The importance of UMD to PSP and its future *spinoff

[NeoTechni]

I'm not quoting anymore cause posts are getting too long

-Your point about using flash on DS is horribly flawed, as was pointed out many times. DS uses massively smaller filesizes. DS's situation wouldnt work for PSP unless you want PSP games to be limited to 128 MB too. Hence the comparisons to Gameboy Color. You're comparing to completely dissimilar situations. What works for DS doesnt work for PSP.

-You tell me not to use false stats, then lie about optical hitting a wall. Which is different from your previous claim that they never go down. Make up your mind. Optical drives do get faster, they release faster and faster ones every year. PS3 has a 2x BRD, there are 8x drives now

-No such market? Yes there is. DD Is not for everyone

-Neither of those stats are fake, I've backed them up with sources before. The 75% of gamers preferring discs was backed up with 3 links! And considering I caught you making up stats, I'd have thought you'd try not to bring attention to yourself like that, hypocrite.

-My link says 6.5 MILLION NOT BILLION! 6.5 Billion is the entire population of the planet! That's 2 unit mistakes you've made now.

-No, you're not following. Cost is important, that's what the company looks at. Thats why optical was used in the first place. Flash costs more than UMD and always will. 3G costs even more than flash.

-Bluray wasnt forced on anyone

-Bad licensing agreements = contract law = the law
And to answer your question about some games not being on PSN with using in-house music, I already answered that. I said it also includes licenses like movies/sports leagues/etc. Plus Go is selling so poorly some devs see no reason to do so.

-I didn't ignore your kiosk numbers. I didn't dispute anything about it.
Like it or not, PSP2 games will be large. Even a 1 TB drive wouldn't be enough for a full generation. And Sony isn't stupid to take the chance of being short sighted like that. Expandable storage is a must.

-I didnt say theyd use full bluray discs. BLUMD would cost pretty much the same. And is still many times cheaper than the prices of the stuff you've been giving

-And you're again trying to ignore the site Sony set up for the sole purpose of getting our opinions. They aren't going to ignore the opinions they made a website to get.

-Downloading physical objects? Show me how we will download things like the Halo 3 helmet, the God of War III box, Modern Warfare Night Vision Goggles. Home replicators? You can't have a downloadable collectors edition. People dont even count DLC that comes with collectors editions as collectible!

-Gamestops (at least in canada) still use dialup, and my gamestop still has launch titles available new. I've said it before.
-The average user would have no problems with limits that are 75GB or greater, but the average user does not have a quota that large.

-"Yes there is a higher risk involved " And you just admitted Sony won't do it. You claim PSP games aren't selling well, yet you think Sony will want to cut the profits by more than half by switching to flash, or even 3g? You're not thinking like a business. Optical = more profit, more space for developers = better games. Ask yourself why Sony switched to optical in the first place even though solid state had all the advantages you claimed back then. Cost. And that advantage hasn't gone away, and as others have told you, never will.

-"Btw releasing the games on UMD2 would require sony get rights to the music again." Only if they're re-releasing PSP1 games on UMD2. Which they wouldn't, since PSP1 games would fit on UMD1. Part of the point of using UMD is so they can use PSP1 games. Your point was nonsense.

 

[thop]

Just wanted to mention that this DS game uses a 4Gbit card.

http://www.level5.co.jp/products/ninokuni/index.html

 

[darkblu]

Just wanted to mention that this DS game uses a 4Gbit card.

http://www.level5.co.jp/products/ninokuni/index.html

According to NeoTechni the developers of that game based their distribution plans on a non-existing cartridge. Not to mention one prohibitively expensive to boot. If it existed, that is. So clearly that does not count. You phail at internetz. Also, if any of the full-fledged PSP titles that could fit on it just fine actually attempted that, they'd lose their Genuine seal of CD-quality NeoTechni approval (tm). You double phail at internetz.

 

[NeoTechni]

According to NeoTechni the developers of that game based their distribution plans on a non-existing cartridge.

No. I said when you gave the example of a 512 MB DS card, the single game in question announced to use it, is not out yet. And thus your example doesnt exist. There's no guarantee it'd even still be 512 MB on release. They may opt for a smaller size.

You said there were 512 MB DS games, and at current there is exactly zero. You can't claim there are 512 MB DS games when there aren't any!

Not to mention one prohibitively expensive to boot. If it existed, that is. So clearly that does not count.

Actually I said it doesn't count for the exact same reasons you said multi UMD games don't count. I even repeated those reasons because YOU used them

Of the 2 games announced to use 512 MB cards
#1 is a JRPG, which YOU said doesnt count cause JRPGs waste space on FMV
#2 is a graphic/interactive novel, which YOU said doesn't count

If you're not going to agree with YOUR own logic and insult those using your own logic, then that says alot about it.

Also, if any of the full-fledged PSP titles that could fit on it just fine actually attempted that, they'd lose their Genuine seal of CD-quality NeoTechni approval (tm). You double phail at internetz.

Now you're just being childish. And you wonder why I trust my programmer friends over you. He also had a few choice insults for you, you didn't see me repeating them or insulting you. You could have acted like an adult and treated me which as much respect as I've given you.

For starters, it's been 4 years now (and its not out yet) and DS is just catching up to the capacity of SOME launch titles where others were larger? That doesn't help your argument, that says flash will always be more than 4 years behind and would hold PSP2 back. Everyone who keeps using DS as proof needs to realize it doesn't prove your point. It proves mine. Solid state just wouldn't work for PSP or PSP2.

And secondly, I never said being stored on cart would make it not CD quality. You made up a lie (or misunderstood completely) and chose to insult me on it! Wow.

 

[eastmen]

I'm not quoting anymore cause posts are getting too long

Your right. I'm going to use numbers from now on.

1) Your assuming that psp developers need 1.8 gigs to create fun games. THat is not true at all. Just like its not true that devs will need 8 gigs or more for next gen psp becuase xbox 360 which will deal with resolutions the psp2 doesn't have to has extremely impressive graphical titles that fit under 6.8 gigs. A psp2 game can come in at much smaller sizes which are well in the realm of flash tech today.


Looking at my stick Patapon 2 is 364megs , Little big planet is 1.2gigs , cod road to victory is 374megs , god of war is 1.28 gigs , hot brain is 389megs , locoroco 2 is 650megs , Manhunt 2 is 1gig , Star wars battle front 2 is 192megs....

192megs. Thats a far cry from 1.8 gigs.

There are some games like untold legends that are under 100MBs



-You tell me not to use false stats, then lie about optical hitting a wall. Which is different from your previous claim that they never go down. Make up your mind. Optical drives do get faster, they release faster and faster ones every year. PS3 has a 2x BRD, there are 8x drives now

2) Optical costs do not scale past a certian point , neither do nand tech. Sony doesn't get the plasitc , fabs and other things to create the discs for free. That means there is bottom to how far costs can drop. Its the same with nand however with nand they can allways fit more in the same space as processes drop. This is not true of optical formats. So while UMD has stayed at 900MB per layer with a total of two layers and its price will not go down past the cost of goods and plant costs. Nand on the other side wont go lower than a certian point , however the size will continue to increase.

3) Optical is not for everyone but since right now there is no choice on most consoles no one gets to choose. If DD is the only option for psp2 then people will buy it and adapt to its format.

4) You fail to provide a large enough pool of psp owners and are only getting stats from hardcore gamers willing to go to the website or forum and vote in that poll. The polls do not list any option for a brand new handheld that uses only DD from the start and thus its a flawed poll.

5)Companys also look at software sales and installed base. DS is doing just fine for publishers dispite using carts. Obviously cost is not the only factor. I've also shown that new ds games launch at $15 bucks. So its obvious that its not expensive enough for developers not to be able to offer low cost games.

6) Bluray was forced on every ps3 owner. NO one had a choice to buy a ps3 without bluray. Bluray was forced on game developers , even multiplatform titles that use only 6.8 gigs on a dvd are forced by sony to be on bluray.

7) These are companys faults. not DD's fault and certianly not a law that these games can't come to psp go. They can take out the songs in dispute and replace them with in house music or can relisence the songs. The same goes for sports which is less of a problem because ew sports games come out each year. Few people will in 2010 go out and buy madden 2006 to play.

8) What size do you believe PSP2 games will be ? You said yourself that UMD2 will be based on bluray. Others did the math and showed it be 9 gigs of maximum storage. Even at 9 gigs. A single 1TB drive can hold over 100 psp 2 games at that size. 3 TB drive can hold 300 psp 2 games. Thats if all of them are 9 gigs. The majority of them will not be 9 gigs. To creat that much content you will need a buget the size of an xbox 360 game. Two 3TB drives lets you hold 600 psp 2 game titles. Storage is cheap and will continue to drop in price.

9) Except BLUMD has all the cons of UMD and with a blue laser will use more power than UMD . It will have a higher read speed but if using the 5x the current UMD's speed you will still be at 9MB/s which is less than flash ram. Sony has Memory sticks that will read at 60MB/s. Then you have to factor in the cost of these drives that are only produced for psp2 , costs of larger batterys , cost of replacement drives , cost of having a larger handheld to fit the drive.

10) It still doesn't represent a large enough portion of psp owners. Its also a biased poll because it talks about a situation where people are already invested in discs that wont work on the dd system . A poll about a brand new system DD only from the start is a poll you would need to link me to , to provide any non bias results.

11) Physical objects are becoming less and less of thing. More and more CE verisons are coming with unlockable extras.Metro 2033 , and Battle field bad company 2. All gave in game unlocks in the CE or LImited verisons. The main draw of Modern war fare 2 hardened edition was the free COD 1 download

If people want the physical things they can still be offered with the game cards at retail locations by the kiosks. Its not very hard to figure out.

12) It be easy for oyu to take pictures of the launch psp titles new in the store. Make sure you gt the sticker saying its new as Gamestop is phasing out Yellow stickers for used games. In the states all gamestops are moving to broad band or on broad band and Canada will be required also to do that due to the new POS and gamestop tv being piped to the stores.

13) I linked to Bell CA's site and plan. I linked to anothers site and plan all offering 75GB. if they don't have a high quota like that (show me a link) then they can go to a kiosk.

14) PSP games aren't selling well because of piracy . Not DD . They aren't selling well bcause not only do you get the game free ,but it also loads faster and uses less power when loading from your memory stick !!!!! Its all pros for the pirates and no cons. I use my moded psp and riped my umds and now wont ever go back to umd. Loads are faster and my psp lasts much longer in games. Sony wont cut thier profits in half , they will actually bring in more revenue by going to flash because it willmake a usable handheld system. DD will reduce costs of content to sony by not having to keep an inventory of UMDs flowing and Developers will make more money becuase there are less things getting a cut of the revenue.


15) If they want to make money they will re release on UMD2 other wise they wont see a dime from used content. On psp2 DD only system they can just continue to offer them through psn.Point easily stands.



The whole point of DD on a handheld is to not only help sony and the devs which it will do , but also to help us by letting us get the most of our systems battery life and form factor. We wont have to worry about god awful load times , or disc scratching or broken disc trays (or lids whatever u want to call it on the psp) or loosing the umds.

The point of flash is to decrease the form factor by removing the bulk of the umd and its drive nad by decreasing load times while increasing battery life.

They are both pluses for us the consumer.

 

[thop]

Has this been mentioned yet? Very small disks using BR like technology with 2GB capacity, but they are not used in an actual product yet, and it's unlikely they still will be at this point.

http://www.vmedia.net

 

[NeoTechni]

1) You're assume developers wont ever need 1.8 GB. There are 1.8 GB PSP games NOW! You keep comparing things that dont prove your point. Just cause one game can be made in 100 MB doesnt mean they all can. Some games WILL need more. Crisis Core, the most amazing portable game I ever played, filled a UMD. Just cause you can find small games doesnt mean the big games go away/dont count. None of your examples make the big games PSP has count any less. Any devs will need more space with PSP2.

Lets say they go with 128 MB of flash for games like you think will work. That means they cant make the 1.8 GB games, they cant make Crisis Core, God of War, Gurumin, Ace Combat X, etc. There are games that need the space, and just cause you can name a game that doesn't, doesn't mean no game needs it. Just cause GBC had games smaller than a megabyte doesnt mean that works for PSP.

2) Optical costs have been dropping since they came out. It's been years and they haven't hit a wall yet.

3) I didn't say optical is for everyone. I said it was for more people than downloads are.

4) No I didn't fail to do so. You thing Sony will ignore the results of the website they set up? You keep trying to ignore this, it's stupid to ignore it. Sony set that site up with one purpose, to see what is most wanted. They arent going to ignore the data they paid money/time to get. For the last time, Sony isnt ignoring that data no matter how much whining you do.

5) Again, DS is NOT comparable. It uses massively smaller filesizes. I've been over this MANY TIMES. What works for DS doesnt work for PSP. It definitely wont work for PSP2.

6) Bluray was forced on no one. No one had to buy it, no one had to buy a PS3

7) No, those were DD's fault not the company. Nothing Sony could do would fix that

8) PSP2 games will need more space than the current size. And given we have some PSP games that take 2 UMDs, PSP2 will need more than 3.6 GB. I'm not saying every game will, as not every game used that on PSP. But there are a lot of 1.8 GB PSP games, and we'll definitely need more than that. 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. Which we've gone over before.

The better GPU alone GUARANTEES PSP2 games will be larger. The GPU will use higher quality assets (textures, models) which will take more space
PSP2 will have more RAM, developers aren't going to just use 32 MB if they are given 128 or 256 MB of RAM. Levels will be larger, games will have more unique characters. Devs will take advantage of the space they are given. And that = bigger filesizes.

Each generation of systems gets/uses more space. Even the 360, where most OG XBOX games didn't come on dual layered discs, almost every 360 game does and some come on multiple discs. Developers arent going to put up with less space like you're suggesting.

9) Except BLUMD has the pros of UMD. COST! And it's distributable in markets that DD CANT be.

10) No, it's not a biased poll. You dont get to ignore the results cause they didn't go your way
You're just going to say any poll is biased. You're flat out lying. They knew the advantages you're claiming they don't.

11) And yet, we still use them. We can't get rid of them. There are large markets of people who cant switch to downloads. It's there for a reason.

12) You're claiming 16,000 people arent a large enough sampling size, but you'll accept 1 single store.

13) Not everyone has that 75 GB plan. Not everyone is on Bell. Bell is not available in all areas

14) PSP games are selling well. I never claimed they werent, nor did I say it was due to piracy.
I said given your claims they arent selling well, what reason does Sony have to decrease profits/increase risk by using mediums (flash/3g) that are MANY times more expensive than optical? DD will reduce costs, but it reduces the amount of people who can buy games, exponentially.

15) Thats a lie. They don't have to rerelease, there are new games. Rereleasing wont accomplish anything since they can just use regular UMDs

The point of UMD is it costs a LOT less than flash. It still does, it always will.
As someone else pointed out to you, stamped pieces of plastic (optical) will always cost less than circuit boards with gold fingers.

The point of physical mediums is most people prefer them, most people do not have broadband, most people do not have infinite bandwidth, most people do not have infinite patience to wait for downloads, most people do not have infinite storage for downloads, most consumers don't want to deal with anything that complex and cant even stop their VCR from flashing 12:00

Sony themselves have said they dont see us getting our games via downloading, cause it takes less time to buy a car, drive to the store and buy the game, then come home. Sony themselves have openly said they are against DD-only. Ask yourself why so many devs arent putting their games on PSN.

 

[NeoTechni]

Has this been mentioned yet? Very small disks using BR like technology with 2GB capacity, but they are not used in an actual product yet, and it's unlikely they still will be at this point.

http://www.vmedia.net

Well that defeats everyones argument that no other portable device uses mini discs or that its too expensive.
Well, that and there are a few others as well.

 

[function]

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.

If they were going to make hardware to emulate a specific hardware platform, they wouldn't emulate in the first place.

And the PowerPC processor 360's CPU is based on is built to emulate x86 in some ways. Sony will more than likely going with another off-the-shelf processor. If you can show me one (and cheap, low power) built to emulate PSP's processor, then all of this is comparable.

As best I can take make out, you have taken the following positions:

1) MS' Software BC doesn't work
2) No-on would make new hardware with a view to emulating old hardware
3) MS' 360 software BC only works because they made new hardware with a view to emulating old hardware

It's like a game of musical chairs or something, where the impossible is not only possible, but proof of how impossible the possible is.

I don't know what MS designed into the 360's CPU to allow them to emulate a Pentium 3. I can't show you a cheap, low power CPU built to emulate the PSP's CPU. I'm pretty sure that no-one other than Sony would even be interested in making one. And as the only situation where one could be used is one that Sony would be keeping under wraps I'm not sure what me not being able to show it is supposed to prove. Especially as I don't even know whether it would be necessary to enable software BC. It may well not be.

It would be far better to use off the shelf hardware that suited the task, or to consider things like "Turboing" a CPU core Nehalem style, or simply using raw power (like the Xbox 360 does to get around OoOE) if there was enough power.

PSP2 games will need more space than the current size. And given we have some PSP games that take 2 UMDs, PSP2 will need more than 3.6 GB. I'm not saying every game will, as not every game used that on PSP. But there are a lot of 1.8 GB PSP games, and we'll definitely need more than that. 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. Which we've gone over before.

The relationship between power/storage isn't as clear as you're trying to make out.

GC got by with less space than PSP. There were some multi-disk GC games. Most of them weren't.

Xbox 360 has less disk space than a Wii. There are some multi-disk 360 games. Most of them aren't.

The PSP UMDs store 1.8GB. There are some multi-disk UMD games. Most of them aren't.

The better GPU alone GUARANTEES PSP2 games will be larger.

Making more storage space available at no or insignificant extra cost guarantees games will be larger. There are 2 disk PSP games available after all.

Devs will take advantage of the space they are given.

Of course they will.

Developers arent going to put up with less space like you're suggesting.

Devs put up with whatever they have to.

 

[NeoTechni]

As best I can take make out, you have taken the following positions:

Problem. The first quote is you not reading.

You claimed I agreed to something, that quote is me saying I never said I agreed with it. That quote cant be used!

3) MS' 360 software BC only works because they made new hardware with a view to emulating old hardware

I dont see how you got that. PowerPC was around before 360

And I couldn't understand your second point, wtf is no-on?

I don't know what MS designed into the 360's CPU to allow them to emulate a Pentium 3.

The powerpc architecture 360s CPU is based on was designed to emulate x86, years ago.

I can't show you a cheap, low power CPU built to emulate the PSP's CPU

Then you can't claim it's doable.

The relationship between power/storage isn't as clear as you're trying to make out.

Yes it is.
The simple logic is, there are a lot of games now on PSP that fill a UMD.
Devs will need more space next gen.

GC got by with less space than PSP.

GC also had the same amount of VRAM as PSP. PSP2 will have more.

Xbox 360 has less disk space than a Wii.

False.
There is only one dual layered Wii game that I'm aware of (Smash Bros)
Almost every 360 game is dual layered. There are lots more multi disced 360 games than dual layered Wii games. And 360 having transfinite resources uses a lot more compression.

Making more storage space available at no or insignificant extra cost guarantees games will be larger. There are 2 disk PSP games available after all.

Hence why I'm suggesting BLUMD

Devs put up with whatever they have to.

You mean like how Valve refuses to develop for PS3?
Devs will not put up with whatever they have to.




To everyone irrationally suggesting going DD only

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/news/2010/02/the-victims-of-pc-gaming-drm-one-soldiers-story.ars

 

[eastmen]

Neo can you post in this thread. Thank you
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=56938


1) I do nothing of the sort. I just assume that devs don't allways require the maximum and can make great fun games that use less. I showed examples of titles that use less than 200Megs to make great games. Yes some will use more. If they need to or not is another matter.

I don't dispute that devs on psp2 can require more room. What Idispute is that every dev will. There will be as liding scale. Some may need a few hundred megs if that and some may need a few gigs. I'd be interested to see how size expanded as the years went on. How many games used all avlible space the first year , the second and so on.

Flash will grow. You can get 2-4 gigs of flash at very cheap prices right now. Not as cheap as umd perhaps but you still gain advantages. God of war was not 1.8 gigs. Its 1.3. Crisis core is 1.04gigs. As flash grows and prices come down devs can expand. Kinda like how devs were limited to 222mhz and later on they were allowed to use 333mhz .

2) Dvd's prices have stayed stagnet in the past 3-4 years. Bluray will soon hit a wall where discs wont become cheaper. Don't confuse retail price with the cost of creating discs.

Even optical drives have hit walls. Cd roms never droped below $20 bucks and dvd drives have been stuck at $20 for the last 3 years. There is a price that they can't go below because then they loose money.

3) DD is for everyone just like optical. In a portable system where portability and battery life are important , its even more popular.

4) YOu think sony will ignore the change of tech and the profits to be made. Sony is not going to ignore market changes no matter how much its hardcore fan base complains. They saw what it cost them by stubernly forcing a new optical standard in the ps3 and they wont repeat that again

5) The ds is everything psp wants to be. Sucessful. Its small , light weight , high battery life and great selling software that is plain fun. Sony would be stupid not to learn from its mistakes and create a more balanced seystem.

6) Bluray was forced on people the same way umd was forced on people , we weren't given a choice. If youw anted to play playstation exclusive titles you had to buy a ps3 and were forced to have a bluray player. No one had a choice there was not ps3 dvd edittion. Not only that but sony mandated that Developers release games no matter how small on the more expensive bluray format. I don't know why you continue to argue this.

7) None of its DD's fault. Sony could hae easily fixed all those problems.

8) Can you show me games that actually fill up a UMD 1.8 gig? And how much more room will psp 2 need. Do you think psp 2 games will have larger budgets than xbox 360 games in which to fill greater than 6.8 gigs of data ? The xbox 360 was more powerfull than thoe systtems but the over whelming majority of titles were on 1 disc and weighed in at 6.8 gigs or less.

9) This wasn't the case with the 360. The 360 has 512 megs of ram. It rquried only 6.8 gigs on all but a few fmv fests. In fact the newer gpu should bring with it new forms of texture compression which will lower the space needed.

10) DD can be released in all markets. The only advantage umd has is cost but it doesn't stop the ds from being the dominate handheld plaform.

10)of course its bias , the poll itself is bias and asks a question that the majority of people voting on it have no experiance with it.

11) all markets can switch

12) All gamestop keeps the same stock. They dont buy thier own stock so they all recevie the same. Gamestops limit the space avalible to psp bcause its a poor seller.

13) So show me other CA companys that don't offer that 75GB plan.

14) By switching to flash and DD they will make the system more attractive to users because it will increase battery life while decreasing form factor both of which increase portability. Which were the major complaint of the psp. Or do you think sony doesn't want to sell 130m handhelds andclimbing in the same time it took them to sell 50-70m

15) I already showed you the major companys in the USA don't carry older UMD games. How will consumers buy the older games ? Used copies ? How does sony make money on used copies ?

Sony themselves have said they dont see us getting our games via downloading, cause it takes less time to buy a car, drive to the store and buy the game, then come home. Sony themselves have openly said they are against DD-only. Ask yourself why so many devs arent putting their games on PSN.

Sony says stupid shit all the time. Last I check I wasn't in the matrix , last i check the emotion engine didn't make emotions or real time cgi games. Last I checked people did not pick up second jobs to afford launch ps3s.

Sony is completel missing markets . The psp failed against its main rival the DS , the ps3 brought sony from a clear 1st place selling mroe units than the other companys combined to being in third place. While MS makes money on thier internet service sony has to give it aay free.

Sony is missing market trends because they have lost touch with the market while nintendo is very good at following the trends and making the trends and ms is very capable of setting thier own trends also.

Sony is playing catch up and have no clue how to fix it. Making another portable that is not portable will only doom them to another failure.

 

[NeoTechni]

Neo can you post in this thread. Thank you
The post was irrelevant, moving...e Slims and Go are smaller than the DS light.

 

[eastmen]

Your simply helping my arguement. Since I'm not rallying for flash at the launch of psp. But at at the lunch of psp2.

There are many great psp games that have amazing graphics (for the psp) that don't even fill up a single layer of UMD. So its obvious that psp2 will not require all games to use 8 gigs or even6.4 gigs that xbox 360 needs.

CSO works just fine on my psp. Lets not forget that just because compression doesn't work well with psp doesn't mean better compresion wont work with psp2 .

The majority of 360 games fit on 1 6.8 gig dvd. Are you telling me that psp2 games will need more room than the xbox 360? That budgets on psp2 games will be greater than xbox 360 titles so that they can afford to put that investment in a portable game ?

2) DVD prices have NOT stayed stagnant in the past 3-4 years. Bluray alone caused them to drop by half! DVD drives have not stayed at $20 for years. I bought mine at $150 3 years ago, another at $60 last year. I didnt even know they reached $20!

You got ripped off. DVD burners have been $20 bucks for a long time.

Also you are talking retail costs . I'm talking actual costs which you fail to understand. Everything has a BOM it can't cross that includes optical formats and discs.


Walmart the biggest retailer in the united states has this to say on psp launch titles

PSP launch titles
1. Ape Escape: On the Loose 362 MB Availible (not in store)
2. ATV Offroad Fury: Blazin' Trails 417 MB Not avalible
3. Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower 658 MB Not avaible
4. Dynasty Warriors 245MB Not avalible
5. FIFA 2005 147 MB Not avalible
6. Gretzky NHL 146 MB Not avalible
7. Lumines 161 MB Not avalible
8. Metal Gear Acid 247 MB Not avalible
9. MLB (cant find, name too generic)
10. MVP Baseball 216 MB Not avalible
11. NBA (cant find, name too generic) Not avalible
12. NBA Street Showdown 1.1 GB Not avalible
13. Need for Speed Rivals 207 MB Not avalible
14. NFL Street 2 Unleashed 113 MB Not avalible
15. Rengoku: Tower of Purgatory 299 MB Not avalible
16. Ridge Racer 586 MB Not avalible
17. Smartbomb 86 MB Not avalible
18. Spider-Man 2 906 MB Not avalible
19. Tiger Woods PGA TOUR (cant find, name too generic)Not avalible
20. Tony Hawk's Underground 2 Remix 883 MB Not avalible
21. Twisted Metal: Head On 1.63 GBAvailble online only
22. Untold Legends: Brotherhood of the Blade 147 MB Online only
23. Wipeout Pure 198 MB Not avalible
24. World Tour Soccer 222 MBNot avalible

So out of the 24 launch titles none are avalible on store shelves and only 3 are avalible online which are most likely the popular ones from launch.

Stores have limited shelf space , DD has infinte space.

 

[function]

Problem. The first quote is you not reading.

You claimed I agreed to something, that quote is me saying I never said I agreed with it. That quote cant be used!

You said 360 BC didn't work. Repeatedly.

I dont see how you got that. PowerPC was around before 360

You said: "If they were to make hardware to emulate specific hardware, they'd use the specific hardware instead of emulating it.";

The 360 has a custom CPU, you wouldn't include stuff you don't want. And I don't actually know that Xenon has hardware support for switching endian-ness, I'm looking and can't find anything conclusive.

And I couldn't understand your second point, wtf is no-on?

My second point was that you said: "If they were to make hardware to emulate specific hardware, they'd use the specific hardware instead of emulating it".

The powerpc architecture 360s CPU is based on was designed to emulate x86, years ago.

The 360 has a custom CPU. MS chose what went in there. If it's there, it's there by design. And again, I don't actually know that Xenon has hardware support for little-endian code.

Could you provide anything on the endian support included in the 360's CPU? All I can find is stuff like this: Xenon is a big-endian system. Both the CPU and GPU process memory in big-endian mode. Games ported from little-endian systems such as the Xbox or PC need to account for this in their game asset pipeline.

Could a developer here comment on this?

Then you can't claim it's doable.

Can't claim what, specifically, is doable? Building a chip with support for emulating another chip?

And since when has something not being done been proof it not being possible?

Yes it is.
The simple logic is, there are a lot of games now on PSP that fill a UMD.
Devs will need more space next gen.

If the relationship between power and storage was as simple as you're claiming, you wouldn't have the 360 with less storage than the Wii, or PS3 with 7 times more storage than the 360.

GC also had the same amount of VRAM as PSP. PSP2 will have more.

Compare the Vram of the 360 and PS2. Now compare the disk sizes.

Xbox 360 has less disk space than a Wii.

False.
There is only one dual layered Wii game that I'm aware of (Smash Bros)
Almost every 360 game is dual layered. There are lots more multi disced 360 games than dual layered Wii games. And 360 having transfinite resources uses a lot more compression.

You just claimed that 7GB < 8.4 GB is false.

I don't know where we go from here.

You mean like how Valve refuses to develop for PS3?

... therefore developers don't have to develop for the platforms they are told to?

Valve don't have to develop for PS3. If they had to they would. Lets see how long a developer at EA would last if he was told to make a game for the DS and he said "no, the carts are too small."

Devs will not put up with whatever they have to.

Because if they have to use a cart instead of a UMD they'll walk out of their jobs. Do you understand what having to do something means?

 

[NeoTechni]

Your simply helping my arguement. Since I'm not rallying for flash at the launch of psp. But at at the lunch of psp2.

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?

There are many great psp games that have amazing graphics (for the psp) that don't even fill up a single layer of UMD

Yes, and as I've pointed out 6 or 7 times, that doesnt make the games that DO use all the space go away.

The majority of 360 games fit on 1 6.8 gig dvd. Are you telling me that psp2 games will need more room than the xbox 360? That budgets on psp2 games will be greater than xbox 360 titles so that they can afford to put that investment in a portable game ?

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?

Also you are talking retail costs . I'm talking actual costs which you fail to understand. Everything has a BOM it can't cross that includes optical formats and discs.

And as you fail to understand, that BOM hasn't been hit, and never will be. CD will be abandoned entirely before it even hits its BOM

Walmart the biggest retailer in the united states has this to say on psp launch titles

So since walmart doesnt have them online, that means they arent available anywhere? You cant complain 16,000 users isnt a big enough sample, then use 1 sample point

Stores have limited shelf space , DD has infinte space.

Neither have infinite space. Bandwidth is not infinite, nor is storage space.

Just cause you can use some CSOs ok, doesn't make the officially released PSN games than have issues go away or other games that had issues go away. CSO has to work in everygame for it to replace UMD, not some. I know it didnt work with Crazy Taxi or Crisis Core

 

[NeoTechni]

You said 360 BC didn't work. Repeatedly.

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: "If they were to make hardware to emulate specific hardware, they'd use the specific hardware instead of emulating it.";

The 360 has a custom CPU

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.

If the relationship between power and storage was as simple as you're claiming, you wouldn't have the 360 with less storage than the Wii,

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
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

You just claimed that 7GB < 8.4 GB is false.

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

 

[NeoTechni]

Alright, you seem to like trolling. Lets put it in troll form.

Do you really think Sony, a company you feel likes to force formats on people, will abandon a format instead of upgrading it to Bluray another format they want to force on people according to you, switch to downloads, before Nintendo switches to downloads, when Nintendo is in a much better position to do so since DS games are much smaller and more convenient to download?

Sony makes more off UMD than they lose on bandwidth costs

 

[MfA]

PSP2 has to be portable. Massive compression is not an option

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).

 

[eastmen]

Alright, you seem to like trolling. Lets put it in troll form.

Do you really think Sony, a company you feel likes to force formats on people, will abandon a format instead of upgrading it to Bluray another format they want to force on people according to you, switch to downloads, before Nintendo switches to downloads, when Nintendo is in a much better position to do so since DS games are much smaller and more convenient to download?

DD allows sony to do exactly what they want. Make more money.

Bluray was created and forced down our throats for the simple goal of sony having more patents and a bigger roll than with DVD and would make more money.

UMD was so that sony would make more money and they can force thier new movie studios releaes down our throat on the format.


Now with DD sony wont have to make new factorys and design new formats becuase they can simply take a larger cut through DD since they knock out the middle men.


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.

 

[eastmen]

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).

Yup the psp already uses texture compression.