The importance of UMD to PSP and its future *spinoff

[eastmen]

I think this graph shows that the majority of mobile gamers perfer flash or DD instead of UMDs

Yeah, based on the report from Flurry Analytics, Apple's casual gaming approach is carving out a nice slice of the US revenue pie related to gaming software. The PSP was hit especially hard dropping from a 20% share in 2008 to just 11% of US revenue last year

http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/23/apple-increases-gaming-share-at-the-expense-of-ds-and-psp/

 

[NeoTechni]

I think this graph shows that the majority of mobile gamers perfer flash or DD instead of UMDs

Oh but that graph is biased /sarcasm

No, that graph doesnt show that.

By YOUR own logic, it doesnt. Most of those people havent bought a UMD. Thus they dont know enough about it to decide.
Those people also dont have a choice in what medium the game comes on for the most part.
Its an apple oranges comparison.

Sales do not show preference. I own a DS. That doesnt mean I prefer it. I own 11 DS games, that doesnt mean I prefer flash.
Nor is the chart comparing games of equal filesize. Your chart is completely irrelevant.

I was never arguing people prefer UMD over flash.
I was arguing Sony does.

Sony makes money off each UMD made, they lose money on each file downloaded.
Bandwidth isnt free

Sony has a history of trying to force standards on consumers. Memory stick , UMD , Bluray , Mini Disc and Beta max off the topof my head. Some work out well , some are failures.

All of those were successes, and none were forced. They only stopped making beta tapes a few years ago. And you think Sony is going to let go of UMD?
You're ignoring 3" floppies, CDs, DVDs

 

[NeoTechni]

Neither power consumption nor necessary processing power for on load decompression are significant (just consider the tiny bits of area and power a H.264 decoder needs, even in software still image decoding is just not a hard task even for high performance algorithms).

That's not the same as the heavy compression 360 uses on files.

Unless you're suggesting PSP2 will have some dedicated unRAR/unZIP chip, and use flash as cache/virtual memory (which would kill the flash quite quickly)

Microsoft also disagrees with you, as they've said the compression level they use is due to how much processing power 360 has.

 

[eastmen]

Oh but that graph is biased /sarcasm

No, that graph doesnt show that.

I was never arguing people prefer UMD over flash.
I was arguing Sony does.

Sony makes money off each UMD made, they lose money on each file downloaded

Sony would make money on each flash cart sold (see memory stick ) Sony would make money on each file downloaded legaly (unlike now) Sony would also make money on each memory stick sold tohold more games.

Total win on sonys part. As you can see the devices that support the main purpose of a portable system... I.e the portability are the most sucessfull . Iphone has the smallest form factor and needs no external things to enjoy the games . DS is next in line in terms of form factor esp once the lite was introduced and while it does need carts the carts are much smaller than a umd. Sony being the biggest and bulkiest along with the lower battery life makes it the least used.

 

[NeoTechni]

Sony would make money on each flash cart sold

Publishers would lose an assload, thus theyd cut content or just not make games
Total lose on Sonys part

. Sony being the biggest and bulkiest along with the lower battery life makes it the least used

DS is the biggest. Ive proven it with actual volume measurements
iphone has the lowest battery life.
Least used is made up, like all your stats

Could you stop lying to make PSP look bad. It helps if you use reality not your troll fantasies.

 

[eastmen]

DS is not the biggest. It has the most volume but its shorter and fits better in a pocket and the original ds is no longer sold. Only the ds lite and i are sold and both are much smaller than the psp.

The iphone gets comparable battery life to the psp and is much smaller and more compact to carry around (it also is a phone)

For the average adult the psp is just not a portable system and is not easy to bring around with them. By comparison my ds lite fits in my front and back pockets , my cell phone (bigger than the iphone) fits in my front ocket with tons of room to spare.

The cart above shows that psp fans spend the least amount of time with the device as they consume the least amount of software.

 

[NeoTechni]

If flash was an option, why do you think PSP never used it? Why do you think 360 doesnt use it? Why do you think iphone doesnt use it?

Find me a system with games as large as PSP that uses flash to distribute them

As people with common sense told you, printed circuits with gold connector fingers will always be more expensive than stamped pieces of plastic

 

[NeoTechni]

DS is not the biggest. It has the most volume

Largest = most volume

You keep talking about shape. Size is volume, not shape.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volume
The volume of any solid, liquid, gas, plasma, or vacuum is how much three-dimensional space it occupies, often quantified numerically

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Size
Dimensions: length, width, height, diameter, perimeter, area, volume

Are you going to argue with the dictionary definition now?

Only the ds lite and i are sold and both are much smaller than the psp.

DSi is larger, DSi LL is especially larger.
Go is smaller than every DS.

The iphone gets comparable battery life to the psp

No it doesnt
Well, maybe if you dont play games on the iphone.

For the average adult the psp is just not a portable system

And yet I see average adults using PSPs all the time. Even with cases to make them even larger. STOP TROLLING

The cart above shows that psp fans spend the least amount of time with the device as they consume the least amount of software.

No it doesnt. That chart doesnt show how much time is spent with games. You're assuming an awful lot there. The only thing that chart shows is sales. It doesnt show time spent, it doesnt show what medium the users prefer

I spent 80 hours on Jeanne d'Arc (PSP) and about 1 on Happy Slide (DS). You cant tell me the time spent per game is a constant

 

[eastmen]

which one fits in your pocket easier ?




Looking at photos i really like the size of the go. I hope this is the size sony makes thier next portable. I can easily keep it in my pocket. The only problem when you bring up the go is it has the smallest library of games by far ! Another sony blunder !

http://pspgohacks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/PSP-Go-screen-vs-PSP-2000-screen-test-001.jpg



Oh and I will give you a hint on my question . You already have to carry a phone ..... Hope that helps you

 

[NeoTechni]

which one fits in your pocket easier ?

I never made claims on that.

I said PSP was smaller. And proved it with volume calculations. volume = size
Large and small, are descriptions of size.

You're claiming DS has a better SHAPE for YOUR pocket, not size, SHAPE.
And your pocket is not the same as everyone elses

If you cant get simple definitions like size right, do you really expect anyone to take you seriously?

Oh, you know what your chart proves? That people play PSP games longer on average than DS games. If they werent spending so little time on games, why would they be buying so many games? But its safe to ignore that comment cause like yours, it's just stupid trolling. How about you stop doing that. Lying about PSP isnt magically going to make it as bad as you (irrational) think it is or convince 57 million people they arent having fun with it. Face it, people like their PSPs. I know that fact saddens you cause everyone must have the same taste in games as you in your mind, but its true. People dont like the same things you do. Most of the planet doesnt have the same pants as you, or same broadband plan, or same wireless plan, and most people dont prefer downloads

 

[MfA]

That's not the same as the heavy compression 360 uses on files.

First of all H.264 when used as a pure image coder is pretty much state of the art period.

Secondly you can do much simpler image codecs which get almost arbitrarily close which you can decode much faster. You wildly over estimate the degree to which computation can create extra compression, it's just not true ... especially not for decoding.

 

[thop]

This is a very strange thread.

 

[eastmen]

This is a very strange thread.

Its a really fun thread. PSP is the pinical of portable systems dispite is horrible size and shape and bad battery life and large discs it needs. UMD is the pinical of portable formats , dispite that it drains the batterys quicker , its easily breakable and its huge !

Also everything bad about PSP go is because of its DD that kills children in their sleep

 

[Rolf N]

PSP not portable? Now we're really going places.

At least the PSP can be used as a handheld system. I wouldn't say that about the DSlite. Don't know if DSi fixed the ergonomics, especially the weight distribution ... but how would it? It still has a top flap with another screen, so that has to have some weight, right?

Which btw statistically proves, beyond doubt, that flash media makes your top flap heavier.

 

[function]

No, I didn't. I said in the one single time I tried it, it crashed, and said I KNOW thats not normal given Halo 2's usage numbers on Live. You are trying to put words in my mouth, stop it.

You said:

Anyway, it appears we agree that the 360's software BC has worked well enough to support a large number originals

I didn't say I agreed to that.

Okay, you don't agree it works well enough to support a large number of original Xbox games (even though it does, and this is provable, and you won't refute this), but at the same time you aren't saying that Xbox BC doesn't work.

Well I guess that clears that up.

Based on PowerPC architecture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenon_(processor)
is based on IBM's PowerPC instruction set architecture

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerpc#Endian_modes
Most PowerPC chips switch endianness via a bit in the MSR
This was done so that PowerPC devices serving as co-processors on PCI boards could share data structures with host computers based on x86

http://www.mug.jhmi.edu/mirrors/InfoAlley/0396/03/an.html
The PowerPC is bi-endian in nature, which allows it to execute both big-endian 680x0 binaries and little-endian x86 binaries under emulation, without running afoul of byte-ordering conflicts.

I was asking about the Xbox 360's CPU. None of those quotes relate to the 360 [Edit - Meaning, none of those quotes relates to the 360's support of little-endian /Edit]

Not all PowerPC chips can "switch endianness". Cell, as far as I can tell, doesn't. Xenon's cores are based on Cell's PPE.

You're pretty keen in asserting that Xenon is bi-endian (with this being why the 360 is BC) but do you have any info about Xenon? The only information I can find says that Xenon is big endian.

360 doesnt have less storage than Wii.
All but 1 Wii game comes on a single layered disc.
There are a lot more than 1, multi disced 360 game

Okay, I'm going to try and pin you down on this....

Given PSP2 will be more powerful than XBOX/Wii/PS2 it makes sense it'll use at least as much as they did which was 9 GB

So here you say PSP2 needs more than 9GB because some other consoles that were less powerful had 9GB disks (conveniently ignoring the GC, and taking no account of how much space those games actually needed).

All but 1 Wii game comes on a single layered disc.
There are a lot more than 1, multi disced 360 game

And here you say not that we should take account of disk capacities, but that what matters is how much space the games actually need.

Contradictory to say the least.

360, having many times the processing power and a hard drive with virtual memory capabilities, uses a lot more compression.
360 is also plugged into a wall and doesnt have to worry about power. PSP2 has to be portable. Massive compression is not an option

Almost all 360 games work without a HDD. MfA made some excellent points about the rest.

No, I didn't. Stop putting words in my mouth.

Stop putting words in your own mouth.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Um, none of that helps your point. Flash isnt even good enough for what PSP1 launched with, how will it be good enough for next gen which WILL need more space?

Because the rate of flash advancement is faster than the rate of handheld technological progress. Where PSP2 may be 8x the performance of PSP after 5 years, flash will have shrunk cheapened something like a thousandfold, from expensive 32MB MemorySticks to expensive 32GB SDHC etc.

PSP2 will be more powerful than XBOX/PS2/Wii which used dual layered DVDs. You think no PSP2 game will ever use that much space?

If it's not available, no. Developers create to the abilities of their platform. If the platform has 1GB of RAM, they'll create assets to use 1GB. If instead it has 4 GBs RAM, they'll create assets to 4 GBs. But the console engineers don't choose to put in 4 GBs just because developers will use it if the cost of prohibitively expensive. Instead you pick the hardware that'll serve you design goals and price point factoring in future scalability. UMD isn't 1.8GBs because that's exactly the amount of space developers were determined to need. It was the capacity available via the technology. If Sony had chosen carts, PSP games would be much smaller. However, then it wouldn't have functioned as a portable film device.

Sales do not show preference. I own a DS. That doesnt mean I prefer it. I own 11 DS games, that doesnt mean I prefer flash.

And yet low sales of PSP Go show a preference against DD?

Nor is the chart comparing games of equal filesize.

But it does show that buyers don't much care about filesize, and as such, there's no point chasing after the largest capacity format if you can make more money with smaller games.

Sony makes money off each UMD made, they lose money on each file downloaded.

So every time I buy a PSN title, Sony are losing money? I guess you recommend anyone with Apple shares sells them ASAP, because they rate they are selling download content at a loss, they'll be bankrupted in a month!

Sony has a history of trying to force standards on consumers. Memory stick , UMD , Bluray , Mini Disc and Beta max off the topof my head. Some work out well , some are failures.

They did have a history. However they have changed tack, dropping proprietary flash formats, codecs, etc. and embracing the industry standards. BluRay isn't a Sony baby, but part of a huge consortium of allied CE and computing companies. Sony have actually gone with the standard. It's only because of the console space and PS3's impact on the HD format war that Sony have the limelight on this, but it's wrong to say they forced the format seeing as they had the backing and input of the majority of the industries involved.

This is a very strange thread.

Strange and ugly. And cyclical. Actually it's better closed. Anyone wanting to continue this debate can take it to PM.