii which took ages to crack), and if someone became hooked on a series they would buy the other games in the series for the un-pirateble system. Its the same way with music too.

Far more people will use it as a demo service? How'd you come up with that one? While one can't easily analyze piracy, looking at free services like webcomics show that the vast majority of people who regularly read and enjoy them don't buy the comics. And these are stuff created by small time folks. Games have the additional problems of being created by "evil corporations" which makes piracy practically moral to some, and in the case of handheld games, piracy allows one to carry multiple games in a single flashcard. Which is so convenient, everyone I know (both pirates, and one demo user) use a flashcart on the DS.

You asked DrXym to cite reasons why he thinks most people use custom firmare/R4s to pirate games. So, why do you think most people would use "backup/homebrew players" to demo games?

Someone is confused with the DS homebrew scene ;)

He doesn't seem confused to me. Current (and not too current) models of R4s (and all flashcarts I'm aware of except one) can play nds roms loaded into a microSD card.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Spatial]

If genuine homebrewers are shocked by this accusation, there is a simple solution. Disable iso record / playback functionality in custom firmware. Let people build homebrew apps but prevent people from playing warez. Let's see how popular custom firmware is then.

That's retarded. ISOs aren't some magic pirate-only feature, I bought all my games and I ripped them all to ISO because it's more convenient, loading times are drastically reduced, and the battery lasts longer. So there's little doubt people would use CFW less, but the result would still not be clear cut. There's a good and bad use for pretty much anything.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Spatial]

But the PSP doesn't have regional lockout. You can already play imported games on any PSP. I think there was maybe a few exceptions to that, but on the whole, nope.

Granted there are plenty of other reasons to want homebrew. I wouldn't have bought a PSP if it couldn't do it.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[thearkitex]

If we had the same stupid restrictions on books as we do on movies and games, manga wouldn't have become popular and as a result anime wouldn't have either and there are both huge industries in the western world.

And that's bad.... how?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[stonemetal]

Sure, custom firmware can be used to play pirated PSP games much as how a candle can be used to burn down a house, yet that isn't necessarily mean thats the reason for having a candle burning in a house. There are many applications such as Nintendo emulators, etc. that will never be released on the PSP with an official release yet you can get them via custom firmware.

Oh so we have custom firmware to pirate other platform's games but not for the base system riiight.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

PSP doesn't have region locks. :/

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[KefabiMe]

I haven't bothered to pirate games yet. FYI I bought mine to be a SNES emulator. That feature alone is what sold me on the PSP. (You mean I can get a portable Zelda: Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, etc.? Holy shit I must buy that!)

Nintendo should blame Sony for millions of dollars of profit lost in lost Super Metroid sales.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Protip: Don't sell consoles at a loss.

Protip: No one will buy your console if your competitors sell theirs for a third of the price.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

I think things could change a little bit when you can get on PSN -from- the device, and buy games immediately with minimal fuss. A large part of what makes pirating games on these systems attractive is the fact that you can get a game on release day or before, and be playing it within a few minutes (not to mention not carrying around piles of silly cartridges/discs). Maybe this iteration the online stores will finally catch up to the convenience of pirated games.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that the PSP is not region-locked. You can play imported games straight out of the box; same with the PS3.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Nichole_knc]

If you own a PSP (I do) and have not yet seen or just don't know what "custom firmware" really does maybe you should go see.. Custom firmware allows you to turn a stock PSP into something really usable. Everything from real time GPS mapping to SQL management to real time e-mail and messaging apps. There are several hundred high quality home brew apps and games available. Note these are not available with the stock firmware. Were it hit sales is in the game area as there are so many home brew games (free) that are better than what can be purchased. There is a point - more "might" buy a PSP for "increased usability and features" HOWEVER it does take a bit of hacker ability both in hardware and software to use custom firmware so it is not "for the masses" and only adopted by the few... Sony is Sony with the PSP just like the PS3. I am sure the new 'Go' will be no different. Sony always seems to blow their chances. If they did it right there would be no need for 'custom firmware' or other hack attempts to add something as simple as an IM, email or real browser to a device.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[yourassOA]

So because I achieve something in my wealthy part of the world I should pay a subsidy so someone can afford to watch porn in hi def in third world countries. Do I get a tax credit or something for this?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[TSPhoenix]

They are, but not to the extent you might think. The store you are buying it from is paying its staff a much higher rate than those in the poor country, the same goes for all parts of the distribution chain. I find that a few months after release prices settle to reasonable levels.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Except the PSP doesnt have regional locks on games, only on UMD movies.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[3vi1]

To whomever modded this as Flamebait, please do some research on "Common Sense".

When it comes down to it, common sense is a polite way of saying "If you don't agree with me, you're an idiot". So, it is not I who posted flamebait, but the guy to which I was responding.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Vertana]

A PSP homebrew program was released a few weeks ago by the name of ChickHEN. It does not allow play of ISOs or PSX games. It's been downloaded thousands of times. I personally use it for emulators and playing Duke Nukem 3D on my PSP and I still buy my games (although I would make backups for logistical reasons if it was enabled).

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Zerth]

Lowest price plus shipping.

I always look forward to my quarterly shipment from Hong Kong.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

running emulators is piracy. . . the only difference is most of the time you can't purchase the games anymore, but that doesn't make it any less piracy. . .

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

PSP and PS3 dont use region coding for games. Only for video.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[GNious]

My PSP and both my PSP games are locked to Region 1 - says so on the boxes.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[KDR_11k]

The competitor in this case is Nintendo who IS selling at a profit and hasn't even issued one pricedrop on their system yet. The only one Sony can blame for taking a loss to compete on price with the DS is themselves.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[NeuralAbyss]

How is this a problem?

If companies want to take advantage of globalisation, what's wrong with consumers doing the same thing?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

This practice in other words is called price fixing and is in fact illegal in many countries!

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[impaledsunset]

However, the reason they do this is not because it is not profitable to sell it at the same price everywhere, but because it is more profitable to sell it at a different. It's not about impossibility, it's about getting more money. Nothing that wrong with that, though. Except for the region codes -- you want to make more money, fine, but don't cripple my movies for that purpose, thank you.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Spatial]

It's on the boxes, but it doesn't do anything. Only UMD movies are region locked.

I have a region 3 game (Disgaea) and it works just fine on my region 2 PSP.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[HAKdragon]

For what it's worth, Nintendo's handhelds don't have regional lockout.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, there you are, I was wondering when the "I use it legit, so it's should be a'ok!" rationale would come about. Face it, while there may be some who use iso loaders in a moral fashion the vast, vast majority simply use these "backup players" to pirate. I suppose you'll also argue that stealing is also a neutral act that should be allowed because a tiny minority would be moral and repay any debts they'd incur (perhaps these hypothetical people simply forgot their wallets that day).

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Are there any SNES emulators available (for PSP) that don't choke when using Mode 7? The only trick I've found is reduce sounds quality to 22KHz and set FrameSkip to 1. I find it funny that running some of the more advanced SNES games is a pain yet PSX emulation seems flawless, from what I've seen.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[ailnlv]

you're not subsidizing (sp?) anything. If you think it's too expensive just don't buy dvds and get your porn online just like everyone else.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[yourassOA]

Isn't the shipping price equal or greater than the cost of the actual product.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[thearkitex]

BTW, I meant the whole manga/anime thing not taking over the Western World not being that bad of a thing.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[EdIII]

That's what it really comes down to though isn't it?

Sony just can't make a console cheap enough to compete. Since they can't make a profit on the console, they are entirely dependent on game sales to make up for it. Is it any wonder that they are totalitarian assholes about this?

Their constant bullshit has alienated themselves from a large portion of the market. Even Sony Fanboys will have to admit that Sony makes their life harder, not easier. I do think the PSP is a better console, but that does not mean it will sell better in of itself.

What Sony needs to do is figure out how to make a quality console that can actually be sold at a profit and compete with Nintendo. Do that first, because you just can't win the war with "Home brew", continually shooting yourself in the foot can't help too much either.

Let's face it. Sony can make some pretty damn AWESOME equipment. They just don't have a whole lot of business sense left, and are progressively going insane protecting their content to the point of being self-destructive.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Caetel]

Emulation is still piracy, even if the game is not available for the platform.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[EdIII]

Because despite the people who get up in arms over how Sony is attempting to crush the poor, innocent "homebrew" community.

The point, or I should say the principle at work here is: "I OWN MY *$&#%*$ HARDWARE! STOP TRYING TO CONTROL ME IN MY DOMAIN".

It is entirely a valid principle. It is a fundamental issue of Freedom and Liberty. I know you can say that is an extremist point of view, but I and many others believe that Freedom must come first before all other considerations. You can choose to see this a shortsighted, but it is the same reason why I will not trade any of my Freedoms for a possible measurable increase in our condition of Security. Which has never been proven. I have yet to see any proof that we are more secure losing our rights.

It may seem like we are getting off the point, but we aren't. Sony does not have the right, ethically or legally, to control any hardware that I have purchased. Every single vendor that does this in business, accomplishes this through leasing contracts in which the company does not own the hardware. PSP customers OWN the hardware.

If I want to remove the firmware on the PSP and replace it with a simplified PONG game, I am entirely within my rights to do so. All of the mining for the rare-earth metals, all of the intellectual property in figuring out the ergonomics, the workers that helped create and design the case, the robots that needed to be purchased to assemble parts of the PSP...

WERE COMPENSATED.

I did pay for it right? My money eventually found it's way to compensate EVERYONE that was involved in the creation of the PSP. From the engineers, to the factories, to the material suppliers.

There just does not exist a correct logical argument to convince me why Sony still gets to control me even after I paid. If they want that, then loan me the PSP. Make me pay a monthly subscription. Give me a return center where I can bring my PSP with dead pixels and exchange it for a new one with no questions asked. Until that happens, Sony needs to back off.

I mention this, because even if it was true that 99% of all people that own a PSP turn out to be pirates, it does not justify putting controls on the hardware. The ends do not justify the means, two wrongs don't make a right, etc.

every single person I know IRL who has run custom firmware has used it to pirate games, and maybe an emulator.

Well keep in mind, an emulator is not itself illegal, nor is all actions performed with an emulator illegal. I own a bunch of Nintendo games, as well as PS1 games. Those go through an emulator. I also own an original arcade game. I don't believe I am required to purchase things more than once. That is a sham, and does not hold up to any ethical scrutiny.

I don't know how many people you know. I am running the latest 5.x custom firmware on my PSP. The last 3 PSP games I purchased, I downloaded first and played them before doing so. There are plenty of people that run custom firmware that also purchase games. Sometimes just to make sure the game creators get paid. I did that with the latest Final Fantasy prequel.

The people I know download a lot of games. This is true. They only play maybe 10% of what they download. Of those, maybe 1 or 2 they actually get into enough to play longer than 20 minutes. Invariably, the next time they are at a Target, Gamestop, whatever, they BUY IT. No kidding. That is really my experience, since I can see them on my shelf right now, and I can see them in their library too.

And these are very much lost sales, I've seen people go from regularly buying PSP/DS games to not buying any at all once they discovered they could pirate them. :-/

Oh dear. They are NOT LOST SALES. This is fallacious logic. This is one of the oldest arguments going around with respect to copyrights and piracy. It is not possible that every instance of

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[tepples]

Taper software [...] XM1541 or similar cable + Star Commander software

I wasn't aware of those. Thank you for pointing them out. Now I'll go bug the people who use SNES and Genesis emulators some more to see what kind of cables they use ;-)

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[seventhevening]

Not in the PSP's case. The PSP has no region lock on games. None. I actually own a Japanese PSP (I wanted a white 1000 model), but most of my games for it are US versions. One is even PAL. An interesting note: UMD movies do have region lockout, even on my PSP which uses custom firmware.

Most consoles, that is the argument I use. I modify most of my consoles so that I can play import games. But with the PSP, that's totally not why people run custom firmware.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[SupremoMan]

Ugh, Western world has been subsidizing most of the technological and pharmaceutical advances for the whole world for decades, maybe even centuries. Same is true with entertainment. If you are just now catching on... well... I congratulate you. There are many a fool in this world that will never figure it out.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[flowbee64]

While the PSP is not region free for UMD movies, it is region free for the games. You can import games without using a hacked firmware(which I have done in order to get Parodius Portable). The only real use of the hacked firmware is to allow for 2 things, the first being the ability to run homebrew code and the second to run pirated copies of games. The majority of hacked firmware PSP owners will tell you they do it for the former, but nearly all of them really do it for the latter. Personally, I own one and don't have it hacked because it seems an awful lot of trouble just to save myself the 10 or 15 bucks that most used games cost on the thing. I wouldn't mind having the ability to play some emulators on it, but that's about all the use I could see getting out of hacking it. My big question about the PSP Go is how I'm supposed to play all my UMD games on the new system. I wonder if it will come with an external UMD drive for loading games onto the internal memory or if they intend for you to have both a PSP Go and an older PSP for loading your games.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[kthejoker]

Simple explanation: You can't mass-produce a job.

Complicated explanation: Labor isn't as fungible as product. A DVD sold in China is not necessarily the same sale as a DVD sold in New York. But both of those DVDs are produced in the same factory. Paying the guy who presses the DVDs that are sold in New York more than the guy who presses the DVDs that are sold in China is ... inefficient, to say the least. So labor costs get averaged out among all laborers - basically, the disparity of economies is already aggregated in the only figure that matters to a laborer's value, his salary.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Zerth]

Not if you get the "slow boat from china" shipping. I said "quarterly" because it takes about 2-3 months to get here.

Hong Kong post will mail anything for cheap, but since they only send once they have a full container ship, it'd be faster to use a rowboat.

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, custom firmware can be used to play pirated PSP games much as how a candle can be used to burn down a house, yet that isn't necessarily mean thats the reason for having a candle burning in a house. There are many applications such as Nintendo emulators, etc. that will never be released on the PSP with an official release yet you can get them via custom firmware.

Are Nintendo ROMS in public domain?

Re:How does custom firmware "lose sales"

[jplopez]

I want a decent, open emulation handheld

http://dl.openhandhelds.org/cgi-bin/gp2x.cgi

D.O.A

[EdIII]

This looks like it is Dead On Arrival.

For Sony's sake I would hope that it gets custom firmware very fast.

Without a UMD, how are you supposed to play the games you already purchased? Sony's retard-o-think(tm) and fuck-em-let-em-pay-twice mentality makes me think they are not going to provide a way to migrate your already purchased PSP games to it. You will be forced to rent forever what you had already spent money on to purchase before? Look at all the PS1 titles that you had to buy twice.

I would eat my shorts if Sony released their OWN version of UMD ripper to help facilitate the transfer of customer owned games from a PSP1000/2000/3000 to this new PSP Go.

Considering how unlikely that is, and that most people are not going to purchase a new PSP machine that forces them to re-buy all their games......

Sony is really betting on "Piracy" here. This unit would only seem to be of interest to those that already possess custom firmware and the ability to rip UMD's.

It is intensely strange. Sony is marketing to the people they have hated and battled with for so long.

In any case, if this does get some custom firmware on it I would be somewhat interested it. I would like to get my hands on it, since it seems to have questionable ergonomics. Very interesting device, just don't think it will sell well in the beginning.

Re:D.O.A

[V50]

While I personally am not terribly interested in it (well, until more details are released), there is certainly a market for it.

The fact that it is download only means you can store a bunch of games on it, so you don't have to lug around a bunch of UMDs. I have a bunch of PSN software on my 8GB memory stick, and it's very convenient. Furthermore, for a new buyer, who doesn't have UMD games, legacy support isn't an issue.

There were also rumors of in-store UMD rippers that would let people rip their UMDs to their drive. Whether this happens or not remains to be seen, though.

Either way, I see this as more than a test case for whether to make the PSP2, where legacy support won't be so much of an issue, disc-drive free or not. If the PSP GO fails, that's a lot less of a loss for Sony than if they make the PSP2 have no disc drive, just to find that no one wants it that way.

And with the average attack rate of PSP software being around 4, last I checked, legacy support is probably not a huge deal. I'm certainly in the minority having 30+ UMD PSP games, plus around 10 more PSN ones. If you consider heavy buyers who would throw the average off, the typical PSP owner probably has 3-5 games, not my 40+.

Re:D.O.A

[EpsCylonB]

I think they are betting that the distribution model will completely change over the next 5 years or so. Your old psp and the umd's don't automatically stop working just because they released a new piece of hardware. I am assuming that you will be able to download new games on the older psp's as well.

In the long term they want to compete with the iPhone, high end mp3 players and pda's. I think its a smart move, it seems to signal an impending switch to download only game sales, they might be able to come up with a way of using the model to prevent piracy which would make the platform more attractive to developers. Not removing the umd would make the product less competitive in the market in the long run.

As a psp lite owner I think it needs a keyboard and/or touch screen to make it really useful and a threat to the likes of Apple.

Re:D.O.A

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Let me get this right. You're saying that people bought these UMD thingies? That's crazy talk.

Re:D.O.A

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, if you had a PSP and wanted to play a game, you had to buy a UMD... I fail to see what point you're trying to make. Thats like saying you're surprised people have purchased Blu-ray discs for their PS3... every game is on blu-ray...

Re:D.O.A

[EdIII]

Let me get this right. You're saying that people bought these UMD thingies? That's crazy talk.

That's exactly my point. If piracy is as rampant as Sony continually states, then it would really appeal to the very same people that require custom firmware to get the most fulfillment out of their device.

This is what I think the market is:

1) People that have most of their games pirated off the Internet and have them stored on external hard drives and transfer them to 4 gig and 8 gig memory sticks on demand.
2) People that have most of their games purchased and have a collection of UMD discs.
3) People that are brand new customers that have never owned any UMD's.

Group 3 would seem to be the easiest market for the device, but if they have not owned a portable Sony console before they may never own one. What is it about the PSP Go that will attract brand new buyers or convert Nintendo DS users?

Group 2 may include Sony's ideal customers. Customers that don't modify their firmware and purchase all of their games. In that case, lack of legacy support may negatively affect sales. These customers may also be offended that they need to purchase their games twice since Sony is notorious for making your purchase it twice as evidenced by the PS1 games available for re-purchase.

Group 1 is more than likely the most motivated to purchase the device as it appeals greatly to those that play their games from their memory sticks. No UMD and 16 GB of storage? That's awesome. I don't use the UMD anyways.

That's why I state this might only get off the ground if Group 1 finds a way to install custom firmware.

I'm between Group 1 and Group 2. I own about 20 games and have transferred the games from UMD to .iso with a UMD ripper. I have quite a collection of downloaded games, but have always waited and purchased the games I really liked and played to completion. So being honest, this PSP Go will only appeal to me when I can play games I download off the Internet as well as the games I ripped from the UMD's I purchased. I really think I represent the majority, or at least a significant enough portion of the market.

Re:D.O.A

[Minigun_Fiend]

What they could do is some kind of app for the UMD-kitted PSP that allows you to pop a game in and link it to your PSN account, ready for download to your shiny new PSP Go. The only problem is I'm not sure how they'd stop people from just borrowing/renting games and adding them to their account.

Re:D.O.A

[EdIII]

That's a logical theory. Unfortunately does that sound like Sony at all? They never even tried to give customers the ability to do the same with PS1 titles on the PS2. You could have put a PS1 game on the PS2, which could connect to the Internet, and then go through some sort of verification process that would give you a credit to download the PS1 game on the PSN network.

That never happened and there are no rumors it is going to either.

I think Sony has always been looking for avenues to get people to purchase games twice on different machines and formats. That is their philosophy to all of the intellectual property. You buy it per device, with no ability to back up. They are at war with their customers over this, since our position is amazingly clear. We buy the right to play the game, listen to the music, and watch the movie forever, with the rights to media shift, time shift, and format shift being absolute and sacrosanct.

Given that, do you honestly think they would ever do something like you describe? Your absolutely right it's possible. It was possible that Hitler could have converted to Judaism. The path exists. It's just highly, highly, highly, unlikely.

Re:D.O.A

[SuiteSisterMary]

Your troll-fu is weak, old man. Download PS1 games from PSN onto the PS2. That's rich. What, save it on the 8 mb memory card? Using the dial-up adaptor? In 1998?

Re:D.O.A

[pudro]

That's a horrible idea, and you pointed out why in your own post.

A better idea would be to team up with a store like EB/Gamestop and allow people to turn in physical copies of the game in exchange for a download voucher. They could even let you download it in the store, through a method also open for regular new purchases so that people with crappy internet connections could do the same. You could have the digital games stored locally, giving you great download speeds.

This wouldn't be free, of course, and a small fee would be charged for these services. That way the store has some incentive to do this, and Sony still gets to double dip like you know they want to. But it is better than them asking you to pay full price a second time around.

Re:D.O.A

[EdIII]

Your troll-fu is weak, old man.

I think you are confusing disagreement with trolling. I hardly think my previous post was trolling, and certainly not flaming.

app for the UMD-kitted PSP that allows you to pop a game in and link it to your PSN account, ready for download to your shiny new PSP Go.

That's from the poster I replied to. His idea was that you could use a PSP to verify the UMD and get a credit voucher on your PSN account. Thereby transferring the UMD game to your new PSP go. An interesting and logical idea. It just does not take into account Sony's behavior.

Download PS1 games from PSN onto the PS2.

That's not what I said. Read the post again.

That's rich. What, save it on the 8 mb memory card? Using the dial-up adaptor? In 1998?

First off, it's 2009, not 1998. I was not saying to use the PS1 console at all. Read the post again. The 8MB memory card and the dial-up adaptor have nothing to do with it. You would be using the PS2 to verify the game which has an ethernet card that connects up to the Internet. Afterwards you would receive a voucher to download the PS1 game onto your PSP Go, or even your PSP1000/2000/3000.

Before attacking somebody derisively you could at least at read the post correctly and attack it accurately.

Re:D.O.A

[SuiteSisterMary]

Here's what you said:

They never even tried to give customers the ability to do the same with PS1 titles on the PS2. You could have put a PS1 game on the PS2, which could connect to the Internet, and then go through some sort of verification process that would give you a credit to download the PS1 game on the PSN network.

Note the important parts: PS1 game, PS2 connects to the internet, then downloads the PS1 game from the PSN network.

Maybe you were talking PS2 and PS3,but got confused?

Re:D.O.A

[EdIII]

Maybe you were talking PS2 and PS3,but got confused?

No. I am not confused. I don't know why you are having problems reading this.

Note the important parts: PS1 game, PS2 connects to the internet, then downloads the PS1 game from the PSN network.

That's not what I said. PS1 games can be converted to be played on the PSP. You can download them from the PSN network, where Sony has converted them for you. However, you can also do it yourself, but as far as I know, it requires a "hacked" PSP with custom firmware to get them to play. I don't know if that's true, but I don't have a PSP without custom firmware to test that. Not interested either.

For the record, I have converted nearly 30 PS1 titles and at least half them were successful to some degree or the other on the PSP.

My whole point, which you seem to be missing, is that you are receiving a credit voucher with PSN to download the game onto a PSP with official firmware just as if you had purchased it. You are not downloading it back to a PS1, PS2, or PS3 as I certainly know that is impossible with a PS1 or a PS2.

In the context of everything I have been responding to and speaking about, the PSN APPLIES to the PSP. That's it. Just the PSP.

You attacked me derisively first without even understanding that, and you still are not understanding what I am talking about.

There are two parts:

1) The Verification process.

2) The Download process.

The Verification process involves a PS2 which is backwards compatible with PS1 games. We are assuming that some sort of methodology would be created to verify PS1 games and deliver a credit voucher to the customer that could be used to purchase the PS1 game at the PSN. You have a credit voucher. That is the end of the involvement with the PS2 console.

The download process simply involves you downloading and playing the game on any of the PSP models, or even the PS3 if you want, since I guess the PSN could also be used on the PS3. I wouldn't know. I don't own a PS3.

I hope that clears it up for you. Really.

Re:D.O.A

[SuiteSisterMary]

Buddy, go back and read your original post. All it talks about is downloading PS1 games onto, or via, a PS2. Which is odd, considering that very few PS2s have any form of network connectivity.

Woah

[The_mad_linguist]

I've heard of memory leaks, but never Bluetooth leaks.

I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[DrXym]

The PSP Go has no UMD, so what happens for someone who has UMD games already?

I hope that existing users can register their games through PSN. Perhaps a firmware update for the UMD models would allow people to register games online. Alternatively Sony should sell a UMD docking station for the Go and allow syncing that way. The software would have to occasionally re-validate games to prevent people renting / borrowing games but it must be feasible.

It would be very odd if Sony don't offer existing users any migration path

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[spire3661]

You buy a PSP 3000 then. It says right in the article that they will still sell PSP-3000s side by side with the PSP GO. This is a smart stop gap move by Sony. A UMD docking station is almost absolutely out of the question. Besides, IF they were to do that, they would force you to use a PS3 connected to your PSP.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[pecosdave]

I don't think it will be a stop gap in time, if they have to create a fake way of making the UMD market look untenable they will and it will eventually become digital only unless the 3000 and go become easily hackable. On the PS3 to do it part - insightful.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[DrXym]

I own a PSP 1000. I would not consider buying PSP Go unless there was a upgrade path. I own 20 or so games for my PSP and if I were to buy the new device I would like to carry them over. If I can't do this, then what the hell is the point of me buying a Go at all? After all, I could always slap an 8Gb memory stick in my existing PSP and get the best of both worlds.

If this were a PSP2 then perhaps I might understand, but it isn't. I'll wait and see of course, but no upgrade path means no sale for me.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[Anonymous Coward]

pspgo-ps3
psp-ps2

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[spire3661]

You answered your own question. This device isnt designed to be an upgrade for current users. Basically Sony just end-of-lifed the UMD, this is the first iterative step away from it.

Best of both worlds is relative: PSP Go is significantly smaller, better screen, no moving parts (other then the slide) and has bluetooth connectivity.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[Jim Hall]

The PSP Go has no UMD, so what happens for someone who has UMD games already?

Your idea of an external UMD dock seems like a workable idea. Not ideal, but workable. It's similar to a USB DVD drive for a laptop/netbook: just plug in the external UMD drive into a PSP Go, and play games / watch movies as normal.

I have a PSP-1001, and own maybe 5-6 games on UMD, and another 5-6 movies on UMD. (The PSP makes a great movie player on cross-country flights.) I just bought SOCOM: Tactical Strike for PSP, which is only available on UMD. I'm almost finished on my first play-through, and already I can tell it's a game I'll play again later. (Just like Daxter and Battlefront 2 ... the graphics stand up well over time.)

It really would be too bad to "lose" the games I already own if my current PSP dies, and I buy a PSP Go. And it wouldn't be fair to re-purchase them.

That said, if you were fairly new to the PSP concept and bought a PSP Go, I can see how this would be very useful. Especially with all the PSP and PSP/PS1 games on PlayStation Network.

Hint to Sony: When you release the PSP Go, please also release [at least] the top 50% of games from your UMD PSP game catalog as digital downloads from PlayStation Network, so PSP Go owners can buy older, popular games. Really, I'm telling you to make half of your "UMD classic" games available on PSN. Just do it. It's the only way you'll build traction for the PSP Go.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[Jesus_666]

no moving parts (other then the slide)

Wrong. It still has buttons. And no, that's not obvious; a new generational step (as evidenced by the absence of a UMD drive) can involve the replacement of all controls - and Apple has shown that you can indeed sell a device without any buttons to people who want a handheld console.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[spire3661]

While you are right, the point i was trying to get across is that there isnt a complicated electro-mechanical UMD loading mechanism anymore. And all Apple has proven is that a subset of people who already had a device will purchase CHEAP games for it. The iphone is not a game console, its a phone that can play some genres of relatively simplistic games.

I realized after i posted the original comment that I wish i could edit it for pedantic fools like you.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[Jesus_666]

Hey, at least I was pedantic for the sake of filling that particular niche of /. culture and not because I find the distinction particularly important - although I would've found a completely solid-state design interesting as long as it's more gaming-friendly than Apple's. It sounds far-fetched but then again the PSP, the NDS and the Pandora also would sound far-fetched if you told someone from 2003 about them. In fact, if there's one thing I'm actually liking about in the current gaming industry it's the trend towards devices that make you wonder however they came up with that.

Regarding Apple's devices; as unsuited as the iPod touch is for gaming, the only TV ad I've ever seen for it (in Germany) only talks about how many games there are available for it. The iPhone is sold on applications (oh, and you can also call people with it); the iPod touch is sold on games and only that. They don't even mention how many songs you can put on there or even that it plays music at all - although the latter is already implied by the name "iPod". So yes, Apple appears to actually want the iPod touch to be seen as a console. Probably sells better that way.

Re:I wonder how existing PSP owners will react

[Anonymous Coward]

i liked the battle.net setup where you enter your cd-key (maybe a psn version would read the s/n of the umd as proof of purchase) then you can download a cd-less version any time you want. It is the perfect compromise to getting rid of scratch-prone cd/dvd/umd.

I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[pecosdave]

I'm sure they've lost a few, but most pirates are cheap assholes who wouldn't have bought the games had they not been able to pirate them instead. I've been around quite a few pirates, most pirates are cheap bums who don't like they fact they have to buy the player/console and get upset over having to buy the "expensive" blank media needed to pirate. Movies and would prefer to use some other persons bandwidth to do downloading if possible.

On the other hand, the "backup" crowd, such as I'm actually a part of, probably spend more on their devices than the normal kid who has his mommy buy him a few games.

I've got around 15 PSP games, I've got about 5 genuine Magic Gate compliant memory cards ranging from 256 MB to 16GB, I bought my PSP 2000 new off the shelf, and I actually have about 1/2 dozen UMD movies along with some various other accessories. Every PSP game on my memory cards were legally purchased, only one used, the rest were out of the shrink wrap.

Considering the tons of music CD's I have all ripped and on my Iriver and iPhone, I would say there's a lot of hot air where the average consumer was concerned. If Sony wants to go after real pirates they need to focus on Flea Markets and the gas stations/etc.... that sell burned CD's with Xeroxed pictures in the cases, not people who don't want to carry a ton of UMD's. Of course I'll admit 16GB on board with digital distribution is a step in the right direction.

Re:I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[ink]

Not to mention that Nintendo's DS has been broken for much longer, and has and even bigger piracy "problem". If jailbroken units are the cause of PSP's demise, then you must explain why the DS has not suffered the same fate. Sony just can't come to grips with the fact the PSP's UMD drive was a shitty solution to a problem that didn't exist. It sapped battery power. It was slow. The "cross company synergy" didn't come to fruition. It was a bold move, but ultimately a bad one.

Re:I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got around 15 PSP games, I've got about 5 genuine Magic Gate compliant memory cards ranging from 256 MB to 16GB, I bought my PSP 2000 new off the shelf, and I actually have about 1/2 dozen UMD movies along with some various other accessories. Every PSP game on my memory cards were legally purchased, only one used, the rest were out of the shrink wrap.

Good boy!

Have a fucking cookie.

Re:I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[CronoCloud]

They had to go optical disk, because when the PSP was developed large capacity flash cards were expensive, and what else could hold over a GB of storage. I have a PSP-3000 which replaced a PSP-1001 with a broken UMD drive. I have games on both UMD and a few purchased from PSN. If I had a bigger memory stick, my biggest is only 1GB, I'd try to keep my purchases PSN only to save having to have a large case to carry my PSP in.

Re:I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[Anonymous Coward]

PSP has been hacked without any third-party hardware, from the game developer's point of view it's same as PC - anyone can download the game and play it on their system. This is why PC gaming is in the toilet and this is why another two game consoles hacked the same way did not last long. DS hack is a hardware one, same as PS2 hack. Was there piracy on PS2 - sure there was. However it did not matter as much because people who went through trouble of the hardware hacking are not likely to buy games anyways. Not to mention the natural limits of the hardware - there cannot be more pirates than hacking devices produced, so the developers know for sure how many potential pirates are there and if this number ever grows too fast you can put screws on the actual hardware manufacturers.

Re:I dispute the "Lost Sales" part.

[Anonymous Coward]

I also dispute it I run custom firmware and have about 20 store bought psp games the big advantage with the firmware is being able to use programs sony should have built in themselves like a decent browser and not having lengthy load times I also like to watch videos I encode myself without the incompatible file nonsense.

The psp is an awesome little bit of kit but it's almost like sony was sabotaging it's potential themselves.

memory

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard somewhere the memory slot was a micro. But alas I have no source or proof.

Irrelevant

[neokushan]

This is obviously Sony's answer to the lost battle with the PSP Homebrew and Hacking Communities which have cost many thousands of lost sales with custom firmwares.

How on earth does this have anything to do with the PSP hacking? How does this affect that at all, aside from being yet another revision to hack?
The lack of UMD drive is completely irrelevant, bluetooth is irrelevant and having 16GB of onboard flash memory is only going to benefit the hackers if and when they figure out a way to install custom firmware on this.

However, the PSP-3000, right this second CANNOT be hacked or flashed with custom firmware. It's close, recent developments have allowed all PSP-2000s to be temporarily flashed, but as I said this is recent (maybe a couple of weeks? Although the exploit is still only about 3 months old). Sony didn't have to come up with an "answer", they already had one and it took until recently for them to hack it. This summary is useless.

How not to Alienate current PSP owners

[drinkypoo]

Let them download the same games they already from the e-store for free.

Another idea: An application for the original PSP to let you copy the games to the new system, with full DRM of course. You'd still need a classic PSP to play your games, but at least you'd be able to play them on the new system.

Boothbabe reveals Nintendo DSi uses UMD discs

[julie-h]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dW4gZ1sFiWI

Re:Boothbabe reveals Nintendo DSi uses UMD discs

[Registered Coward v2]

I had a friend who worked as a boothbabe. Here qualifications were she was a tall, attractive blonde who could memorize lines - no product knowledge needed.

Nintendo DS

[Enderandrew]

The main reason I don't own the DS is because I don't like how it sits in my hand. I find using it to be a bit awkward, and in the 21st century, I want an analog thumbstick instead of a d-pad.

I've really been hoping for a PSP design with dual analog thumbsticks, and now I see a PSP with zero analog thumbsticks. Frankly, Sony is not going to successfully compete with Apple on the casual, portable touchscreen game market. The main advantage of gaming on the iPhone is that it does not require an additional gadget, nor a wifi connection. The PSP isn't a bad device and it has sold reasonably well. Leave Nintendo and Apple both alone and carve out your own niche.

Re:Nintendo DS

[spire3661]

PSP GO has an analog thumbstick..... It might not be the best, but its there. And yes I totally agree that no dual thumbsticks is dumb as hell in a redesign of this magnitude.

Re:Nintendo DS

[Anonymous Coward]

look at the pics, the buttons and the analog stick slide out, cell-phone style.

Re:Nintendo DS

[Anonymous Coward]

From TFA: "The Go looks to keep the single analog joystick, though the overall design is quite a bit more playful and, well, circular than previous iterations of the PSP."

I guess it's the small round thing that looks like a speaker or microphone. Interesting thumb-stretching dynamics.

Re:Nintendo DS

[dank zappingly]

I'm sure this is not the case, but this thing might be small enough that if they position an additional right shoulder button correctly you could use the d-pad with your left hand and the analog stick with the right hand.

Re:Nintendo DS

[Carl.E.Pierre]

Agreed, but i think that some believes this is just what is needed to go toe-to-toe with the DSi. The only problem is that DSi has INCREASED functionality, do that it can easily and comfortably replace DS if needed. The go does not have this luxury. To be honest, i was REALLY hoping that Sony would have launched a new hand held. The PsP 1 is done, it fought valiantly and met much success, but they need to wash their hands of it and move forward. Well, at least we know how the next Gen of Hardware will go. Meaningless revisions(though in the case of non-wii consoles, this is good)

No 2nd stick?

[Anonymous Coward]

GOD DAMN IT SONY!
Give us a 2nd analog "nub"!
Screw backwards compatibility, you already done that with PS3 for most people, why the hell not for this?
And it's not as if they can't do what they done with PS1 and the DS1 controller, a simple button for "Double stick mode" and we're ready to go. (or, considering this IS the 2nd console, a switch in the firmware to turn it on in software to save the hassle, which some games on the PS1 near the end had)

Other than that, it is fine.
Actually i lied, what a fucking horrible position for the analog nub. Good god, what idiot thought that was a nice idea? Who did they hire to design this? Kids?

Re:No 2nd stick?

[Narishma]

I'm sure they'll give you a 2nd stick in the PSP2. Which thing thing isn't. It's just a redesigned PSP. They can't go around adding or removing stuff that affects gameplay without alienating both the current users as well as the developers who'll have to support different revisions of the same console with different capabilities.

Pay-as-you-go gaming phones?

[tepples]

Mobile phones are good enough at playing games that portable consoles arent worth it.

As far as I know, mobile phones that play games better than the Nintendo DS are available to U.S. customers only on contract. That's a bit overkill for someone who uses less than 60 minutes a month. Or what gaming phone and what U.S. carrier's pay-as-you-go plan are you thinking of?

Very few commercial NES games have been liberated

[tepples]

Sure, custom firmware can be used to play pirated PSP games much as how a candle can be used to burn down a house, yet that isn't necessarily mean thats the reason for having a candle burning in a house. There are many applications such as Nintendo emulators

Virtually no games from the NES's commercial era have been released as free software or even freeware. (Exceptions include Elite.) How many people who use custom firmware (PSP) or an R4 card (DS) to run NES emulators do so only to run homebrew NES games?

In most homebrew circles piracy is frowned heavily upon.

Including piracy of the games that run in PocketNES, nesDS, Goomba Color, Lameboy, jEnesis, SNEmulDS, etc.?

ergonomics? ouch!

[Bobtree]

This thing looks like an ergonomic nightmare. The original PSP is already hard to hold for long periods of time, especially if you have to use the analog nub. This sliding screen setup leaves all the controls right at the bottom edge except for the L & R which are still on top. The guy in the image gallery has his thumbs bent in half! WTF Sony?

Non-locked Bluetooth

[DrYak]

Unfortunately that's not a phone. The only open phone (openmoko) has 2 buttons : power and aux. Not quite enough for a good game experience.

But, on the other hand, the OpenMoko FreeRunner's Bluetooth isn't locked (unlike iPhone/iPodTouch's) and thus can be use with one of the various bluetooth game pads designed for phones.

(There are also people using Wiimotes for gaming inputs on PDA/Smartphones, but the lack of grips to firmly hold the device and controller together make it less interesting.)

Look it up on Wikipedia

[tepples]

What the hell is a UMD, and what makes a UMD-less device significant?

Universal Media Disc is an optical disc format used in Sony's PSP handheld video game system. Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Vivendi (owner of Universal Music Group) or General Electric (owner of NBC Universal). A successor to PSP without a disc drive would have to download all its games over the Internet in much the same fashion as Xbox Live Arcade or WiiWare.

Fuck Sony

[Anonymous Coward]

Get a GP2X Wiz. No tinkering needed, they SUPPORT homebrew software and their hardware has a regular SDHC slot.

Re:Fuck Sony

[CelticWhisper]

Mod parent up, please. It sounds a little trollish by the subject line, but he speaks the truth. I own a GP2X-F100 and they do support homebrew. To the extent that the damn thing actually includes an SDK in the box with the console, and a developer's circuitboard is available online for those who really want to go all out.

Piracy Prevention Model

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats Easy.
Allow wireless download, with a registered website with a 'My bid price' starting at say 99 cents.
After 1 year 99 cents is better than nothing. Then they can email another crappy random title, for say $10, or 3 for xx dollars. Thats a pricing model that gets foregone sales .

3rd party developers. Allow everyone in.
Remember Physical Possession = Cracked, and with the volume sold, it will always attract a class 2 opponent,
as well as that Graphic Card crackers will get faster.

As for lost 1000's of sales of out god know how many million

Batteries

[TSPhoenix]

It really don't matter how good a phone is for games if it sucks the battery dry. The DS has great battery life, much better than the PSP, and I still manage to fully drain the DS from time to time. If that also meant I can't make calls and communicate it'd be a big problem. So until battery technology is such that I can play games, make calls, listen to music and watch videos for a few days without charging then I'm not ready to have my phone take on all those duties.

Re:Jews

[Anonymous Coward]

The jokes on you, because slashdot doesn't even let you see -1 comments anymore...

lol, fail. You still can if you change your settings. (Useful for moderating.)

Video!!!

[Registered Coward v2]

I use my PSP as a portable video player; and wondered why Sony never released one that hit that market. I rip my DVDs and TIVO'd shows to a MS, and watch them while traveling. 16g built in is more than enough for a few weeks of travel. The PSP has a very nice, large screen that is more than adequate for mobile viewing, is instant o and has TV out if I want it.

I could use my iPhone, but that kills the battery. An iPod touch is a lot more expensive than a PSP and MS; plus I can carry a spare PSP battery.

I hope they update their interface as well - the one thing I hate is how it only remembers where you were on the last video watched; unlike the iPod the shows the status of each video.

If it comes in near the current PSP price I'll upgrade.

Re:Video!!!

[xenolion]

I dont know if I will upgrade. I'm in the same boat as you I travel a lot and use my PSP as a movie player. I also have custom firmware on it cause Im not going to carry six or how every many UMDs with me I buy my games then rip them myself. Its easier to carry an extra battery and memory stick then the UMDs. If there is a way for me to transport my current UMDs games/movies and its not a bad price I might move on since its smaller design makes it a nicer item for my carry on for planes.

Not Homebrew games -- actual money

[markov23]

Homebrew games cost .005% of sales retail chain takes 30% of each sale. No Media means that everyone is buying from the sony store -- 30% more money for sony. No Media means no more used games -- good for game makers too. The end of the game store is here. Take a picture of Gamestop next time your there -- it wont be there for long.

Re:Not Homebrew games -- actual money

[CaseM]

Newsflash: The value of a new game is more than just the money I spent on it, it's also the money I can get back out of it by selling it used on eBay/Half.com. If I can't sell a game used, then maybe it's not worth $60 to me to begin with - which means I won't buy it. How's that helping game makers?

I'm damned sick and tired of the game industry acting like their shit doesn't stink. If the RIAA/MPAA tried to end the right to resell DVD's and CD's, you better damn well believe there'd be a special session of congress before week's end trying to put an end to these shenanigans.

16GB for Paint Shop Pro?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, Paint Shop Pro needs 16GB of RAM to run properly? All this time I thought Photoshop would always be the bigger memory hog.

Substantial non-infringing use

[tepples]

I was wondering when the "I use it legit, so it's should be a'ok!" rationale would come about.

It already came about two and a half decades ago: Sony v. Universal City Studios, 464 U.S. 417 (1984). The Supreme Court of the United States held that home users' time-shifting of copyrighted television shows was a fair use, and the sale of Betamax brand home video recorders was lawful because they had a significant non-infringing use.

Face it, while there may be some who use iso loaders in a moral fashion the vast, vast majority simply use these "backup players" to pirate.

And the majority of users of VCRs, DVD recorders, and hard-drive DVRs hold on to at least some recordings for more than a year.

Emulators and buying games

[tepples]

I personally use it for emulators and playing Duke Nukem 3D on my PSP and I still buy my games

I take it you mean you buy the games that you use in emulators. Which systems do you emulate, and if they're cartridge-based, how did you copy the cartridges to a Memory Stick PRO Duo card for your PSP? For example, what NES or SNES copier do you recommend?

Re:Emulators and buying games

[Vertana]

Sorry, I didn't personally copy over my own games. As long as you own the cartridges, you can legally download them. That's the road I took.

Why Super NES emulation on PSP fails

[tepples]

I find it funny that running some of the more advanced SNES games is a pain yet PSX emulation seems flawless

For one thing, Super NES games used raster effects more often than PlayStation games, and raster effects need much more careful emulation of the video chip than a simple render-to-framebuffer system like that of the PS1. For another, the PS1 emulator was written by Sony for use with PS1 games on PSN and "repurposed" (Popstation) by the warez kids for injecting other PS1 ISOs. It's no different from the Virtual Console ROM-injection hacks that let you play Goldeneye 007 or Super Smash Bros. (N64) on a soft-modded Wii.

Not fair!

[Anonymous Coward]

A tiny little PSP has 16GB of memory, while my 'full size' PS3 with Oh, oh, oh my, the cell broadband engine processor, has a lousy, crummy 256MB. And its not upgradable. Ever. And Sony cripples it when you try to run Linux on it. The low memory makes it almost useless. Being crippled, it ran about the same speed as my 1.8 GHz P4 (single core). My new core i7 processor blows it away. Blows it out of the water! Eats its lunch, breakfast and dinner! Crappy performance, small memory, crippled graphics. The PS3 sure isn't what it was made out to be.

How do they stop me buying all from cheap region?

[jotaeleemeese]

There is nothing they can do to stop me buying a console from another country and then buying games from there as well.

In DVDs they were completely owned by their incompetence, I am pretty sure BluRay will be the same (multi region players will appear soon).

But no matter what, they keep trying. YOu have to adminre the degree of idiocity and stuborness of the people in that industry ....

Oh, I see.

[jotaeleemeese]

Then why they don't apply a different price according to the postcode where you live (perfectly doable)?

I will tell you why: because their sorry asses would be landing in jail sooner than you can say Donkey Kong.

They apply this price fixing only because they can get away with it, as soon as governments get their act together such idiotic practice will stop.

They know it and they are milking it for all what is worth.

my.mp3.com

[tepples]

As long as you own the cartridges, you can legally download them.

This is a common misconception, and it doesn't apply in the United States. UMG Recordings, Inc. v. MP3.com, Inc., 92 F. Supp. 2d 349 (S.D.N.Y. 2000) .