Sony plans PSP comeback in America

[eastmen]

Yes, I love the larger PSP widescreen [Widescreen movies appear smaller or truncated on iPhone because of the screen ratio]. You have to own one to appreciate the difference.

Now that you reminded me, iPod is a great video player too. I never use it for real that way (again because of battery life concerns). The key differentiator is the iTunes Music Store and its portable DRM, which allows you to continue watching a rented video on-the-go. On the PSP, you can watch movies from the PS Store but the selection is much smaller. The UMD movies are now retailing at $10 or less (like $3 in Fry's sometimes), but they are not as well used.

Both allow some digital copies from Blu-ray, but I think iPod/iPhone has more official support from Fox.
Both also have free movie conversion software support. The storage size doesn't bother me that much since I don't carry movies around.


I'd give the edge to iPod/iPhone for its overall experience. But I actually use PSP more in real-life, and I hope for a better user experience everytime I use it.

wait I can acess the playstation store online when i'm out on the road with my psp? Or do I also need a $400 ps3 and a wifi connection some where.

 

[patsu]

You sync it with a PC or Mac: http://store.playstation.com/video/index.vm (although I have not used it myself).
A PS3 works too.

Do you really want to download a movie from the cell network or even WiFi on the road ?
What did I just say about battery life ?

 

[eastmen]

You sync it with a PC or Mac: http://store.playstation.com/video/index.vm (although I have not used it myself).
A PS3 works too.

Do you really want to download a movie from the cell network or even WiFi on the road ?
What did I just say about battery life ?

yes actually. I use my sling box all the time on my mogul.

So using this site i'm able to download a movie strait to my psp if i'm at a wifi hot spot ?

Btw this is the next phone i'm going to use link well its actually the second one you see without the keyboard. Its only a 2.8inch screen but its a vga screen and it looks amazing with video from my sling box, much better than my friends iphone with ha hacked client.

 

[patsu]

yes actually. I use my sling box all the time on my mogul.

So using this site i'm able to download a movie strait to my psp if i'm at a wifi hot spot ?

Have not tried it that way (may be not).
I'd imagine it's much much faster and power efficient to download via the PC/PS3 and copy.
Someone said something about a direct download to PSP, but I believe it's just a rumor right now.

Btw this is the next phone i'm going to use link well its actually the second one you see without the keyboard. Its only a 2.8inch screen but its a vga screen and it looks amazing with video from my sling box, much better than my friends iphone with ha hacked client.

My advise is try before you buy. I didn't notice the screen size problem until I tried it myself.

EDIT: Heh, I totally forgot about the PC Playstation Store. It's pretty nifty to see the "same" thing on PS3 and PC.

 

[upnorthsox]

Both allow some digital copies from Blu-ray, but I think iPod/iPhone has more official support from Fox.

Yeah they sell the exact same digital copies to ipod/iphone customers on itunes, for $14.95 no less. Suckers!!!!

 

[eastmen]

Have not tried it that way (may be not).
I'd imagine it's much much faster and power efficient to download via the PC/PS3 and copy.
Someone said something about a direct download to PSP, but I believe it's just a rumor right now.

I'd love to be on the road and pull over for dinner and while there refresh the movies or download some music my friends and I were talking about without having to go home. I'm able to hit up youtube with my phone and I can check out yahoomusic while driving and ge that done right now on my phone , however I want more which is what the iphone offers and I hope that ms is able to offer this with an ew zune.

My advise is try before you buy. I didn't notice the screen size problem until I tried it myself.

The mogul has the same screen size but lower res and its fine for what I need. If I plan on watching alot of video I will bring another device (normaly my laptop)and tether my phone too it.

 

[Lazy8s]

MBX launched in devices such as the Dell Axim X50v ahead of the PSP's launch back in 2004, so the PSP could've used the same graphics core as the iPhone and consequently been more powerful and/or had better battery life.

They could use SGX which is out in various portables currently for their next PSP, resulting in both more performance and more battery life and also a common graphics core shared with the next iPod touch/iPhone.

 

[manux]

MBX launched in devices such as the Dell Axim X50v ahead of the PSP's launch back in 2004, so the PSP could've used the same graphics core as the iPhone and consequently been more powerful and/or had better battery life.

They could use SGX which is out in various portables currently for their next PSP, resulting in both more performance and more battery life and also a common graphics core shared with the next iPod touch/iPhone.

But is the iphone graphics chip really faster than psp in games? My open issues that I have seen no answer in that regard are

* Does the memory bandwidth psp has due to edram count or is edram somehow borked(yes, I know mbx doesn't need edram due to how rasterizer works, still does iPhone have enough bandwidth to feed cpu+gpu or will memory bandwidth become limiting factor in games)?
* Does iphone get crippled because of OS it runs and does psp get advantage as games have closer access to hardware?
* PSP gpu is clocked significantly higher even if it is less efficient per MHz, is it clocked high enough to actually beat mbx in iPhone?

I doubt the iPhone is that much faster than psp even though it's some 4 years newer hardware that costs triple the psp(without subscriptions in eu).

And in the end, is the hypotetchical power difference something that really gives so much better graphics that it matters to average joe?

I mostly understood iphone to be more powerful in CPU department. (~500MHz arm11 vs 2*333MHz mips) and I'm wondering how to quantify the gpu department? I guess iPhone also has loads more memory which makes developing games easier.

Same thing is wrong with iPhone as gaming device as in nokia ngage devices. There isn't proper input mechanism to support action games, where is the usable dpad? I can see click&point games working well, but the action games genre would be unplayable due to crap controls. But this should be ok as at least I see iPhone mainly as a network connected media device that can play games. Though playing games drains battery fast enough that a gamer would either need bag full of batteries or another phone.

 

[patsu]

PSP-3001 to be certified by FCC

Found out from GAF: https://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/oetcf/eas...me=N&application_id=290118&fcc_id='AK8PSP3001

Here's hoping it has some major upgrade.
I didn't bother with PSP-2000.

 

[PARANOiA]

But is the iphone graphics chip really faster than psp in games? My open issues that I have seen no answer in that regard are

I don't know about the "power split" between the components, however Carmack recently commented that the Iphone is more powerful than the PSP and DS combined. Given the comparison, I'd suggest he meant in games.

 

[Positively Kanyon]

Wrong audience. I use Pikachu to scare my kid son. PSP people, young or old, tend to use the media functions more and then some games.

I can vouch for that... I basically use my PSP as a movie player when I'm on the bus to work. Only downside to that is anything I want to watch needs to be converted before hand, no DivX support out of the box.

 

[manux]

I don't know about the "power split" between the components, however Carmack recently commented that the Iphone is more powerful than the PSP and DS combined. Given the comparison, I'd suggest he meant in games.

But carmack really hasn't programmed PSP games so... I would much rather take a more detailed comment from dev that has had games done on both platforms. Real life performance might be quite different compared to paper specs. Especially when other hardware is banged pretty directly and other one has full OS running...

 

[Lazy8s]

iPhone graphics have better definition, color, and 3D depth and support more advanced features like DOT3 per-pixel lighting. At the clock speed to which its MBX Lite + VGP Lite is currently adjusted, performance is probably somewhat more than half of the PSP's, but the robustness of the OS, the abstractness of the API, and the 20 MB or so limit of RAM for OpenGL ES cuts into that potential some.

Bandwidth does seem to be a limiting factor on graphics in mobile systems, yet the iPhone performs better in GLBenchmark than the Axim X50v with its dedicated graphics bus and memory.

 

[manux]

iPhone graphics have better definition, color, and 3D depth and support more advanced features like DOT3 per-pixel lighting. At the clock speed to which its MBX Lite + VGP Lite is currently adjusted, performance is probably somewhat more than half of the PSP's, but the robustness of the OS, the abstractness of the API, and the 20 MB or so limit of RAM for OpenGL ES cuts into that potential some.

Bandwidth does seem to be a limiting factor on graphics in mobile systems, yet the iPhone performs better in GLBenchmark than the Axim X50v with its dedicated graphics bus and memory.

The feature and quality point of view I can agree easily. I would assume one also can use antialiasing with less performance penalty on mbx hardware than psp gpu. But the question also is that are features like dot3 too performance hungry to be used in anything but techdemos or slow paced game that can survive low fps? for action games even in mobile platform I would expect something along 20-30fps on minimum to be playable without frustration.

 

[Arwin]

I think performace will be similar between the iPhone and PSP. By far the most important aspect though of course for the iPhone isn't graphical prowess .... I think it has enough of that, even if it had less performance than the PSP. The big advantage lies in the device itself (popular), the ease of development, and the ease of distribution.

 

[PARANOiA]

I think performace will be similar between the iPhone and PSP. By far the most important aspect though of course for the iPhone isn't graphical prowess .... I think it has enough of that, even if it had less performance than the PSP. The big advantage lies in the device itself (popular), the ease of development, and the ease of distribution.

But the problem lies in its interface. There are no buttons, which basically makes it limited to games similar to DS stylus-only games.

 

[Arwin]

I don't see that as a problem whatsoever. Just means games will be different, which is a good thing.

 

[eastmen]

But the problem lies in its interface. There are no buttons, which basically makes it limited to games similar to DS stylus-only games.

But is that a bad thing for on the go gaming ? I have GOW on my psp but I would have much rather had a part 3 on the ps2. Sitting down in my room and playing a console game on a portable isn't the greatest thing. However there are still some console games that would work on it. You can do a jrpg using only touch , you can put that penny arcade game on it and alot of other things. GTA4 no , but enough stuff that makes it worth while.

The iphone also has multi touch I believe , you can touch two places on the phone at the same time and have it reconized. You can also program buttons on the touch screen. So you can have an a and b on there plus then a directional pad and create a platformer. Future generations can have even more multi touch support.

 

[patsu]

Yay for touch-screen based games. It's not a bad thing to have alternate input.

The lack of tactile feedback and the lack of precision (because most people use their fingers to navigate instead of a stylus) may be more problematic. Games like LocoRoco should be ok (since iPhone/iPod Touch can detect orientation).

 

[obonicus]

Yay for touch-screen based games. It's not a bad thing to have alternate input.

Yeah, but here the DS has the marked advantage in approach, it can do both.

The lack of tactile feedback and the lack of precision (because most people use their fingers to navigate instead of a stylus) may be more problematic. Games like LocoRoco should be ok (since iPhone/iPod Touch can detect orientation).

I don't know if you can be a contender for 'serious' games without more explicit controls, though. Even Nintendo hasn't abandoned the D-pad and buttons on any of its products.