PSP ??

[Grall]

Pan,

1.8 GB for a pie-in-the-sky machine which won't be out until Q4 2004, vs. up to qarter-gig ROMs soon-ish if Tag is correct... All for a machine with somewhat more graphics oomph than SNES + superfx coprocessor.

256 MB is a HUGE amount of space for such a machine. 256Mbit is a lot actually, considering compression etc.

The reason the FF games you keep whinging so much about takes so bloody much storage space is because of the FMV. Do you really think that is NECCESSARY? Or even desireable? To many, FMV is mostly just a distraction since it looks a lot different compared to in-game graphics.

You think FF part XYZ (or rather, ZZZ actually, considering the average (lack of) quality of all the PS installments) on PSP is gonna spell doom for Nintendo and/or the GBA? Please note, there hasn't been a single FF game EVER for GBA, what would be the friggin difference really? Nothing's changed!


*G*

 

[Echarin]

...considering the average (lack of) quality of all the PS installments)...

While FFVIII may have been a disappointment, both FFVII and FFIX were very good games, especially FFVII. You may think they're not that good, but that's just your opinion.

 

[Panajev2001a]

256 MB ROM == more expensive for developers than an optical medium...

PSP == cheaper medium, more space, lower licensing fees...

 

[Almasy]

...considering the average (lack of) quality of all the PS installments)...

While FFVIII may have been a disappointment, both FFVII and FFIX were very good games, especially FFVII. You may think they're not that good, but that's just your opinion.

You know, after extensive playing sessions of FFVII, VIII and IX, I´d rather believe all three of them are very high quality products. In fact, they´re superior in every way to the primitive games on Nintendo consoles, but that´s the power of Nintendo branded nostalgia I guess.
:?

Anyway, back on topic :

256MB good enough to counter 1.8 Gigs? Sorry, argueing that something like that would even be close to being an adequate way to respond to Sony´s media is completely ridiculous. Not to mention Sony´s ties with 3rd parties will allow them to fill the machine with quality software quite fast, and let´s face it, this is a huge generational leap in technology ( going from Genesis to something between PS1 and PS2), if Sony markets this thing right, and they will, people will most likely see GBA as old hardware.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Do you really think that is NECCESSARY? Or even desireable? To many, FMV is mostly just a distraction since it looks a lot different compared to in-game graphics.

Yes I think it is desirable and I never minded well done FMVs or high quality soundtracks and full voice acting...

Having such a big optical disc would also allow for quite cheap and quick PSX to PSP ports ( with silghtly enhanced graphics: bi-linear filtering and perspective corrected texture mapping ) without having to lower the quality of FMVs...

We can have the original ones in high-res and high-color while on GBA mode 5, dual-buffered and 16 bits ( 15 bits RGB ), is 160x128 and dual-buffered mode 4 is 240x160 can only display 256 unique colors ( 8 bits mode using a palette )...

There are advantages that come with a big disc... especially if these add to competitive license fees and competitive ( read cheaper ) medium ( optical discs == cheaper than 256 MB cartdridges )...

 

[Panajev2001a]

Also, will the GBA SP be able to read the new ROMs Tagrineth talks about ?

If not this means that we really need a GBA 2 launched at the same time ( or approximately ) of the PSP... but would it be good for Nintendo ?

Launching a new Game Boy every year is not something I'd like as a consumer...

 

[PC-Engine]

You speak as though developers are going to fill up that 1.8 gigs of space for every game made...I think not. How many games on GCN uses more than 2 disc? You think PSP is going to have better capabilites than GCN games that go for $50?

You know how expensive development will be to put in that much data?

You think the games will be selling for $50? What's the point of cramming in hi resolution textures to fill that disc when you're not going be able to see the hi res texture without a magnifying glass?

You think there is a law that prevents Nintendo from lowering royalties?

You're dreaming...

 

[Brimstone]

Deano, of course Nintendo will want to counteract this with a GBA 2, but IMHO the GBA 2 they had in the R&D labs was not designed to compete with the PSP, but was designed as a successor of the current GBA and GBA SP and with Nintendo still in a position of monopoly of the handheld market...

Also, is Nintendo going to release the GBA 2 next year when the PSP launches ?

Will gamers like having one NEW GBA launched every year ? ( GBA -> GBA SP -> GBA 2... )

Nintendo has been waiting for years for the competation to arrive, everybody knew that 1 (at least) or the console big boys would challenge Nintendo in the handheld market. The only surprise to the industry has been that Nintendo has been left for this long without any serious challenge.

In the handheld space everything is reversed from the console space, whatever advantage Sony has with consoles (different people will say different things), Nintendo has it with handhelds. Sony can't win on technology because all the things mentioned in the presentation don't matter, it may have the best screen, best graphics etc but Nintendo will match or better it for battery and price. In software, Sony have a real problem, Nintendo have the 3rd party market completely, they already have every big francise from GTA, Metal Gear, Tombraider, Pokomon etc What does Sony have ? You can only include 1st party Sony software on PSX/PS2, the Playstation 3rd party heritage means nothing.

If Sony can beat Nintendo in the handheld market, Nintendo can beat Sony in the next gen console market. How many people think thats going to happen? In both cases the only real chance occurs if the current leader makes a serious mistake, I personally don't see Sony doing it with PS3 or Nintendo doing if with the next Gameboy. Nintendo has made its serious mistakes in the past (as has Sony, <cough>Beta<cough>) they won't go down with out a serious fight.

Sony PSP has to beat a franchise that is expected to sell over 15 Millions units this year. Sony has a very very hard fight.

I agree that Nintendo will put up a strong fight against Sony in the handheld market. I'm not sure what they'll do to thwart off the threat from Sony, but I would assume that they'll do everything possible to remain dominant in this market that brings in a lot of revenue for Nintendo.

If ATI is making a new chip, I'm sure Nintendo will spare no expense on its creation and fabrication process.

 

[PC-Engine]

It's winning this one because it had a headstart
Headstart = more games = more buyers
The Emotion Synthesis et al hype helped. Were there any launch games worth playing? Hey let's buy this thing to play multiregion DVDs and play old PSX games

To say that the PS2 is outselling the competitors 5 to 1 solely on the fact that it had a head start is the most retarded thing I have ever heard. It's borderline bias.

Are you forgetting the thousands of people waiting in line for days to get a PS2? Are you forgetting how ps2's sold on ebay for 1000 dollars? Or how about how people ignored DC in favor of the PS2 when it had a HUGE headstart over PS2, going by your logic they would go for the DC right? Because it had a headstart and more games, but no, we see this isnt the case.

Your a fan-boy and a very obvious one at that.

How do you think the PS2 got its huge game library? And please don't use the DC again...that argument has been shot down too many times my friend. DC was recovering from the Saturn, 32X, etc.

PS2 was riding on the PSX wave...not quality. Quality came AFTER about 2 years. Again it's selling well now because of the huge library most of which is shovelware which caters to the average JOE very nicely.

What does PS2 being sold for $1000 have anything to do with QUALITY? What are you arguing man?

Take off your goggles dude...

 

[Teasy]

Not more expensive than current cartdridges.. not good enough... mass produced UMD will probably be cheaper...

According the Sony UMD is the same price as a cartridge, not cheaper. So its more like, UMD will be the same price as a cartridge... not good enough Cartridges have far better load times and use less power. If you have the choice of a 1.8gb UMD vs a 1gb cart both for the same price then the cart is by far the superior option. I'd say even a 512mb cart would be the superior option compared to a 1.8gb UMD (both at the same price), you just don't need 1.8gb in the handheld market.

You keep saying that by releasing a new handheld at the same time a PSP Nintendo would be releasing it only a year after GBA-SP. But that's not true, GBA-SP was release at the start of 2003 and PSP is scheduled for the end of 2004. PSP may even end up coming out in 2005 anyway as the fourth quarter of 2004 can easily slip into 2005. So a new GB at the same time as PSP would basically be 2 years after GBA-SP.

BTW, as Tag already said, yes the bigger carts do work with GBA-SP.

 

[Tagrineth]

The high-density matrix ROMs are fully reverse-compatible with existing mask ROM interfaces, provided the hardware is capable of such a large address range.

GBA is capable of addressing huge amounts of ROM; Nintendo knew the huge ROMs would be available within its lifespan.

PC-Engine makes a great point:

You speak as though developers are going to fill up that 1.8 gigs of space for every game made...I think not. How many games on GCN uses more than 2 disc? You think PSP is going to have better capabilites than GCN games that go for $50?

You know how expensive development will be to put in that much data?

You think the games will be selling for $50? What's the point of cramming in hi resolution textures to fill that disc when you're not going be able to see the hi res texture without a magnifying glass?

You think there is a law that prevents Nintendo from lowering royalties?

You're dreaming...

Even on the 1.5GB/disc GameCube, only the Resident Evils use two.

And keep in mind, that the very low load times that ROM offers cater wonderfully toward data compression schemes. ^_^ N has used data compression for a long time now. How do you think they fit Resident Evil 2 into 64MB for the N64?

 

[Panajev2001a]

You speak as though developers are going to fill up that 1.8 gigs of space for every game made...I think not. How many games on GCN uses more than 2 disc? You think PSP is going to have better capabilites than GCN games that go for $50?

Your logic is not clear to me.... how is the argument "how many developers on GCN use more than two disks ( which would be 3 GB ) ?" related to the fact that developers would enjoy a cheap 1.8 GB format ?

GCN games try not to use more than 1 disc ( RE: 1, RE: 0 and others disagree though ) because using two discs is expensive and you try to fight with the limitation of the format so that you can ship the game in one disc and avoid spending money for the second disc...

How many GBA games use carttridges bigger than 8 MB ? Not that many... Does this proove that there is no need for the bigger ROMs Tagrineth talks about ?

No, of course we cannot make this relation...

You think PSP is going to have better capabilites than GCN games that go for $50?

In a similar way that PlayStation 2 games shipping on 4.7 GB DVDs like Primal or The Getaway or Jak & Dexter do at $39 over several GCN games that ship for $50...

UMD is not as big as the DVD, we are talking about 1.8 GB and I think we might see even a single layer UMD with 900 MB-1 GB for developers who want to port simple 1 disc PSX games ( enhanced of course ) to PSP but do not need the dual layer UMD and this will be even cheaper than the relatively cheap regular UMD... and we know Sony is going to be as competitive as possible on license fees... these two elements together will help games to provide good capabilities without a $50 price-tag ( and considering that we see several titles shipping at $39 for PlayStation 2 right now... the situation does not look too bad )

You know how expensive development will be to put in that much data?

You think the games will be selling for $50? What's the point of cramming in hi resolution textures to fill that disc when you're not going be able to see the hi res texture without a magnifying glass?

I can appreciate better or worse textures using the PSOne LCD and the new PSP LCD doesn't seem bad in terms of resolution and pixel size...

How espensive is going to be development ?

Uhm... for tons of games it won't be that much, because they are going to be enhanced PSX ports ( there are tons that wait for the upgraded port... you do not like it ? I am sure you felt the same way about the GBA... ) and using high quality FMVs, music and sound effects you fill the extra space quickly

You think there is a law that prevents Nintendo from lowering royalties?

You're dreaming...

No there is not a law... but lowering royaltes would be only one of the two things that they should do...

The other is lowering cart prices...

Sony is fighting on both of those fronts...

Is Nintendo ready to cut their profit from the GBA sector this much ?

I remember when I said that Nintendo is not for risky R&D ventures and that there was a high possibility of a mainly gaming centered GCN 2 opposed to the media-center approach PlayStation 3 and Xbox 2 will follow...

Someone agreed, someone didn't...

Recently a spokesman from Nintendo was reported saying somethign along the lines of "the more they (Sony and Microsoft) focus on extra, non essentially gaming related functionality the more we will focus on gaming"...

Here I say that currently there is quite a lot of conflict at Nintendo regarding what to do and more than few heads were turned around by the PSP announcement and the stock market happened to agree with me on this one: Nintendo shares fell 9%... ( Sony gained 3% )...

The first step is admitting there is a problem with current GBA strategy and that Sony's presence in the market cannot be just brished off as unimportant ( the "another one will bite the dust" sindrome ), Nintendo has been in a condition of monopoly in the handheld market for quite a lot of years and now it let Sony with a good window of opportunity to come in...

I know that Nintendo CAN put up a fight and there is space for a succesful Game Boy and a succesful PSP family...

Will Nintendo acknowledge the situation or will they remain cocky ?

That is the only question I put forward to you...

 

[Panajev2001a]

How do you think they fit Resident Evil 2 into 64MB for the N64?

By lots of swearing, blood sweating while studying the RSP manuals and with still visible compromises to FMVs quality in video ( artifacts, reduction in quality and frame-rate [15 fps with interpolation IIRC] ) and audio...

Now let me see where Square would put FFVIII and FFVII ( both a bit updated to take advantage of texture filterign and perspective corrected texture mapping )... would they highly compress it and put it on a 256 MB ROM or would they easily port them on a single UMD disc ( 600 MB * 3 = ~1.8 GB and there is still the MPEG4 card to play... ) ?

I will bite, I am happy to hear that these new ROMs are going to be usable on existing GBAs and GBA SPs.

Still I feel that optical discs such as UMDs will still be cheaper than those 256 MB cartdridges...

 

[Paul]

How do you think the PS2 got its huge game library? And please don't use the DC again...that argument has been shot down too many times my friend. DC was recovering from the Saturn, 32X, etc.

PS2 was riding on the PSX wave...not quality. Quality came AFTER about 2 years. Again it's selling well now because of the huge library most of which is shovelware which caters to the average JOE very nicely.

What does PS2 being sold for $1000 have anything to do with QUALITY? What are you arguing man?

Take off your goggles dude...

And what does DC recovering from anything mean? I use this to prove your point about having a huge game base wrong, since DC had the better games and look what happened? PS2 raped it. DC "recovering" haha how funny, the average person who bought a PS2 had no idea of what happened to 32X or DC. DC got killed because people just wanted a PS2 more, which again goes to prove that a "headstart" means shit in this case, as DC had a huge one over ps2.

So your point about having the headstart is bullshit, wrong.

And what does people paying 1000 dollars on ebay for ps2 have anything to do with anything?

It proves that people WANTED ps2 and would get one under any means necessary, they could have just got a DC or waited for Xbox or cube, but no they wanted the ps2. Which again proves your whole ps2 is winning because of the headstart bullshit wrong again.

Oh and please, xbox or gamecube don't have lots of crap games?

 

[Panajev2001a]

BTW, yestewrday Nintendo shares fell 9% and today they fell 5.9%...

 

[RaolinDarksbane]

Hmmm, some quick comparisons and the advantages/disadvantages of PSP/GBASP

Cost:
GBASP - $99 and dropping once PSP is out
PSP - $150-200(No way in hell it will be cheaper than that considering the specs)
Winner - GBASP

Graphics:
GBASP - 2D sprites
PSP - 2D/3D
Winner: PSP wins hands down.

Audio:
GBASP -
PSP -
Winner - PSP, duh...

Processor:
GBASP - ARM(?)
PSP -
Winner - PSP again.

Battery Life:
GBASP - Lithiom battery, last for 10 hrs with light on and almost twice as long with light off.
PSP - No idea what's the battery, but there will be no way in hell it will last as long as GBASP or GBA for that matter considering the spec.
Winner: GBASP

Format:
GBASP - Cartridges. Fast and damage resistant. Expensive.
PSP - UMD. Cheap and high capacity. Not as damage resistant.
Winner - I'm don't know about this since we are dealing with portable/handheld here, not consoles. But the high capacity coupled with it being cheap, the UMD should attract many developers. So UMD is the winner here.

Developing cost:
GBASP - Extremely cheap, you don't need to invest a lot of resource into a game.
PSP - Ranges from pretty cheap to really expensive considering it capabilities.
Winner: GBASP

Games:
GBASP - Compatible with GB, GBC, GBA, and still have tons of games in development.
PSP - ????
Winner - We don't know what games are coming to the PSP, but even if we do, the selection of games for the GBASP will still cream it. So GBASP wins here.

Oh my, it's a tie!!

 

[Teasy]

Now let me see where Square would put FFVIII and FFVII ( both a bit updated to take advantage of texture filterign and perspective corrected texture mapping )... would they highly compress it and put it on a 256 MB ROM or would they easily port them on a single UMD disc ( 600 MB * 3 = ~1.8 GB and there is still the MPEG4 card to play... ) ?

Now let me see, where would any dev rather release there game? On a 512mb (or even 256mb) cart on a system with a 100+ million userbase or a 1.8gb disc on a system with a 0 userbase? The answer is obvious. After all why do so many devs limit the visual quality of there games by focusing on PS2 development over the much more capable GC and XBox? Because PS2 has a huge userbase compared to those two consoles.

 

[Panajev2001a]

Now let me see where Square would put FFVIII and FFVII ( both a bit updated to take advantage of texture filterign and perspective corrected texture mapping )... would they highly compress it and put it on a 256 MB ROM or would they easily port them on a single UMD disc ( 600 MB * 3 = ~1.8 GB and there is still the MPEG4 card to play... ) ?

Now let me see, where would any dev rather release there game? On a 512mb (or even 256mb) cart on a system with a 100+ million userbase or a 1.8gb disc on a system with a 0 userbase? The answer is obvious.

Heeey... now a 512 MB cartdridge... hehe, and you want to tell me that they will be comparable in price to the UMD optical discs ?

Please...

Also by your reasonign no developer will ever make ANY game for the PSP...

The point is that a developer has incentive to choose the PSP: low license fees, cheap optical disc with a big size ( EASY to port PSX games with enhanced graphics... important point )...

PSP will be an important player and Nintendo can fight a good fight only if they acknowledge it

 

[Teasy]

RaolinDarksbane

I don't think the processor should be included in that list. After all your looking at its advantages to the end user not a technical breakdown of each systems components, right? Although I suppose you could just change processor to AI and that would fit in better.

Not that its important, just an observation

 

[Panajev2001a]

Developing cost:
GBASP - Extremely cheap, you don't need to invest a lot of resource into a game.

I do not know... you have to add the issue of the relatively high cost of cartdridges and not low license fees that make the GBA market not HUGELY profitable ( not HUGE margins ) for third party developers...