Topic: PSP Go (Read 7783 times)

Thad · « **on:** May 30, 2009, 05:40:44 PM »

PSP Go leaked, unless these are just really good mockups.

I'm a little baffled by the decision to shave a half-inch off the screen, which leaves me more inclined to wait and see if this means a price reduction for the PSP3K. All of which is of course academic as I don't have time to play the games I ALREADY own. (Of course, "games I already own" describes most of the things I would want to purchase for the PSP.)

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #1 on:** May 30, 2009, 06:16:30 PM »

So it's a PSP, but with a smaller screen, and it won't play current PSP games.

James Edward Smith · « **Reply #2 on:** May 30, 2009, 08:28:14 PM »

You can laugh all you want, but what they seem to have done with the system according to that review is really the only way the PSP can ever become anything other than a retardedly terrible handheld platform.

UMD is the dumbest media format ever created. A portable gaming system that uses something as slow reading as UMD is a terrible idea. But let me point out more generally why the PSP (which I own btw, I bought it just to play Patapon and to fuck around with in terms of home brew) is a really bad system in comparison to any gameboy on the market.

A handheld system that you can't just switch on and immediately start playing a game on is terrible.

When I pull my GBA out of my pocket and flip the switch I am about one second away from playing a game. When I flick that switch off, the system is immediately off and I can close it and throw it in my pocket with no worries. In comparison, the PSP sits there reading it's disk forever and then finally starts after way to many load screens. If I go to take a shit and wanna play a quick round of something, I'm pretty much half done my shit before the PSP even turns on. Why wouldn't I just wait until after my shit and then play a game on a nice big screen on a regular console? It really is a recipe for death in a handheld market.

Also, why the fuck is the damn thing so hard to turn off. You have to sit there and hold the button in for like 3 seconds before the damn thing will turn off properly and even then it seems like an old pentium trying to shut down. Like holy fuck-balls, just turn yourself off you poorly concieved shit brick, don't fight it.

The big screen is nice, but will never be as nice as an actual big tv screen and it makes the device feel way too fragile without lugging around a big case to protect it. Fucking garbage, all I should have to carry around is the system with a game loaded into it. Anything else is just steadily making the handheld less convenient and therefore less necessary. Also, it just makes the system too fucking big anyway.
The battery life due to the big screen and having to read UMDs is fucking terrible.
The constant firmware updates that you have to install to play a new game you just bought are annoying as shit.
Why the fuck is the UMD tray so unintutitive? Like, the UMDs don't feel like they actually fit snuggly in it at all, they just sort of float there. I mean, I'm not saying I had trouble figuring out how to insert them the first time or anything, but I did have to kind of look at it for more than a sec and then finally deduced how to put it in based on where the reader lense is and where the hole in the UMD is. Have you ever had to think twice about putting a cartridge into a Gameboy? Hell, have you ever had to guess how to put a CD into any Sony system in the past? No. So what the fuck, PSP?
Why the hell does sony have their own version of the SD card format. Fucking Sony, cut that shit out. Betamax, Mini-disc, Blu-ray, and UMD, why do they hate standardization so much, do they hate consumers?

But really, why doesn't the SD card hold the games themselves in the first place so I don't have to wait for load times on a godamn handheld system. Well the new PSP finally does that, and thank god. The old system is terrible and un saveable. While you may think that the lack of backwards compatibility is gonna hurt the system, well, I'm sorry but the old system is pretty much a failure.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #3 on:** May 30, 2009, 08:35:45 PM »

Maybe the analog nub will be improved.

Catloaf · « **Reply #4 on:** May 30, 2009, 11:28:01 PM »

Quote from: Bongo Bill on May 30, 2009, 08:35:45 PM

Maybe the analog nub will be improved.

yyler · « **Reply #5 on:** May 30, 2009, 11:52:54 PM »

Quote from: Geo T. Hermal on May 30, 2009, 08:28:14 PM

[...]

Yes.

Mothra · « **Reply #6 on:** May 31, 2009, 08:58:16 AM »

Quote from: yyler on May 30, 2009, 11:52:54 PM

Quote from: Geo T. Hermal on May 30, 2009, 08:28:14 PM
[...]
Yes.

Pretty much!

Thad · « **Reply #7 on:** May 31, 2009, 10:12:29 AM »

I've never so much as touched a PSP, so I can't speak from a position of authority like Geo, but his arguments make sense. UMD is pretty much universally reviled as a shitty format, and represents Sony thinking it's still 1997 and storage capacity will defeat snappy load times. Thing is, this isn't the console market, and this time Nintendo has its shit together. And Nintendo is winning, both in the console AND the handheld market, by targeting users who put a premium on pick-up-and-play value instead of horsepower.

All that said, the PSP's still selling just fine, and even frequently beating out DS sales in both the US and Japan. The biggest risk to eliminating physical media is that this concept may still be ahead of its time. That's the way the industry is bound to go, but IMO eliminating brick-and-mortar stores and targeting a download service for distribution is still something that falls under the umbrella of "targeting hardcore gamers at the expense of casual ones".

At least, as far as a dedicated gaming handheld goes. On the iPhone, the concept of the App Store has become second nature to even the most casual of users. If Sony can put together something with a good interface and decent download speeds, it can mitigate the worry that a casual gamer might have about not being able to pick up a game in the store.

In fact, by all accounts, Apple's sorting of games in the App Store is fucking atrocious and could easily be improved on.

OTOH, the rub here is that Sony's downloads are likely to be much bigger than Apple's. And nobody likes waiting for a slow download.

Anyway. If I were to make a prediction, I'd say that the PSP Go does well but Sony's market share stays about where it is for now, that the machine's a success but doesn't put much of a dent in Nintendo's dominance or Apple's ascendance. If done right, it'll be remembered as a pioneering machine that set the tone for future generations of gaming; if done wrong, it'll be remembered as a nice effort that just didn't quite meet the needs of a good online distribution system.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #8 on:** June 02, 2009, 01:19:29 PM »

$249.

Brentai · « **Reply #9 on:** June 02, 2009, 01:20:26 PM »

Versus the $170 DSi. Good thing Sony has such a good track record against Nintendo in the price wars!

The N64 doesn't count. The N64 never counts.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #10 on:** June 02, 2009, 06:02:45 PM »

Quote from: Brentai on June 02, 2009, 01:20:26 PM

Versus the $170 DSi. Good thing Sony has such a good track record against Nintendo in the price wars!

The N64 doesn't count. The N64 never counts.

Also going up against the current PSP, also $170, which, as far as I can tell, does everything the PSP Go does anyway.

Catloaf · « **Reply #11 on:** June 02, 2009, 06:10:10 PM »

So, if I were to get one of these, does that mean I could play Prinny, Patapon, and whatever other good games PSP has without ever buying one of those horrid UMDs?

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #12 on:** June 02, 2009, 06:21:48 PM »

Well, they haven't announced a single downloadable PSP game yet, so for now, you can download PS1 games, and maybe some PSN titles.

Catloaf · « **Reply #13 on:** June 02, 2009, 06:22:41 PM »

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #14 on:** June 02, 2009, 06:26:35 PM »

They did mention PSP versions of Jak & Daxter, LBP, and Gran Turismo, although whether those will be UMD, downloadables, or both remains to be seen.

Gotta love sudden, conflicting format changes.

Bongo Bill · « **Reply #15 on:** June 02, 2009, 08:06:02 PM »

Didn't they say every PSP game will be downloadable now/soon, or...?

Brentai · « **Reply #16 on:** June 02, 2009, 08:28:35 PM »

I hadn't been paying attention to this so I missed the part about games not having to be on UMDs anymore.

That's a pretty big, actually. Bigger than you probably think. You may think the UMD load time is pretty shitty, but developers absolutely detest it, because there's no way to tell how bad it will be during development. PSP Devkits force you to use regular-ass DVD-ROMs for development and testing because I guess Sony refuses to develop any such thing as a rewritable UMD, ever, even when it can be easily regulated and has an immediately practical application. And actually burning UMDs for each build is impractical, sooooooo...

You know how you really don't see many problematic load times after about halfway through the PS1 generation because by that time developers had learned to gauge the length of load times from CD/DVD media and cleverly time the obfuscating loading screens? Yeah, it's almost impossible with that shit. So now the load times are noticeable and up in your face, and the developers themselves won't ever know how bad it is until the final release builds when they get a rather nasty surprise in the form of spell effects suddenly stopping the game for 15 seconds.

Shooting that stupid format into the sun is a nice thing for players, but it's gonna a fucking revelation for the guys who considered the PSP for new games before and were turned away by how goddam unfriendly it was to them.

IN OTHER WORDS

Quote from: Thad on May 30, 2009, 05:40:44 PM

(Of course, "games I already own" describes most of the things I would want to purchase for the PSP.)

This status quo may be broken.

Romosome · « **Reply #17 on:** June 02, 2009, 08:31:49 PM »

God, I'd forgotten about builds on UMD. Brent speaks the truth, it's completely terrible when there's lag on DVD the whole time and then you finally get a UMD version from their insane arcane process to make them out of pure diamond, and you find out the lag is worse enough to be completely unplayable.

Thad · « **Reply #18 on:** June 02, 2009, 08:57:17 PM »

Quote from: Bongo Bill on June 02, 2009, 08:06:02 PM

Didn't they say every PSP game will be downloadable now/soon, or...?

No. They've only mentioned a handful so far.

Thad · « **Reply #19 on:** June 09, 2009, 08:44:47 PM »

ALTHOUGH, via 1up, they're planning on putting together some kind of service for making your UMD games playable on the Go. The whole thing's largely speculation at this point, but the most sensible thing would be to let you prove you bought a game and then get access to a digital download of it.

Quote

The wording is a little confusing, and Koller didn't offer many more details. He did cite the process Sony already uses to transfer Blu-ray movies to the PSP, but he assured gamers would not be ripping the games from the UMDs themselves -- it's more likely they'll offer older games as PSN downloads, with some sort of system where those who already own a game can download a digital version for free.

Which WOULD seem to indicate the entire library being available for download. I mean, they'd pretty much want all players to have access to ALL the games they've bought, and if they're already ripped and available for download to people who own the disc versions, it would be silly not to just slap a price tag on all of them so that anyone could buy them.

News:

Author Topic: PSP Go (Read 7783 times)