PSP Launching Price : Japan 48,000 Yen, UK : ~250 Pounds

Ty

We've seen PowerVR products fail a couple of times (Neon 250 and Series 4) not time and time again. Even then Neon 250 (series 2) was a big hit in the videogame market (DC, Naomi, Naomi 2).
 
gurgi said:
What's the point? You already have them on PS2

As much as I love my gba, couldn't you make the same argument there? At least, any self respecting SNES owner could. There are some neat gba exclusives (ie. non snes ports), but PSP will have those too (non PS2 ports that is).


There is a pretty big difference. It is much more difficult (for the average kid) to find a SNES and a copy of (example) of Yoshi Island than to buy it on GBA. Retro compatibility on the ps2 (and next ps3) solves at least half of the problem. The hardware is available to play old games. Add the fact that old ps1 games are available everywhere -at least in europe- (more than SNES games of course, but also more than new GC/Xbox games ...)

PsP will have lots of ports. You can bet to have first/sec gen ps2 games at launch or just after. Surreal announced they were working on a PSP game. Considering the only licence they own is Drakan, it is reasonnable they are port happy with this old ps2 game. Many other companies will do the same.
 
nondescript wrote:
If hype is needed for almost anything to sell, than why did MS allow the hype to die down?

Currently unanswered. (EDIT: Remember, you just said that Xbox had a lot of hype in the beginning)

I thought i answered this . Most likely because they couldn't generate enough hype to move sonys hype out of the it thing to have section so ms decided not to keep spending the money that they started off spending .


nondescript wrote:
And would you say that the reason PS2 at 60 million and still outselling 3:1 has nothing to do with a better game library, and add-ons like the Eyetoy? Yes/No?

Yes or No? No, it has nothing to do with these things or yes, it has something, even if it just one speck.

No . The nes out sold the master system by more than 3:1 and i highly doubt it had a better library and I know it wasn't because of things like the power glove , power pad , light gun and u force add ons .

as for the psx being a market leader and selling 100k units. I'm not impressed and I don't feel its a smashing success. Considering that this is also a ps2 and its going for around the same price of other things like this . Now lets see if they expand the market . Because if they don't do that I'm not impressed at all .

But yet what does this have to do with handheld video game systems where the market leader has 100 million systems sold .

When the psp only sells a 100k will it still be a smashing success ????
 
marconelly! said:
Imagine how much more powerful PS2 could've been had they been willing to consider getting tech from a leader of the competitive market at the time like PowerVR.
I'm assuming you are talking about Naomi 2 based hardware...

Naomi 2 was a Sega specific hardware solution, based on previous hardware that had been designed to be cost effective for a fairly cheap console to be released back in 1998. The CPU and GPU's were the same type and speed as those in the Dreamcast. Elan (the T&L unit) was the only new peice of technology.

If IT had been designing a chipset to go in a console in 2000, for the kind of budget the PS2 had, I think it's reasonable to expect that it would have significantly outperformed Naomi 2 on the GPU end. Maybe even T&L - Elan was a 100mhz part (to sync with the 100mhz memory I believe) after all.

which even if they could get for cheap (which is questionable) would get them a deal with external company with a hardware they have no control over whatsoever (never a good thing).

I wouldn't say they would have no control whatsoever. Sega are supposed to have requested specific features within the hardware, and AFAIK weren't held to an Nvidia style buying of ready made chips agreement (didn't NEC manufacture the chips for Sega, rather than for PVR who then sold them fixed price to Sega?). With the talk of the "DC on a chip" in late 2000 it certainly looks like they weren't forced to take hardware any way people chose to give it to them.

They would have to reduce the amount of RAM compared to the Naomi 2 board anyways, which would basically end up being about the same quality hardware than what PS2 is already (better in some things, worse in others)

As I mentioned earlier, I see no reason why it would have to be Naomi 2 hardware. But to indulge a moment, I think you could reduce system memory a lot from the 136 Megs (104Megs if you discount one set of Vram) in the Naomi 2 and still see a big increase over the 40 megs in the PS2. Plus everyones favourite, the VQ texture compression, means you can effectively fit a lot more texture data into the same space than using your bog standard CLUT textures like on the PS2.

How much graphical difference do you think you will see between a double-clocked N64 and PSP on 4" screen??? Not much.
That's... just laughable. I know exactly how PS1/N64 class games look on such screen (played the Tomb Raider on Pocket PC), and it's not very good. When you scale down graphics that looks that crappy, it remains crappy.

I quite agree. It would be disappointing to think that the best we had to look forward to was N64 quality visuals in a handheld.
 
marconelly!:

> why don't you just buy the GBA player for it, and give your GBA:SP to
> someone as a present?

Why would I do that? My current GBA suits me just fine and was bought at a time when there was no GameCube Game Boy Advance Player.

> The reason why I would like to have Amplitude on the PSP is the same
> reason that you actually keep your GBA

Will you buy a game twice so that you can play it on the go and on tv? Is portability enough to justify the PSP's existance for you? When given the choice would you buy a technically inferior but otherwise identical game for PSP over a home console version?



gurgi:

> As much as I love my gba, couldn't you make the same argument
> there? At least, any self respecting SNES owner could.

New SNES games are kinda hard to come by.

> but PSP will have those too (non PS2 ports that is).

Probably. But why would you want it on PSP? For example, at one point there was speculation that Square was bringing a sequel to FFVII out for PSP. Square has said it won't happen but for the sake of argument what would be the point of having such a game on PSP when it could be done much better on a console and with better sales as well?
 
Teasy said:
Ty

We've seen PowerVR products fail a couple of times (Neon 250 and Series 4) not time and time again. Even then Neon 250 (series 2) was a big hit in the videogame market (DC, Naomi, Naomi 2).

PCX1, PCX2, M3d (PCX2 by Matrox). There might be others I'm not aware of (I don't follow ImgTec like you). And the DC was not a success in the videogame market.
 
Will you buy a game twice so that you can play it on the go and on tv? Is portability enough to justify the PSP's existance for you? When given the choice would you buy a technically inferior but otherwise identical game for PSP over a home console version?
Holy crap Cybamerc, are you really this thick? Of course I'd buy the handheld version of the game that I expect I'll enjoy playing anytime, anywhere. Don't tell me you don't have all the Supermarios, Yoshis, and whatnot, that you've probably played to death on SNES, on your GBA? Sure enough, you now have the GBA player, but don't tell me you stopped playing games on the GBA because of it?

Of course the portability is enough to justify the existence of PSP for me, considering that I probably play small games on the cellphone and emulators on Pocket PC more than anything right now (simply because that's how my current time schedule is), but let's not be kidding ourselves, PSP IS going to get it's share of good exclusive games, just like every console in the existence did, no matter how "failed" or unpopular it was.

Probably. But why would you want it on PSP?
Why do you want the game on the GBA, when you could have played it on the Cube in all it's 2D glory in higer resolution and more colors? Do you get depressed every time a good game comes out on GBA, thinking how much better it could have been on the Cube? Hell, why do handhelds even exist, if you follow that logic?
 
Ty said:
Teasy said:
Ty

We've seen PowerVR products fail a couple of times (Neon 250 and Series 4) not time and time again. Even then Neon 250 (series 2) was a big hit in the videogame market (DC, Naomi, Naomi 2).

PCX1, PCX2, M3d (PCX2 by Matrox). There might be others I'm not aware of (I don't follow ImgTec like you). And the DC was not a success in the videogame market.

It's hardly PowerVR's fault that Sega was financially ruined and sufferring from management infighting. ;) The DC was actually doing comparably to the Xbox and GC up to the point where Sega pulled the plug - though I suppose you could say compared to the PS2 none of them are a success.

Besides, Naomi was a big success by all accounts, and along with Chihiro, Naomi 2 is currently top of the arcade tree.
 
cyberamerc, given all of your inconsistent comments, why try to state your position as a reasonable one? There are plenty of double standards in your posts, and inevitably it all boils down to "PSP, DIE!!! Nintendo rules!!! Super duper Nintendo, GO!!!!". I´d appreciatte it if you actually answered and considered things in the appropiatte light rather than being defensive about everything.

Your "Nintendu duér RULEZZZ, Sony DIEEEEEEEE!!" stems from obvious comments like these.

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as someone who loves 2D, I win if PSP fails
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and yet, you say you won´t stop playing handhelds when the 3D portable from Nintendo comes. F*nboy logic? It seems to me like that, you are open to whatever form of gaming as long as it comes from Nintendo. Reasonable.

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Whatever gets the job done. Of course it can always get better but for the price I think it's great. Battery life is acceptable as well, something that isn't likely to be the case with PSP.
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Ok, so I suppose you play your GBA for 8 straight hours or whatever it´s battery life is? As long as PSP´s battery life exceeds 6 hours and is rechargable, there is nothing to worry about in that regard.

Also, why are you even in this board if you don´t care about new technology and only support "whatever gets the job done"? What are your expectations of N5? A Radeon 9700 and a 1.8GHz Duron? That would certainly get the job done, but would be far, far from what PS3 and X2 will offer, but I suppose that would be ok according to you, right?

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Of course it does. I get a great product with great games for a reasonable price. So what if Nintendo makes a profit on the hardware? Quite frankly I'd like to see more companies rely on responsible business models.
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So, getting less hardware actually benefits you? I´m not talking about software, since that same library would exist in this hypotetic powered up GBA, and would look a lot better, which would benefit you...and yet you are more concerned about Nintendo earning a profit. F*nboy logic, once again.

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Sony knows its audience well. And it knows that the handheld business doesn't offer the kind of margins and sales that can justify taking a loss on the hardware.
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Why would they have to apply to these norms set arbitrarily by Nintendo and their profit heavy policies? Consoles also made a profit from the get go on the SNES days. Sony changed that, and I was hoping that could happen again...I guess it´s not going to happen.

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That's a reasonable assumption but an assumption nonetheless. Personally I'd rather play some great software on my GBA now instead of dreaming about what may be.
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So, I take it that you have no expectations out of next gen consoles and want PS3/XB2 to die, if we translate that kind of thinking to consoles.

Let´s be honest here, cyberamerc, don´t you even think about a next gen Zelda with N5´s graphics? Why does the standard change when it comes to PSP? Afterall, it´s doing something no other handheld has ever done in terms of graphics.

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GBA has the potential to deliver great games as does the home consoles and set-top boxes. What makes PSP so unique that you'd rather see games released for it than existing hardware? To me it's like Xbox... not needed.
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Because I´d rather see graphics closer to where we are rather than getting them on very, very old hardware? That question is like asking why develop a game for GCN instead of making it for N64, that´s how big the difference is between GBA and PSP.

Why include consoles here anyway? PS3, XB2 and N5 will be around PSP´s lifetime, so it´s not like a developer is going to be forced to choose wether to develop on PSP or PS3.

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What's the point? You already have them on PS2 - with better (higher res anyway) graphics and better sound . In fact, anything that you can do on PSP can be done better on a console.
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And everything that can be done on GBA can be done a hell of a lot better on PSP, and because of the small screen, 2D games (or at least 2D gameplay) will most likely be made for it. So...what´s your point?

You failed to answer my question, what even gives you the remote idea that Nintendo is more willing to support 2D, when on N64 and GCN there´s almost zero 2D games on them, and the ones that do exist, do not come from Nintendo? Where´s the evidence that supports your "Nintendo loves loves loves 2D" when the PSX and PS2 have a lot more 2D titles than the past 2 Nintendo machines ever had? What would stop those developers from making 2D games on PSP as well?


jvd:


I don´t think that you´ve considered your "Portable PS2" proposition enough time. Look at the size of the PS2 media, it is too big for a reasonably-sized handheld. Add the double analog sticks and all of the buttons. The result? A device that is too bulky and unpractical to be a decent handheld.

It would also come with plenty of the flaws PS2 hardware has, such as poor textures. That would sit well with developers, I imagine they´re expecting an improvement over GS in terms of hardwired features and whatnot.

Let´s not even include power consumption in the discussion.;)
 
It would also come with plenty of the flaws PS2 hardware has, such as poor textures.
Let's not fool ourselves here Almasy. At it's best PS2 will be untouched by PSP. We'll never see a game as texture rich as SH3, Ghosthunter, Champions of Norrath, etc on PSP. There just won't be enough memory on it for that, even if they decide to expand the total RAM as rumored. It goes without saying that developers would prefer to have a PSP that has 1:1 exact PS2 hardware, with smaller media like UMD. That way they wouldn't even have to recompile their games for it, they would just copy disk images over with zero effort involved and zero extra workforce. They would have all the tools ready to program for it, all the tricks they've learn could be used. However, as I said above, and you agreed, PS2 of the size that PSP is supposed to be, is a pipedream.
 
Marconelly,

I do not know if PSP games will be texture poor: I am more afraid of seeing near Dreamcast/Dreamcast++ polygon-counts in some early games rather than poor textures and lighting ( the memory upgrade will help a lot IMHO if they add at least 2-4 MB of main RAM... if they push main RAM to 16 MB it will be great :) ).

Once again the target resolution being ~2.2x lower ( I am not afraid of low resolution issues too much due to the 4.5'' screen size ) will help reduce the need of the same size textures that PlayStation 2 games make use.

I do expect that, of course, top PlayStation 2 games will have to be re-worked and downgraded a bit ( if the game in question does not play well with PSP's strenght and runs into its weaknesses ) to work on PSP, but hopefully the good pixel size of the PSP's screen ( 4.5'' in diagonal, 16:9 aspect ration and a resolution of 480x272 pixels ) will help to hide the downgrades.
 
function said:
It's hardly PowerVR's fault that Sega was financially ruined and sufferring from management infighting. ;) The DC was actually doing comparably to the Xbox and GC up to the point where Sega pulled the plug - though I suppose you could say compared to the PS2 none of them are a success.

Besides, Naomi was a big success by all accounts, and along with Chihiro, Naomi 2 is currently top of the arcade tree.

I specifically mentioned, "for whatever reasons that needn't be brought up here"
 
I always thought that PSP being a convergent device(MP3+Game+MoviePlayer) works against itself in terms of sales to smarter people. If people actually take the time to research and think about what they need, the PSP isn't that hot. Not all of us are going to use those extra features often(I think the movie capability will be the most useless) that we paid for and even if there are some people who do, they would also need to think about battery life.... and how often will they use them.

I like having a portable gaming device and mutlimedia devices(mp3 or movie players seperate) since it is a lot less hassle than having it altogether in once device. If battery drains out in one device(or something is broken), I can always use the other. Carrying them wouldn't be much of a problem since most devices are so god damn small.

If Sony released a PSP version that doesn't have those extra junk features that aren't going to contribute to gaming at all and saves me some money, I would pre-order it now. Otherwise, it's very likely I will wait awhile to see how it does.
 
RaolinDarksbane said:
I always thought that PSP being a convergent device(MP3+Game+MoviePlayer) works against itself in terms of sales to smarter people. If people actually take the time to research of think about what they need, the PSP isn't that hot. Not all of us are going to use those extra features often(I think the movie capability will be the most useless) that we paid for and even if there are some people who do, they would also need to think about battery life....

I like having a portable gaming device and mutlimedia devices(mp3 or movie players seperate) since it is a lot less hassle than having it altogether in once device. If battery drains out in one device(or something is broken), I can always use the other. Carrying them wouldn't be much of a problem since most devices are so god damn small.

If Sony released a PSP version that doesn't have those extra junk features that aren't going to contribute to gaming at all and saves me some money, I would pre-order it now. Otherwise, it's very likely I will wait awhile to see how it does.

One more time: the extra features are not adding to the price for 99% of them and if taken away would worsen the PSP as a gaming machine as well.
 
If Sony released a PSP version that doesn't have those extra junk features that aren't going to contribute to gaming at all and saves me some money, I would pre-order it now. Otherwise, it's very likely I will wait awhile to see how it does.
You are actually not paying anything extra for that music/movie playing hardware in the PSP. It's not like it has some special chip that is used only for that purposes, and not used during actual games. Games need to have music and video playback as well, don't you think :)
 
You are actually not paying anything extra for that music/movie playing hardware in the PSP. It's not like it has some special chip that is used only for that purposes, and not used during actual games. Games need to have music and video playback as well, don't you think :)

7.1 capability isn't overkill on a portable gaming device? How is that going to work in general use? Hook it up to speakers that hardly anyone has(let alone 4.1 speakers)?

As for video playback..... on a portable device? I made some relatively high quality divx encodings(with emphasis on IQ than consistent framerate) for my IPAQ 5455PPC...... screens around that size can't really convey much details and clarity.

Anyway, so you are saying that if the guys developing the chips for the PSP didn't have obscenely high quality music and video playback capabilities in mind along with high game perfomance than compared to just emphasis on game perfomance, that the cost will be the same? I guess I wasn't specific at first, I usually just type out when I think than just take my time thinking... than type it out. I meant that if those engineers just develop the PSP with videogame perfomance emphasis rather than making it an all in one device, then it should have been cheaper.....
 
Videogames would certainly take use of that high quality video and audio. FMV is going to look nice, and you'll be able to listent to surround sound even through your headphones (I'm 100% sure there are headphones that allow for that) Sure, they could put the plan stereo sound instead of 7.1 but that's about the only thing I can see that may only be used for movie playback and not in games. Games are very dependant on high quality multimedia nowadays, and PSP should (and will) take use of that.
 
Anyway, so you are saying that if the guys developing the chips for the PSP didn't have obscenely high quality music and video playback capabilities in mind along with high game perfomance than compared to just emphasis on game perfomance, that the cost will be the same? I guess I wasn't specific at first, I usually just type out when I think than just take my time thinking... than type it out. I meant that if those engineers just develop the PSP with videogame perfomance emphasis rather than making it an all in one device, then it should have been cheaper.....

Well games now days can involved music and video playback, even GBA games has songs and some video playback. What's wrong with having them in higher quality ?
 
Also, the VME ( the Re-configurable Sound DSP ) is the same chip Sony Electronics already developed and the main difference is probably an enhanced clock-speed ( that allows it to do 5 GOPS so that it can offer up to 7.1 Surround Sound playback ).
 
PSP for $450 USD? Hell no. There's no way in hell the average gamer will shell out that much for a "multimedia" handheld. I hope Sony dumps some of the features and cuts the price at least by half. I was hoping to be able to "afford" one, but there's no way I'm going to spend $450 USD on a handheld gaming machine. I'd be hardpressed to spend that much on a console, and I consider myself an "average gamer."

I buy about 5-10 games a year between my Gamecube and Computer. Who exactly is Sony targetting with a price like that?
 
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