The importance of UMD to PSP and its future *spinoff

[NeoTechni]

Thread spun off from PSP2's GPU prediction thread.

50 million isn't bad but what has the DS done in the same time? What will the iPhone/iTouch do in that time?

Quality is more important than sales. Which is why I prefer PSP over DS, XBOX over PS2/GCN, PS3 over 360/Wii, N64 over PS1.

PSP's emphasis on specs is what resulted in much better games than we'd ever get on handhelds thanks to Nintendo

Well, PSP isn't quite close to PS2 really is it?

Yes is it. In some ways better, some ways worse.

They'll need to sell the PSP2 at a price that people will pay and I'm not sure people are going to pay big bucks for better graphics in a handheld

Well they need to get people to realize better hardware doesnt result in only better graphics. It effects every aspect of gameplay as well. You'd be a fool to think the only difference in a game running on the DS and a similar game running on PSP is just graphics.

As a programmer, I want to punch anyone in the face who says it's just graphics.

New PSP SKUs just about every year and then PSP2 a year after they put out the PSP Go?

Who does Sony think they are, Sega?

Sega released multiple systems that required dedicated development, in rapid succession

Go is another model of the same system. Plus, PSone came out after PS2 did. PStwo came out a year before PS3.





Lets assume Sony is smart and wants to remain competitive with DSi and retain backwards compatibility, at the very least so they can sell PSN content to more people.

That means PSP2 will be using more advanced versions of the current hardware (see GB to GBC to GBA to DS to DSi, GCN to Wii) Portables are limited in power, space and cost. That excludes the possibility of any fancy second GPU, and only using 1 at a time. This isnt PS3, it simply doesnt have room to do something like that. GBA used GBC's processor as a sound chip. DS used GBAs as a second processor, DSi kept both wii-style. Even PS2 used PS1's processor as it's BIOS. Not having PSPs library to rely on would be suicide against DSi's thousands of games the day it came out

And sales of the Go tell anyone with any business sense in Sony not to let them repeat the mistake of ditching UMD again. Though I could have (and did) told them Go would have sold so poorly. They shouldn't have made that mistake the first time. 75% of the world doesnt even have broadband. Sony isn't going to stop selling to markets they currently sell to just to switch to downloads cause a few people dont understand why UMD is so perfect for distributing games.

 

[darkblu]

Lets assume Sony is smart and wants to remain competitive with DSi and retain backwards compatibility, at the very least so they can sell PSN content to more people.

That means PSP2 will be using more advanced versions of the current hardware (see GB to GBC to GBA to DS to DSi, GCN to Wii) Portables are limited in power, space and cost. That excludes the possibility of any fancy second GPU, and only using 1 at a time. This isnt PS3, it simply doesnt have room to do something like that. GBA used GBC's processor as a sound chip. DS used GBAs as a second processor, DSi kept both wii-style. Even PS2 used PS1's processor as it's IO chip [ed: BIOS is something different]. Not having PSPs library to rely on would be suicide against DSi's thousands of games the day it came out.

while your line of reasoning above is generally correct, you forget the GPU in the PSP actually has a HAL this time around. that means it can be a subject to efficient emulation (as opposed to emulating the metal).

And sales of the Go tell anyone with any business sense in Sony not to let them repeat the mistake of ditching UMD again. Though I could have (and did) told them Go would have sold so poorly. They shouldn't have made that mistake the first time. 75% of the world doesnt even have broadband. Sony isn't going to stop selling to markets they currently sell to just to switch to downloads cause a few people dont understand why UMD is so perfect for distributing games.

ditching UMD was fine. not offering an alternative physical medium could be a problem. back in the days of the PSP launch there were talks of a read-only MS format. it never took off, to my knowledge, but ROM cartridges of some form are a very good fit for a handheld.

 

[NeoTechni]

but ROM cartridges of some form are a very good fit for a handheld.

No they aren't. The whole point of UMD was to move away from ROM. ROM costs too much

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering the cost of including an optical drive, the need to fabricate disks (build a suitable plant), and the proprietary format meaning no competitive or mass-production cost advances, coupled with the benefits to battery-life and form-factor of ROM carts (flash storage), I don't see a clear advantage to disks. When PSP launched, 1+ GB cards would have been too expensive and not ideally suited to Sony's vision of a film format. They are cheap now. Nintendo has made a killing off carts for years, so they certainly aren't prohibitively expensive. Film distribution is better served with downloads and managed copy. I expect a future PSP to be cart and flash based, allowing for read-only games bought in store, or downloaded from PSN. I don't think BC is that important and Sony will be happy to make a clean break with their hardware, benefiting from the price/performance advantage of more experienced mobile chipset IHVs. The alternative just doesn't work for me, with Sony designing a custom GPU knowingly inferior to the alternatives, and sticking to a power-hungry and less convenient optical format for distribution.

 

[darkblu]

No they aren't. The whole point of UMD was to move away from ROM. ROM costs too much

the original UMD advantage was for movies and we saw how that went. as Shifty mentioned, movies are served way better by on-board/removable read/write storage these days (hint: how many PMPs use UMDs or anything similar?).

UMD was a hindrance factor for the PSP (as it would've been for any other handheld) - sucked off battery, and made the unit both more expensive and less durable. dropping it was smart from the POV of a new handheld, and maybe not so much from the POV of a hw refresh. not allowing any other form of physical (read-only) game media in the Go is still open to debate. the only clear disadvantage that decision has is with the aftermarket - there's not aftermarket for DD content. but it's questionalble how much sony care about that.

 

[Blazkowicz]

Sony made an ever bigger mistake in the 90s, by insisting Minidisc stays proprietary an no one is allowed to make them.

They totally missed an opportunity. Back then I only had a 120MB hard drive on my DX2/66 and hated how I had to delete games to make room for new ones. I longed for a 3.25" minidisc drive. They did release a "MD data" format, broken by design (incompatible with audio minidisc) and almost never used - I learned about it by searching on the internet.

Plus minidiscs are conveniently small and look cool . it would be like those 8cm magneto-optic discs that intelligence agencies and terrorist use in movies and series just because it looks nice.

now with the UMD, it's another failure dictated by piracy paranoia it seems. You have to wonder why they didn't just used DVD in a plastic cartdrige. And why the absurdity of a PSP without a video output - being able to view movies on a television would have made them more popular.

 

[NeoTechni]

Considering the cost of including an optical drive, the need to fabricate disks (build a suitable plant), and the proprietary format meaning no competitive or mass-production cost advances

False. There are HUGE mass production cost advantages in using optical over solid state.

That's the reason we use optical

As for minidisc, um, there are a bunch of non-Sony companies that make them

the original UMD advantage was for movies and we saw how that went

Sony said UMD came first for games, and with PSPs screen so big/bright they felt it would be a shame not to use it for video

The advantage for UMD was bigger games. There were launch titles larger than the biggest memory stick available back then

UMD was the best thing to happen to handhelds

 

[darkblu]

Sony said UMD came first for games, and with PSPs screen so big/bright they felt it would be a shame not to use it for video.

so the device was not designed as a pmp from the get go, it just happened to have a screen good for that, an ultra proprietary optical media actively pitched to movie publishers, and a dedicated media engine chip, apropos, of little use to games outside of in-game videos and mp3/atrac playback. i see. what else did sony say?

The advantage for UMD was bigger games. There were launch titles larger than the biggest memory stick available back then

which of the tiles from the march 2005 NA launch were bigger than a GB? later that same year (holiday season) sony released the $300 giga pack - the 1GB memory stick bundle. from memory, all the uncompressed, untrimmed iso's of all titles i had acquired during the launch period easily fitted on a 2GB stick. IIRC, the only thing filling up an UMD at launch were movies.

UMD was the best thing to happen to handhelds

i sincerely doubt it.

 

[NeoTechni]

so the device was not designed as a pmp from the get go, it just happened to have a screen good for that, an ultra proprietary optical media actively pitched to movie publishers, and a dedicated media engine chip, apropos, of little use to games outside of in-game videos and mp3/atrac playback.

They said nothing about the media engine, just that UMD and the screen were in place before hand. UMD is far more beneficial to games than it was movies. Otherwise they wouldnt have let you play movies off the memory stick

And the second processor isnt just used for videos/music, theres no point having it do one thing when the main processor could have handled it in the xmb and saved money

Just cause you think the stuff was made for videos doesnt make it so.

which of the tiles from the march 2005 NA launch were bigger than a GB?

The biggest mem stick at launch was 512 MB, not 1 GB. And ridge racer was bigger than that iirc.

Oh, and there is no HAL on the GPU.

UMD was the best thing to happen to handhelds

i sincerely doubt it.

We went from $20 cards that held 64 MB (and that's just using DS, GBA cost even more for less) to $2 discs that held 1.8 GB. Yes, it was the best thing to happen to handhelds.

 

[Ailuros]

It's not really up to them though, if they want BC (and they do) they must use the existing GPU. If they use the existing GPU, it makes no sense to use another one and becomes difficult/wasteful/expensive to do so.

If rumors are true they're working on a SoC it's a completely different design philosophy from the get go compared to the PS2/PSP design philosophy. As with all changes they're upsides and downsides; what really matters is whether advantages over weigh disadvantages.

 

[NeoTechni]

Id count no bc as a huuuuge disadvantage and so would devs

As for rips of games taking less space, yes lumines can fit in 32mb if you remove the music (example) but thats not how the devs wanted you to experience the gamr

 

[Shifty Geezer]

False. There are HUGE mass production cost advantages in using optical over solid state.

And I never said otherwise. Little plastic disks are cheaper and will remain so (see my opinion on this in the Flash/SSD replacing optical thread of the console forum). However, the cost reductions in flash due to competition mean better gains, such that the price differential between releasing a portable game on ROM or on optical isn't going to break the bank. Again, Nintendo have completely owned the handheld space with narry an optical drive in sight. I don't understand your reservations to ROM/flash in light of that. You talk as though games on carts are financially unfeasible!

Plus as I said, which you didn't seem to pick up on, although the games may be cheaper to press, you're adding cost to the handheld unit to add the drive. The form-factor needs be larger; the mechanics more complex leading to more chance for faults; the reading assemblage costing way more than an SD port. You then take a serious blow to your battery life. So yeah, UMD has the cost advantage, but I don't think that's the key driver for a portable format. Everything else considered, carts/downloads would be better, only that wasn't viable for PSP who's hardware is powerful enough to warrant >GB of data. Now it is.

 

[function]

Id count no bc as a huuuuge disadvantage and so would devs

I doubt developers are bothered about B/C. Publishers might be if they could more easily re-sell existing games through DD, but emulation can do the job for you, and if Sony do the bulk of the work on that then there's no issue for publishers.

As for rips of games taking less space, yes lumines can fit in 32mb if you remove the music (example) but thats not how the devs wanted you to experience the gamr

I doubt there will ever be a system made that will allow games to be made as the developers would truly like you to experience them. Any compromise that doesn't disadvantage your sales is okay.

 

[MfA]

For PSP2 an add-on UMD drive seems to make more sense than a standard one ... of course that would be admitting they screwed the pooch with the Go, shrug.

For new games it's not a very realistic medium to avoid the 2$ of flash ... this isn't like trying to replace a BR disc on a real console.

 

[darkblu]

They said nothing about the media engine, just that UMD and the screen were in place before hand. UMD is far more beneficial to games than it was movies. Otherwise they wouldnt have let you play movies off the memory stick.

you lost me here. are you arguing that the from-MS playback of movies somehow negates the major advantages of UMD as a movie media? also, if UMD was far more beneficial for games then how come the only type of content to ever come close to maxing out a UMD was AV content? and finally, you can't possibly believe sony built their handheld around a display and an optical disk.

And the second processor isnt just used for videos/music, theres no point having it do one thing when the main processor could have handled it in the xmb and saved money

right. yet the main processor does not normally handle AV content playback. go figure.

Just cause you think the stuff was made for videos doesnt make it so.

i'm all ears to hear what you think the media engine does in the psp.

The biggest mem stick at launch was 512 MB, not 1 GB. And ridge racer was bigger than that iirc.

the biggest MS PRO at launch was 2GB. the biggest MS PRO DUO at launch was 1GB

also, here's ridge racer breakdown by content for you:

184MB game assets
373MB bgm
157MB movies

clearly namco took full advantage of the new game medium /sarcasm

in comparison, the complete iso size of another launch-window racer, wipeout pure, is merely 253MB. that explains why wipeout was the clearly inferior racing game of the two /chaser

btw, one could ask why sony did not deem necessary to put a full-length MS slot (or two) in the psp, given the difference between the two is solely in the length of the housing slot; the physical, electrical and logic interfaces being identical.

Oh, and there is no HAL on the GPU.

right. just sony's libGu - a universally-used, ultra-thin sw wrapper on top of GL-fixed-pipeline-style display lists. if that's not prone to emulation i don't know what is.

We went from $20 cards that held 64 MB (and that's just using DS, GBA cost even more for less) to $2 discs that held 1.8 GB. Yes, it was the best thing to happen to handhelds.

the price of the medium in vacuum is surely one way to see UMD technology through rose-tinted glasses.

ps: sony should've gone with DAT tapes in the psp. now that would've made handheld games flourish.

 

[NeoTechni]

you lost me here. are you arguing that the from-MS playback of movies somehow negates the major advantages of UMD as a movie media?

No, I'm saying if UMD was invented for movies instead of games, they wouldn't have pissed away their investment by allowing playback of movies from memory stick.

You've given me no real facts to support your theory UMD was made for movies, everything Sony has ever said (and the design of PSP itself) indicates otherwise.

also, if UMD was far more beneficial for games then how come the only type of content to ever come close to maxing out a UMD was AV content?

That's a lie and you know it.
For starters, there are a few multi-UMD games.

and finally, you can't possibly believe sony built their handheld around a display and an optical disk.

and finally, you can't possibly believe sony built their handheld around movie playback and added game playing. Especially when it doesn't have media-optimized controls

yet the main processor does not normally handle AV content playback

But that's supporting my claim, not yours.
Sony isn't going to have one processor handle most tasks, and another handle the rest only when the first one is doing nothing. That's a waste. The second processor does a lot in games.

i'm all ears to hear what you think the media engine does in the psp.

It's a second processor, games use it to handle anything they would on the first one. It's not just for music.

the biggest MS PRO at launch was 2GB. the biggest MS PRO DUO at launch was 1GB

How much did it cost? My 512 MB cost me $70 or $80. You saying every PSP gamer needed to get multiple of those if they wanted more than 1 or 2 games?

also, here's ridge racer breakdown by content for you:

184MB game assets
373MB bgm
157MB movies

clearly namco took full advantage of the new game medium

Yes, they did.
Imagine if PSP used carts. There would be no movies, the music reduced to midi, and most of the game assets reduced in quality. I for one was blown away when I bought my PSP at launch and it had CD quality sound. We wouldn't have gotten that on carts.

You don't get to decide if what they did was worth it or not. Look at my Lumines example. So what they used the space for was irrelevant (barring garbage data to pad the data to the edge of the disc), the fact that they used it is what matters.

The space resulted in games we couldn't have gotten on carts/cards.

in comparison, the complete iso size of another launch-window racer, wipeout pure, is merely 253MB. that explains why wipeout was the clearly inferior racing game of the two /chaser

Irrelevant

one could ask why sony did not deem necessary to put a full-length MS slot (or two) in the psp, given the difference between the two is solely in the length of the housing slot; the physical, electrical and logic interfaces being identical.

Yes you could, but I don't see how it's relevant

right. just sony's libGu - a universally-used, ultra-thin sw wrapper

wrapper =/= HAL

ps: sony should've gone with DAT tapes in the psp. now that would've made handheld games flourish.

Reductio ad absurdum doesn't prove your point

 

[NeoTechni]

Again, Nintendo have completely owned the handheld space with narry an optical drive in sight.

Nintendo has also done it without quality games too. Or are you suggesting instead of PSP2 being more powerful than PSP, they make a cheap/weak system roughly as powerful as the N64 since thats what Nintendo has made profitable. I shudder to think of what Sony/MS will do next gen now that Wii has shown them how to be profitable. Just because Nintendo is profiting doesnt mean they are doing a good job

PSP requires the extra space to take advantage of the hardware. You cant fit CD quality sound on a 32 MB cart with the game as well for example.

I don't understand your reservations to ROM/flash in light of that.

It'd be a step backwards. Putting the filesize limitation back over dev's heads.

Plus as I said, which you didn't seem to pick up on, although the games may be cheaper to press, you're adding cost to the handheld unit to add the drive.

Cause it's negligible

PSP slims aren't that big, and get better battery life than the Go. The size and battery life costs are obviously not that big

 

[NeoTechni]

I doubt developers are bothered about B/C.

I'm sure devs are. They want their games to keep selling as much as publishers do. They don't make the game for themselves.

That and BC would mean like the Wii, PSP2 would be as easy to develop for as it's predecessor meaning no developer learning curve/period of adjustment

 

[MfA]

On the other hand, I'm sure they wouldn't be too disappointed if they could use content/shaders/rendering methods from the present generation of consoles nearly unchanged either ... we are close to the point where that is possible with a mobile device.

 

[darkblu]

No, I'm saying if UMD was invented for movies instead of games, they wouldn't have pissed away their investment by allowing playback of movies from memory stick.

how are they pissing away their investment? so if my blu-ray player can read memory sticks does that mean its maker is pissing away their fees for blu-ray licenses (not cheap, btw)? i suggest you call JVC right away and warn them of their kidney issues.

You've given me no real facts to support your theory UMD was made for movies, everything Sony has ever said (and the design of PSP itself) indicates otherwise.

feel free to quote me saying UMD was made for movies alone. also, the psp was not made with movies in mind now? i guess it's sheer luck then that it's such a good pmp.

That's a lie and you know it.
For starters, there are a few multi-UMD games.

multi-UMD games full of what? cutscenes? oh, those surely prove your point.

and finally, you can't possibly believe sony built their handheld around movie playback and added game playing. Especially when it doesn't have media-optimized controls

sony built their handheld as a pmp and a game-playing device. the characteristics of the UMD (capacity, preferred access patterns, forbidden access patterns) put it more on the pmp side (hint: there's a reason why people ripped their UMD games and put the ISOs on MS even when MS could not hold many of those, and it's not because UMD is this oh-so-great medium for games).

apropos, what are those 'media optimized controls' that the psp is missing?

But that's supporting my claim, not yours.
Sony isn't going to have one processor handle most tasks, and another handle the rest only when the first one is doing nothing. That's a waste. The second processor does a lot in games.

lapse of logic much? why would the first processor do nothing? i said ME was used for media playback alone - what the first CPU does at that moment was not covered by my statement.

It's a second processor, games use it to handle anything they would on the first one. It's not just for music.

tell you what, instead of repeating you line ad infinitum, why don't you direct me to the place in the psp sdk that indicates games 'can use ME to handle anything they would on the CPU'.

How much did it cost? My 512 MB cost me $70 or $80. You saying every PSP gamer needed to get multiple of those if they wanted more than 1 or 2 games?

no. you were spreading misinformation about MS capacity in the respective timespan, i just corrected that.

Yes, they did.
Imagine if PSP used carts. There would be no movies, the music reduced to midi, and most of the game assets reduced in quality. I for one was blown away when I bought my PSP at launch and it had CD quality sound. We wouldn't have gotten that on carts.

indeed, how convenient for you to dismiss the wipeout comparison as 'irrelevant'.

You don't get to decide if what they did was worth it or not. Look at my Lumines example. So what they used the space for was irrelevant (barring garbage data to pad the data to the edge of the disc) [ed: why not? i though they had full discretion to use the medium however they please?], the fact that they used it is what matters.

The space resulted in games we couldn't have gotten on carts/cards.

it also resulted in abysmal battery gameplay times, borderline insane load times (yes, there are games i've not been able to play due to load times exhausting my patience). and yes, i do get to decide whether the amount of data they put on those disks, and how the use those, is worth it - i'm among those who buy their product, after all.

wrapper =/= HAL

for somebody who uses terms liberally (BIOS?) you seem to be quite the semantical nitpick. please, feel free to explain how a commonly-used sw layer on top of the metal does not make emulation easier (which metal, on its turn, mimics established programming interface standards).

Reductio ad absurdum doesn't prove your point

right. blunt proclamations of the sort 'UMD is the best thing to happen to handheld games' do.