Either way, UMD is far from the only option.
Given the incredibly poor sales of discs I could say that roughly 66% of PSP owners probably never used the optical drive. Either due to piracy or simply using it as a portable media player. The worldwide attach rate for software on the PSP is 2.58 after almost 6 years on the market. Thats an average of 0.5 games sold per PSP per year.
As Shifty Geezer already said "why does losing the UMD require going DD only?"
The whole point of UMD was to not use carts of any form
Running a game from a memory stick isn't a million miles from using a cart or card (variable access times apart). You could get value for money from a PSP without ever bringing a UMD within a mile of it.
Nintendo do all of the above without putting mechanical drives on their incredibly popular and profitable handhelds. Also, the iPhone has been incredibly popular while doing none of the above.
I doubt Nintendo built your UMPC with an N64 emulator in mind, or even that they tried particularly hard to get their N64 emulator running fast.
What is it that the PSP graphics chip does that couldn't map to a DX 9 shader?
Could you ask your PSP dev friend? I be interested to know.
I'm getting a bit confused now. Why does the PSP2 need to cost $900?
So they should have put a UMD drive on there, to increase screen size and battery life for free?? Just because Sony went in a certain direction with the Go doesn't mean that UMD drives don't cost money, take up space and draw power.
Actually, the sdk goes a bit firther than that
NonsenseNo they can't. The whole point of UMD was to not use carts of any form.
You really think Sony execs sat around the board room saying, "C'mon guys! No matter what, we have to find some media other than those damned little carts"?
We'll never walk away from UMD, says Sony's John Koller
"Duplication of UMDs is much easier, cheaper than cartridges," Koller adds. "We've really optimized time and cost by going with a disc-based format."
Sony Computer Entertainment has always positioned UMD as ideal for game development
Even if – or more likely, when – Sony Computer Entertainment unleashes downloadable movies and other content onto PSP, it won't mean the end of UMD. "We'll never walk away from our base," says Koller. "Whether it's movies or game content, third parties have an incredible opportunity to utilize it."
Sony had a need for a distribution method for their portable media and games device. They weighed up the pros and cons of different formats. They wanted 2GBs or thereabouts for their intended movie format,
I already answered that
"The whole point of UMD was to not use carts of any form"
What? It's common sense!!!! When PSP launched UMD cost ~$2 for 1.8 GB, DS cards cost $20 for 64 MB. That means DS cards cost 288 times more per megabyte. And Nintendo heavily advertised them as being far cheaper than GBA carts.
YES! Why do you think UMD was invented? UMD was used for the same exact reason optical is used on consoles, vastly more space for vastly less cost. There were many interviews from when PSP came out saying that was the reason. It boggles my mind how you can even think otherwise.
There's no-one arguing optical disks don't have the cost advantage! However, handehlds have always had carts of some form save PSP, and they haven't suffered as a result. Despite PSP's media costing a fraction of the price of DS's, it is Nintendo raking in the cash hand over fist. Considering the entire package of what makes for a good handheld, the added cost per media should not be the sole deciding factor. If I had a choice between PSP2 with optical disks, shorter battery life, chunkier form factor, more awkward game portability, and cheaper games, versus the same thing onliy with carts, significantly longer battery life, slinkier form, and more convenient game media with games costing a couple of bucks more to account for using carts, I'd choose the latter. And there'll be some people who won't be interested at all if the games can't be stored on an internall HDD/flash along with movies and music.Optical formats are cheap to manufacture in bulk. It's a wholly mechanical process where you stamp the bits into a reflective foil, toss that into a polycarbonate sandwich, add a little bit of glue and voila, done. Flash manufacturing is an entirely different beast still.
If the caddy breaks rather easily then what remains for the optical medium inside if there was no caddy in the first place? Have you seen how kids handle UMDs? A naked optical disk would last (read: be readable) in their hands a week, a month max. There's a darn good reason why sony's portable optical media, ie. MD and UMD, have had caddies (as poor as the UMD's one is).I can see Sony doing another proprietary optical format, but it needs to ditch the caddy. With the size of every other part going down, the implications on device thickness caused by the caddy have become a hurdle, and the practical advantage of the caddy seems questionable to begin with. It breaks rather easily.
They cannot get rid of the central disk hub in part due to the caddy - the spindle mechanism is single-side-access, and the loading path is slide-in-at-an-angle (i'm not aware if top-loading caddy drives exist). If we agree that removing the caddy is not an option, then removing the central metal hub is neither. The present UMD is as cheap a portable optical medium design as it gets. The only way to make it cheaper is through new cheaper materials and fabrication tech.I'd also suggest to get rid of the metal part (center ring) on the discs. Those pennies are better spent on a harder surface coating.
Optical formats are cheap to manufacture in bulk. It's a wholly mechanical process where you stamp the bits into a reflective foil, toss that into a polycarbonate sandwich, add a little bit of glue and voila, done. Flash manufacturing is an entirely different beast still.
I can see Sony doing another proprietary optical format, but it needs to ditch the caddy. With the size of every other part going down, the implications on device thickness caused by the caddy have become a hurdle, and the practical advantage of the caddy seems questionable to begin with. It breaks rather easily.
I'd also suggest to get rid of the metal part (center ring) on the discs. Those pennies are better spent on a harder surface coating.
And 4 GBs will probably do PSP2. Single chip solutions will be very cheap. Carts aren't prohibtively expensive. Never have been, which is why Gameboy and everything since has done very well with them.8Gb (8X1Gb) Flash goes for $3.95.
So how will games be distributed then? On memory stick or download only? Cause the whole point of UMD was so games WOULDNT come on flash/solid state mediums of any kind cause UMD is vastly cheaper. And I've been arguing we're not ready for DD only.
Both of which have games many times smaller than PSP.
iphone being popular does not equal quality.
And that proves what though? Its easier/cheaper to make faster general purpose hardware (ie: X86-compliant) than others.
They make netbooks far more powerful than arm processors for example. They still cant emulate a PSP.
If they were going to make hardware to emulate a specific hardware platform, they wouldn't emulate in the first place.
Please, XBOX used DX9 and MS couldnt even get it to map perfectly.
You saying PSP, which you have to access the GPU on a really low level, would do better?
Could you provide real evidence? Cause that's what I've been asking for. Nothing any of you have provided has been any better. Hell the one guy flat out lied and you're telling me I should just roll over and accept you are the ultimate resource on all things PSP? I had someone who I consider the ultimate resource come to me and tell me PSPs GPU does not have HAL. That's enough for me. You guys have yet to provide any evidence to counter that. Me saying some unknown dev (to you) said something is as much evidence as you guys have given.
I didnt say it would. I said $900 portable hardware cant even emulate PSP, what are you expecting of PSP2?
Tell me what specs you're expecting. Given power is a huge limitation, that pretty much means software emulation is out.
Hell we dont even have PSP emulation on PC yet
There's no-one arguing optical disks don't have the cost advantage! However, handehlds have always had carts of some form save PSP, and they haven't suffered as a result.
with games costing a couple of bucks more to account for using carts
Carts aren't prohibtively expensive. Never have been,
Both the iPhone and every Nintendo handheld, ever, have been vastly more profitable than the PSP.
So why don't consoles use X86 processors?
They make netbooks far more powerful than arm processors for example. They still cant emulate a PSP.
How do you know?
Xbox 360 BC works well enough to sell old games through the marketplace.
I don't know whether the PSP GPU uses a HAL in the official SDK. I was hoping you could fill me in on what the PSP GPU does
I don't think comparing a homebrew emu on generic hardware is necessarily demonstrative of what Sony could achieve working ground up on a new platform with every conceivable bit of knowledge about the old and new systems, several years, tens of millions of dollars to spend and some of the best engineers around!
but I simply can't see Sony lumbering a new handheld with a mechanical media loading drive and a seriously outdated GPU
Sony will be thinking more along the lines of Gameboy and Appstore than minidisk and UMD.
I don't believe the disadvantages of optical (latency, noise, power, size) necessarily have to be pronounced in practice. We do agree that the UMD design is not ideal in these respects.There's no-one arguing optical disks don't have the cost advantage! However, handehlds have always had carts of some form save PSP, and they haven't suffered as a result. Despite PSP's media costing a fraction of the price of DS's, it is Nintendo raking in the cash hand over fist. Considering the entire package of what makes for a good handheld, the added cost per media should not be the sole deciding factor. If I had a choice between PSP2 with optical disks, shorter battery life, chunkier form factor, more awkward game portability, and cheaper games, versus the same thing onliy with carts, significantly longer battery life, slinkier form, and more convenient game media with games costing a couple of bucks more to account for using carts, I'd choose the latter. And there'll be some people who won't be interested at all if the games can't be stored on an internall HDD/flash along with movies and music.
I've never actually seen media as beat up as some of the UMD games I bought used off Amazon marketplace last summer. The naked UMD should by all rights be as robust as CDs and DVDs, which is to say "not very", but the UMD caddy might as well not be there. There is a typical breaking point between an opaque white rim part and the transparent top cover, and if that's kaput the whole drive mechanism won't fit together anymore. I've seen games that came with sticky tape from two sides preapplied to keep the caddy in a functioning shape. If you have a lot of wear and tear in your house, at some point, you just have to say "I can never sell this to anyone" and toss it in the trash.If the caddy breaks rather easily then what remains for the optical medium inside if there was no caddy in the first place? Have you seen how kids handle UMDs? A naked optical disk would last (read: be readable) in their hands a week, a month max. There's a darn good reason why sony's portable optical media, ie. MD and UMD, have had caddies (as poor as the UMD's one is).
This is a good point. There are probably ways to make the mechanism work. PStwo and Gamecube are two different approaches to a top-loading drive. PStwo is more of a "jam it on the spindle and pray for friction to be strong today"-design while Gamecube seemed to have some sort of spring-loaded clasping mechanism if I recall correctly.They cannot get rid of the central disk hub in part due to the caddy - the spindle mechanism is single-side-access, and the loading path is slide-in-at-an-angle (i'm not aware if top-loading caddy drives exist). If we agree that removing the caddy is not an option, then removing the central metal hub is neither. The present UMD is as cheap a portable optical medium design as it gets. The only way to make it cheaper is through new cheaper materials and fabrication tech.
The stupid ... it's hurting me ...Sony can't ditch UMD for many reasons. They aren't going to abandon the significant amount of people who cant switch to downloading just cause some of you have some irrational hatred of discs.
Eh? Is that a joke? They've always been prohobitively expensive. Do you not remember why FF7 was made on PS1?
Both of which have games many times smaller than PSP.
iphone being popular does not equal quality.
You asked that question in reply to a statement that already answered it.
X86 is general purpose. They can make more gaming-oriented processors that do the job better
Cause they've tried.
Or do you have info I don't? Do you have an emulator that runs on existing high-end portables?
No they dont. They stopped doing that, and only had a few games. BC is useless if they're only going to use it for 10 games
All I was told is that PSP's GPU doesn't use HAL, and you have to access it really low-level. The dev who told me has enough credibility that I don't question him.
If they were to make hardware to emulate specific hardware, they'd use the specific hardware instead of emulating it. Again, it's a portable not a PS3. They don't have the space or the power for emulation. And it would drive up costs.
Seriously outdated, yet still producing games better than anything on the iphone/pandora/dsi or other recent tech.
I'm not saying they'll use PSPs exact hardware, but faster versions of the same hardware
Sony can't ditch UMD for many reasons. They aren't going to abandon the significant amount of people who cant switch to downloading just cause some of you have some irrational hatred of discs.
Are you being deliberately obtuse, or are you just finding this all a bit confusing? Where have I said PSP's game sales were low, or anywhere implied that was due to being optical disks? PSPs games are selling fine. My point, which you repeatedly fail to address or even recognise, is that carts have never been a burden for the most successful handhelds ever made, so what leg is it your argument is standing on, that carts are such a lousy format for handhelds?PSP did not suffer as a result of using optical
Are you saying PSPs "low game sales" (I use quotes cause what I can find it's games are selling better than claimed here) were based solely on what the games came on and not due to ANY other factors such as piracy?
No, because as I said before, PSP needed the storage capacity and flash didn't offer it back then.Do you really think PSP would have done anywhere near as well had they not used optical?
But it does prove that carts can be successful, disproving your theory!Nintendo making more money says nothing about its quality
Not if they passed that cost to the buyers! If the games cost $2 more to make, add $2 more to the price, and the publishers are no worse off. Again, the point you blindly ignore because it blows your theory to pieces, publishers are publishing to Nintendo handhelds and not going bankrupt due to the crushing cost of carts. Nor are cart-based games costing 50 bucks a piece.It would be more than a couple of bucks, especially to the publishers.
Again, you seem to be strugging with the discussion here. This is a thread about handhelds, right? Where all talk about carts up to this point has been about using carts in a handheld. My argument has been that Nintendo hasn't suffered with its cart pricing, so why and how are you making a link to 32bit home consoles?! Maybe I'm muddling my words and not making it clear, so let me rephrase in a manner you can probably follow - Carts in handhelds have never been prohibitively expensive.Eh? Is that a joke? They've always been prohobitively expensive. Do you not remember why FF7 was made on PS1?
They may work better as a distribution method cached to internal flash. This would avoid the limits of the doenload-only distribution while only needing to access the drive for installs and game validation. Would a miniturised BRD work? Something that would work with existing fabs would be a plus for a portable optical format.I'm thinking along the lines of a 1.5" hard-coated caddy-less slot-in drive with a somewhat bumped-up data density (for lower rpms/higher performance/little bit of both). Would that be so bad?
Actually UMDs are not as robust - the overall thickness of the data carrier is notably thinner than than that of the CD/DVD (0.84mm vs 1.2mm for CD) - and that's mainly in the coating layers.I've never actually seen media as beat up as some of the UMD games I bought used off Amazon marketplace last summer. The naked UMD should by all rights be as robust as CDs and DVDs, which is to say "not very", but the UMD caddy might as well not be there.
Oh i agree - everything has its endurance limits. But something tells me those UMDs you received in a 'patched' condition would have been useless long before that point, had they been in a naked form.There is a typical breaking point between an opaque white rim part and the transparent top cover, and if that's kaput the whole drive mechanism won't fit together anymore. I've seen games that came with sticky tape from two sides preapplied to keep the caddy in a functioning shape. If you have a lot of wear and tear in your house, at some point, you just have to say "I can never sell this to anyone" and toss it in the trash.
Anecdotally, of all optical media i've used, MD hold the crown in durability, and that's not because the data carrier is something extra-durable - no - its purely thanks to the well-designed caddy. After that come desktop MOs (the 3.5" format - again, perfect caddy), then naked CDs which can last a few months tossed around in cars' glove compartments and side-door pockets before they start showing audible damage, but that's uncompressed, 'robust' audio data; had they actually had some loss-intolerant data, their life would've been way shorter. Which brings us to the DVD and its successors - these things, especially in the dual-layer formats, are just asking for trouble. We keep them on shelves and away from kids.Of course, the actual disc inside the UMD caddy might be better off, but you can't use that, you need the whole thing intact. I don't see evidence to UMDs, whole, being more robust than naked discs, not by enough to justify the hassle.
Yes, the cube's and pstwo's are examples of top-loading, manual-force lock-in drives. They have ultra-simple, clamping-action traction-based spindle design (cube indeed has the better one) but that's partially thanks to the factor 'helping human hand' - the force to lock-in and release the disk in those drives is considerable - would not work for a caddy design.This is a good point. There are probably ways to make the mechanism work. PStwo and Gamecube are two different approaches to a top-loading drive. PStwo is more of a "jam it on the spindle and pray for friction to be strong today"-design while Gamecube seemed to have some sort of spring-loaded clasping mechanism if I recall correctly.
Anecdotally, of all optical media i've used, MD hold the crown in durability, and that's not because the data carrier is something extra-durable - no - its purely thanks to the well-designed caddy. After that come desktop MOs (the 3.5" format - again, perfect caddy), then naked CDs which can last a few months tossed around in cars' glove compartments and side-door pockets before they start showing audible damage, but that's uncompressed, 'robust' audio data; had they actually had some loss-intolerant data, their life would've been way shorter. Which brings us to the DVD and its successors - these things, especially in the dual-layer formats, are just asking for trouble. We keep them on shelves and away from kids.
Oh it's certainly possible, but is it worth it to try to force an unfamiliar distribution model on your customers to save 2$ worth of flash? Whether you sell on carts in stores or not is irrelevant to whether you offer DDL versions as well.