PlayStation Meeting 2004 : psp stuff*updated*

[hey69]

- Sony revealed new details for PlayStation Portable at the PlayStation Meeting 2004 in Japan. 25 new PSP developers are revealed, include: Agenda, AquaPlus, Arika, Atari Japan, Athena, Chun Soft, D3 Publisher, Eidos, ESP, Fog, Global A Entertainment, Hamster, Imagineer, Interchannel, Jaleco, Kaga Tech, Kemco, Mainichi Communications, Media Works, Sun Denshi, Sunrise Interactive, Titus, Ubisoft, X-Nauts and Yamasa.

- PSP will have wireless network support, up to 16 players can connect together wirelessly in ad-hoc mode (without needing a hub). PSP can also communication with PlayStation 2 through the USB port. Koei's Shin Sangoku Musou (Dynasty Warriors) will be one of the first titles to support wireless LAN.

The costs of producing PSP's media UMD are also revealed, a single layer UMD is 250 yen, which a double layer UMD costs 300 yen. The price level is about the same as PS2 DVDs.

- Sony revealed a new translation application for PSP called Talkman, which turns the PSP into a multilingual translator. Talkman will be able to interpret 9 different languages with voice output. Talkman will be a launch title for PSP.

The firm demonstrated a piece of software called Talkman, which utilises the built-in microphone port of the PSP and allows users to speak into the device in one language and have what they said translated into another, spoken, language. The software uses a cartoon bird as its main interface, which is able to converse in, and translate between, up to nine languages.

The demonstration at the conference only showed Talkman translating between Japanese and English, but the company suggested that in its final incarnation, the software will be extremely useful as both a foreign language training tool, and as a translation device for people abroad.


- A large number of new PSP titles were also revealed at the PlayStation Meeting 2004:

Action Girlz Racing (Data Design)
Activision Anthology (Activision)
AI Series: Mahjong (Marvelous)
AI Series: Igo (Marvelous)
AI Series: Shougo (Marvelous)
Autobahn Crossroads (Resolution)
Axel Impact International (SCEK / Axis)
Azaya: Jungle Bowl Champions (Jungle Peak)
Battle Blades (Data Design)
BBG (Seed9)
Big Choppers (Eutechnyx)
BIg Mutha Truckers 2 (Eutechnyx)
Board Game Gallery (Phoenix Games)
Burnout (Criterion)
Bust-A-Move (Taito)
Card Shark 3 (Phoenix Games)
Car Jacker (Eutechnyx)
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe (Buena Vista)
Cloud of Verruca (Success)
Clusterball 2 (Resolution)
Crazy Racing Kart Rider (Nexon)
Dance Mat Challenge (Data Design)
Derby (SCEI)
Doraslot (Dorat)
Fighting Spirits (SCEA)
Formula One 04 (SCEE/Evolution)
Free Runing (Eidos)
Generation of Chaos (Idea Factory)
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex (SCEI)
Habitrail Hamster Ball (Data Design)
Harvest Moon (Natsume)
Infected (Planet Moon)
Intelligent License (Now Production)
Joe (HumanSoft)
Junior Sports Basketball (Data Design)
Junior Sports Hockey (Data Design)
Koron (CyberFront)
Legend of River King (Marvelous)
Mahjong Kakutou (Konami)
Mahjong Taikai (Koei)
Mercury (tba/Ignition)
Metal Shell (Tantalus)
Myth Makers Karting (Data Design)
Need for Speed Underground (Electronic Arts)
Ninja Bunny Warriors (Data Design)
Offroad Xtreme (Data Design)
Pilot ni Narou (Marvelous)
Popolocrois Monogatari (SCEI)
Professional Wrestling (Yukes)
Project S (Sega)
Rig Racing (Data Design)
Romance of Three Kingdoms (Koei)
RS Revolution (Spike)
Shingata (Sunrise)
Shin Mojibittan (Namco)
Shin Tenmakai (Idea Factory)
Sparrow Merit (Success)
Sprint Madness (Resolution)
Sticky Balls (Warthog)
Super Star Studio (Coong)
Talkman (SCEI)
Technic Cute (Arika)
Tengai Makyou (Hudson/Red)
TGM-K (Arika)
Tokyo Xtreme Racing (Genki)
Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (Activision/Neversoft)
Transformers (Atrai/Melbourne House)
Twisted Metal: World Tour (SCEA/Incog)
Vegas Casino 2 (Phoenix Games)
Volcanus Online (Zepetto)
World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 (Konami)
World Tour Soccer 2005 (SCEE/Studio Soho)
WRC (SCEE/Evolution)
Zero Hour (Argonaut)
Zooo (Success)


all info ripped from magicbox and from other's

 

[Deepak]

That Talkman thing has immense potential, imagine talking to others in online games in your native language and others hear it in their native languages....

 

[Guden Oden]

*shivers* Now hearing illegible babelfish-speak is not really what I'm looking forward to I must say!

Besides, translation is sure to require lots of processing power, so I'm not sure it's feasible during normal gameplay except for puzzle games and such lightweight stuff. Now if this thing could run on the media processor CPU core it would have been fine, but it's been said it will not be software programmable by devs (for some insanely stupid reason), so we're probably screwed there.

 

[London Geezer]

That's a lot of games there... Most unknown potential shovelware, but hey...

This Talkman does sound very interesting....

 

[Deepak]

But how will it translate language specific goody-goody words....

 

[hey69]

i don't know .. like a Indian Nightshop owner accent ? ) sorry man couldn't resist

 

[hey69]

armored core

darkstalkers

Tales of Eternia (Namco/Tales Studio)

 

[Pepto-Bismol]

Hmm ... by trying to eliminate language barriers (in real-time), Sony may be crawling over one of the biggest hurdles in software localization.

In the future, content providers need only concern themselves with publishing in their native tongue, confident that the "Hive" will translate their media into the appropriate language for the end-user. The real trick, however, is cinematography, synchronizing facial expressions and events to the target language ... in real-time.

 

[Paul]

They still need to change the colors of the buttons(circle, square, x, triangle) to the ones found on the dualshock, bleh.. I hope they do it.

As well as change the color of the PSP logo and the little playstation one.

 

[thop]

Those SONY engineers must've been watching too much Star Trek That univeral translator sounds like an excellent idea, but i'm pretty sure it will be terrible in real world conditions. Multiplying the flaws of speech recognition with the flaws of computer translation :?

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Even if only the basic words are translated correctly, it could come in handy.

 

[Spidermate]

*shivers* Now hearing illegible babelfish-speak is not really what I'm looking forward to I must say!

Besides, translation is sure to require lots of processing power, so I'm not sure it's feasible during normal gameplay except for puzzle games and such lightweight stuff. Now if this thing could run on the media processor CPU core it would have been fine, but it's been said it will not be software programmable by devs (for some insanely stupid reason), so we're probably screwed there.

Hold up a second! So what they're saying is if the both of us are carrying around a PSP console,we could communicate with one another from across the room (ranging from nine different,translated languages out loud) if one speaks into the mic? If this is true,then what would Nintendo's DS stylus do different?

 

[j^aws]

Talkman translator would come in handy for lazy tourists, kinda like a glorified speak 'n' spell! 8)

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Talkman translator would come in handy for lazy tourists, kinda like a glorified speak 'n' spell! 8)

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

 

[passerby]

This Talkman has a potential to be a system-seller. I can see it being quite attractive for the average "poorly-literate in english" japanese. Heck, I can see it useful for the "quasi-literate in japanese" importer me.

 

[Deepak]

Talkman translator would come in handy for lazy tourists, kinda like a glorified speak 'n' spell! 8)

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

So what is the *correct* translation.

 

[Simon F]

Talkman translator would come in handy for lazy tourists, kinda like a glorified speak 'n' spell! 8)

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

Surely you meant "My hovercraft is full of eels"?
"Bouncy Bouncy."

 

[Farid]

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

So what is the *correct* translation.

In english it's: "my sincere salutations, sir", and in american english, it's something like: "What's up, dude!".

8)

 

[Evil_Cloud]

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

So what is the *correct* translation.

In english it's: "my sincere salutations, sir", and in american english, it's something like: "What's up, dude!".

8)

More like 'Good morning mister/sir'.

It might become a very handy tool, but let's first see how well it works.

 

[Deepak]

Imagine the possibilities of incorrect translations...

"Français: Bonjour monsieur"
"English: You fucking bastard"

I hope for Sony that this will be decent.

So what is the *correct* translation.

In english it's: "my sincere salutations, sir", and in american english, it's something like: "What's up, dude!".

8)

They could censor a few *words*....

"The costs of producing PSP's media UMD are also revealed, a single layer UMD is 250 yen, which a double layer UMD costs 300 yen. The price level is about the same as PS2 DVDs."

How much does a GBA game cost?

"PSP can also communication with PlayStation 2 through the USB port."

Interesting! In what form? What about PS3-PSP connectivity?