Introducing the Sega Prometheus

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Sega to launch new handheld device.

E3 2004 will surely be remembered as the year of the portable gaming device. With Sony's PSP announcement and Nintendo's DS unveiling, this year's show has already had more than its fair share of portable goodness - but Sega's shock revelation that it is developing its own device must top the lot.

However, according to Yuji Naka, who unveiled the machine to shocked games industry representatives at a Sega E3 press briefing held just half an hour ago, with their new creation (code-named 'Prometheus') Sega are not attempting to directly compete with either Sony or Nintendo. 'Prometheus' is instead being billed by Sega as "the videogame equivalent of the iPod", and with the machine's pearl-white colour scheme it is obvious to see that the company wish to invoke the design-chic of Steve Jobs' ultra-popular music-playing machine. The similarities do not end there, however: rather than purchasing games from their local GameStop, gamers will download 'Prometheus' titles (called 'gamebits') from a special Sega online service which, Sega said, will operate in a similar way to Apple's iTunes software. With the use of a supplied USB cable (also white) users may then transfer up to twenty 'gamebits' on to their 'Prometheus' system's 15GB hard drive for play any time, any place.

The 'Prometheus' is roughly the same width as a CD case, and half the height. It will operate on a rechargeable battery (as yet unconfirmed as being lithium) which Sega say will last up to twenty hours. In a surprising move, in order to conserve battery power, the 'Prometheus' screen will not be backlit: a decision which we believe likely to alienate many gamers, and one inexplicable in lieu of recent technological developments which should negate such problems. Nevertheless, with the power, according to Sega, of "the Dreamcast, plus a little extra", and a genuinely innovative and cost-effective approach to game distribution, the 'Prometheus' certainly shows promise - and if the jubilant cheers and applause from the assembled journos are anything to go by, Sega's return to hardware is more than welcome.

Expect more tomorrow at the official Sega press conference where we hope to see at least footage of several potential launch titles.
 
Clashman said:
Let's hope they don't intend to mimic the price of the iPOD.

If This stuff is true....

their 'Prometheus' system's 15GB hard drive for play any time

That will cost Mucho dineros señors!
 
It will take fricken forever to fill that harddrive with stuff using all but the fastest of net connections available to the public today.

What happens when the user has gone through say, 11 games, and then wants to play the game that was deleted to make room for the last, is it then neccessary to pay for it and re-download it again? Sounds nutty to me if I'm forced to cough up again to play a golden oldie after a year or two since I last touched it.
 
i don't believe this.

If it is true, and it's power is like Dreamcast+ then it sounds like it's PowerVR MBX based.

but still, I don't believe it.
 
Guden Oden said:
It will take fricken forever to fill that harddrive with stuff using all but the fastest of net connections available to the public today.

What happens when the user has gone through say, 11 games, and then wants to play the game that was deleted to make room for the last, is it then neccessary to pay for it and re-download it again? Sounds nutty to me if I'm forced to cough up again to play a golden oldie after a year or two since I last touched it.

Maybe you'll have an "account" on that Sega website that will keep datas on what you bought etc... So you can download the games you paid, how many times you want (or a precise #).

And Yes this whole stuff sounds crazy... If the machine as the power of the DC it means its games will be around 500Mo/1Go, wich is a lot to download over a "classical" broadband.
 
I would imagine they'd have to station kiosks in game stores or something.
There, you could probably transfer games at a more reasonable speed.
 
And Yes this whole stuff sounds crazy... If the machine as the power of the DC it means its games will be around 500Mo/1Go, wich is a lot to download over a "classical" broadband.

Most DC games I see available online are between 20 and 300MB compressed (most DC games seem to compress really well). Only some of the most complex ones are much bigger, of course some are quite big (well over a gigabyte) even when compressed. But that that's only a very small amount of them. Also I'm sure with a smaller screen lower res textures, less geometry and far lower res video can be used to reduce size dramatically (in the games that need it).

P.S. 500MB/1GB isn't that much to download with basic broadband (around 5 hours for 1GB on my basic 512k ADSL). Unless France has a different definition of basic broadband then the U.K of course..
 
Teasy said:
P.S. 500MB/1GB isn't that much to download with basic broadband (around 5 hours for 1GB on my basic 512k ADSL). Unless France has a different definition of basic broadband then the U.K of course..

128/512kbs are the most common "broadband" ligne here.
And your idea about Gzip (or whatever) the Isos is quite good by the way. :D

Anyway i'm hardly convinced that such business model could work with games of that sizes.
At lest with todays 'connections', the day the downloads of the games will be almost instantaneous, will be the day for such kind of business, IMHO.

Sure it looks cool on the paper, but we have to remember that the Murphy law is strong... :D
 
Vysez said:
500Mo/1Go

Why do you French have to be so damn BACKWARDS all the time? It's megaBYTE, gigaBYTE, man. :LOL:

Yeah yeah, I know you invented the meter and, I guess, the kilo and stuff like that, but god dammit you did not invent the computer! :LOL:


...Just teasin. Heheh. Pay me no mind, it's 2AM and I need to go to bed. ;)
 
Interesting.

Put Nights in there and I am sold. I really like the 15 GB HD stuff. That's really the future for portable. I lost GBA catridges far too often :(
 
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