SCEE's Phil Harrison PSP talk

[Farid]

But what interest me is where are these "mp3" files supposed to go? on the Memorystick? unless there is a UMD that is writeable we are basicly disccussing a function that is without use?

Same question here, about the downloadable content (Wipeout Pure tracks was the example)... We'll have to store them on Memory card, or PSP MC are simply Memory Sticks?

 

[Guden Oden]

Yes, PSP memory card is a memory stick (MS Duo to be exact).

 

[cthellis42]

They've already said how long the included battery will likely last from previous articles. Why can't some people just accept it?

So you've divined how long intense games will take to drain the battery, as well as simpler games, as well as playing wirelessly, as well as straight UMD video playing, operating only off Memory Stick and GUI, as well as screen-off audio playing, operating the peripherals, and all the other circumstances you might want to use the machine for from the miniscule commentary they've given it so far? That's super!



Would be neat to see them encorporate fuel cell tech at some point, though. Not sure how far along NEC's is and how it compares to other third parties, but the Tapwave may be trying its hand there.

If the same design trade-offs would have to be made, though, I can't see them doing it. (Though it could be used in the external battery pack, of course. A third party could make one available as well, if Sony's not inclined. Fuel Cell's aren't widely recognized yet, though.)

 

[Farid]

Would be neat to see them encorporate fuel cell tech at some point, though. Not sure how far along NEC's is and how it compares to other third parties, but the Tapwave may be trying its hand there.

If the same design trade-offs would have to be made, though, I can't see them doing it. (Though it could be used in the external battery pack, of course. A third party could make one available as well, if Sony's not inclined. Fuel Cell's aren't widely recognized yet, though.)

About the Fuel cell this Tapland article sumarized perfectly my mind about it:

The modified Zodiac featured in their photos had an awfully large appendage built onto the back. It sounds like they're still in the prototype phase, at least where their consumer electronics hopes are concerned. They'll need to get that size down quite a bit before these can be considered as a serious option. It doesn't matter how tiny the batteries are if the overall solution adds significant size to a device.

....

Left unmentioned were more hard data about battery life (2-10x sounds awfully vague), as well as the issue of price, though they did indicate that they were working with Gilette/Duracell, presumably to offer off-the-shelf fuel cell packs.

...

Personally, I can't help but wonder just how needed this sort of technology is when it comes to portable consumer electronic devices. Users have largely adjusted to a lifestyle of charging their devices on a semi-regular basis. So long as the built-in rechargable battery can last a full day between charges, will people really want to go back to the days of shelling out money for a new pack of batteries, even if they last for a month?

What puzzle me the more is the 2-10x more time of battery life, because we all know that in 99% of situations it will be 2X more, and in the case of the PSP... 2x "not a long time" doesn't make me want to buy Duracells everyday.

This tech is too young, IMHO.

 

[PC-Engine]

So you've divined how long intense games will take to drain the battery, as well as simpler games, as well as playing wirelessly, as well as straight UMD video playing, operating only off Memory Stick and GUI, as well as screen-off audio playing, operating the peripherals, and all the other circumstances you might want to use the machine for from the miniscule commentary they've given it so far? That's super!

In other words you demand that SONY release specific battery duration figures for specific games?

For example:

Game A gets 2.5 hrs
Game B gets 2.2 hrs
Game C gets 2.7 hrs

or

USE games gets 2.2 hrs
SE games gets 2.5 hrs
E games gets 2.7 hrs
MS games gets 3.0 hrs
SS games get 4.0 hrs

USE = Ultra Super Extreme
SE = Super Extreme
E = Extreme
MS = Moderately Sucky
SS = Super Sucky

etc...etc?

 

[jvd]

they could give us an average . If most games last 2-3 hours of life then state that . average battery life .

Instead of saying 2.5-10 hours depending on what u use it for .

 

[Paul]

You guys gotta realize though, PSP is a *multimedia* device. You don't just play games on it.

How can you just say the thing has a 3 hour battery life on average when it will last 10 when playing music from a UMD?

They gave a 2-10 figure for a reason, it's different depending on what you do.

 

[jvd]

You guys gotta realize though, PSP is a *multimedia* device. You don't just play games on it.

How can you just say the thing has a 3 hour battery life on average when it will last 10 when playing music from a UMD?

They gave a 2-10 figure for a reason, it's different depending on what you do.

give an average for games .

GIve one for music


give one for videos .



As a consumer i'd like to know how long it will function doing each of the things i will require of it .

I'd like to know if i'm going to need to buy a wrist battery to be able to play games on a 3 hour car ride or if the normal battery is cable of it

 

[PC-Engine]

IMO 2-10 hrs is a lot of info if you know how to extrapolate with other info that was made public.

For exampe let's take the worse case scenario which is 2 hrs.

What would be the worse case on a portable?

Disc constantly accessing.
Screen on
Wireless LAN on
All processors being aggressively used
Controller pad being constantly accessed

What does the above describe??? Gameplay

Now let's take the best case scenario of 10 hrs.

Disc stopped
Screen off
Wireless LAN off
All processors in standby mode or lightly used
Controller not being used often

What does that describe? Music playback from flash device (MS).

Looking at the scenario above, it's obvious why they didn't just outright say 2-3 hrs of gameplaying...it would be unattractive. The fact they have an external battery pack says it all without having to actually release numbers.

 

[Paul]

give an average for games .

GIve one for music


give one for videos .

They already did.

Again, if you're just listening to music with no visuals at all then it should last, as I said yesterday, about eight to ten hours just like an iPod would. If you are playing a game that is consistently cycling through and putting the CPU to good use, yeah, battery life is going to be shorter. Maybe about two and a half, three hours. That's why putting the range in there... because it's more difficult because it's got a wide range of applications to really pinpoint to say, "It's eight hours." Because it could be longer, or it could be shorter, and by dramatic margins up or down.


And he also said UMD movie playback would be 2 and a half hours, though from a memory stick you can get far better life.

 

[thop]

I'm not sure they thought this through with 2.5h UMD playback. After all geeks are clearly one of the major targeted audiences and we all know the favourite geek movie(s) is/are LOTR! Or will they release a SONY-cut version trimmed down to 2.5h

I can already hear all the swearing while people are waiting for the return of Gandalf and the battery goes down.

 

[cthellis42]

Thanks for the misplaced moronity, PC-Engine. I'd like to know more BECAUSE of comments like this: If you are playing a game that is consistently cycling through and putting the CPU to good use, yeah, battery life is going to be shorter. Maybe about two and a half, three hours. If they're making comments like that than either A) they're just trying to cloud things with extra details or B) games with lower requirements--spins the UMD less, occupies the CPU less, etc--could run a lot longer. There will certainly be puzzle games and other things that are very simple--and if it can, there may well be developers aiming for games that CAN be played longer as a selling point. And playing games/running other software off the MS will be something people are concerned with.

Heck, I'd be satisfied with just knowing one other fact: how long it can the screen stay on all by itself? (And if it has different power modes, how long by themselves?) That would at least establish a "maximum range" to keep in mind.

Because it IS a multi-media device in weird directions, I'd like to actually know what I'm looking at. If screen drain leads to, like, four hours max anyway...? I at least know how far certain things can be pushed.

I certainly know they're not going to tell me, but hey... that's why I want to know!

It'd be novel to actually get told, though, rather than the "old fashioned way" of waiting through all the reviews.

 

[PC-Engine]

Thanks for the misplaced moronity, PC-Engine. I'd like to know more BECAUSE of comments like this: If you are playing a game that is consistently cycling through and putting the CPU to good use, yeah, battery life is going to be shorter. Maybe about two and a half, three hours. If they're making comments like that than either A) they're just trying to cloud things with extra details or B) games with lower requirements--spins the UMD less, occupies the CPU less, etc--could run a lot longer. There will certainly be puzzle games and other things that are very simple--and if it can, there may well be developers aiming for games that CAN be played longer as a selling point. And playing games/running other software off the MS will be something people are concerned with.

Heck, I'd be satisfied with just knowing one other fact: how long it can the screen stay on all by itself? (And if it has different power modes, how long by themselves?) That would at least establish a "maximum range" to keep in mind.

Because it IS a multi-media device in weird directions, I'd like to actually know what I'm looking at. If screen drain leads to, like, four hours max anyway...? I at least know how far certain things can be pushed.

I certainly know they're not going to tell me, but hey... that's why I want to know!

It'd be novel to actually get told, though, rather than the "old fashioned way" of waiting through all the reviews.

What you're asking for is rediculous from a manufacturers POV.

Do car manufactures give MPG ratings depending on temperature?, weather condition? altitude? moon phase?

Good luck waiting for your wish to come true from SONY or Nintendo.

 

[Vince]

Do car manufactures give MPG ratings depending on temperature?, weather condition? altitude? moon phase?

No, they're not that truthful. If you're lucky they break it down by [Expressway] vs. [City] mean MPG. They, as recently shown by several studies concerning Hybrid cars, take the best MPG they can reasonably extract and run with it. Atleast Sony and Nintenod breakdown the output per given input so the consumer can see it.

 

[jvd]

What you're asking for is rediculous from a manufacturers POV.

Do car manufactures give MPG ratings depending on temperature?, weather condition? altitude? moon phase?

actually nintendo said 10 hours of play time with the gameboy sp battery .

So they do it unless it reflects negatively on the product

 

[PC-Engine]

What you're asking for is rediculous from a manufacturers POV.

Do car manufactures give MPG ratings depending on temperature?, weather condition? altitude? moon phase?

actually nintendo said 10 hours of play time with the gameboy sp battery .

So they do it unless it reflects negatively on the product

Yes of course. I was talking about breaking it down into the little pieces that he was wanting.

Nintendo released two numbers both for gameplay. One with light on and one with light off.

Car manufacturers do the same thing one for highway and the other for city like Vince mentioned. They don't give numbers for how much the passenger weighs or any of the other environment factors I listed above.

 

[jvd]

and i jsut want one number from sony. Average game play battery life

 

[wco81]

I think the likelihood is that they can't get good battery life without increasing the form factor and costs and still provide the level of performance and features (wireless, disc media) from a portable.

Maybe they were hoping that battery life would be better or they were surprised by the power consumption of the broadband engine. Or the unanticipated features like wireless support.

A good starting benchmark might be those portable DVD players with the LCD screens. They come in all sizes including screens similar to the PSP screen. Then you figure the PSP is going to have a more power-hungry CPU than any chip which would be in the DVD players. Then add wireless. I don't know how good the battery life of these DVD players are.

You might also benchmark with laptops, which have feature sets closest to the PSP of any other portable device. Sure they have more power hungry chips, bigger screens but they also have proportionately more battery mass.

I think the one thing you don't benchmark against is something like the GBA SP. It's just not the same kind of thing. Laptops and portable DVD players are closer. In that context, 2 or 3 hours might be expected.

 

[PC-Engine]

and i jsut want one number from sony. Average game play battery life

Well they did in an interview which is kind different from a press release or spec sheet.

If you are playing a game that is consistently cycling through and putting the CPU to good use, yeah, battery life is going to be shorter. Maybe about two and a half, three hours

wco81, portable DVD players with a big 7" screen average 2.5 hrs on a standard included 3100 mAh battery. With a higher capacity 4500 mAh battery it averages to around 3-4 hrs. The high capacity batteries for portable DVD players aren't that big at all as they're only slightly thicker than the standard battery and the standard battery is pretty thin to begin with.

 

[marconelly!]

The point that the battery is worn on the wrist is actually IGN's speculation. It was never mentioned in the interview with Harrison. I find that whole idea of theirs to be completely ridiculous. Why would anyone want to wear battery like that when you can just keep in the pocket or in the backpack?