Was SCE mistaken in going with optical media in PSP?
- Thread starter Squeak
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Won't there also be lower development costs though? If limited to 64 megs, you only have so much room for textures, models, audio etc., meaning less work will fill that up. Have 10x the space and to fill it needs 10x the work (kinda...)PC-Engine said:
DS games are cheaper than PSP games on a more expensive medium, but the amount of work needed to create those games is much less than PSP, meaning lower costs. To have a PSP sized game on a DS card, the price of the card would be factored in and I reckon you'd be looking at >$80 minimum.
That's true, but just because a UMD has a capacity of 1.8GB, doesn't mean all the capacity is used up for each and every game. You can as easily make a PSP game the size of a DS game and sell it for a cheaper price, but it wouldn't justify the higher price of the PSP would it?
You're right, but remember PSP was never just a portable games machine but an all in one media experience. The whole concept was to satisfy your every media wish and combining an optical drive with MemStick, Sony have it covered, but with certain compromises along the way of course.
PC-Engine said:
UMDs cost the same wether you fill 1% of them with data or 100%. Solid state media costs increase for every bit you add. Of course media cost is going to be a (large) factor during development. Fortunately, DS hardware and memory space is considerably inferior to PSP, so it won't need as much storage for sound and graphics in the first place. However, you're arguing a fundamentally stupid point. Optical media is much more cost efficient than solid state media, and discs are much quicker to produce than silicon chips too.
Nintendo has its foundations built on cartridge technology, it's not surprising that is the way they chose to go with the DS. Sony has great experience with optical drives and media, and their hardware needs more storage space. Thus they use disks. Two different solutions to solve different problems. It's not possible to say one is inherently better than the other, especially not carts>discs.
But the "industry" isn't just the end user. (And extra production costs usually DO affect the end user in some way.) Publishers just don't like hitting their bottom line that way. They'll go in the path of least resistance for the most profit. It doesn't matter if 512MB becomes "cheap enough" compared to a potential $40-50 price point; if it's still multiple times the cost for them (and still don't offer the storage they've had before, gotten used to, and want for their games) they are simply not going to be overly excited at making more games for that system as opposed to a competitor that does give them that option.PC-Engine said:
I don't see optical disks being displaced anywhere any time soon, though I can see more potential hybriding. On the whole, I think giving developers and publishers the choice--while it won't drive solid-state costs down as far as forcing them to it--will end up bringing about the best environment.
Squeak, I'd say there's at least a couple of areas where your assessment is off.
Fragility is cited as a con for optical media only but with the majority of flash media tending towards physical formats that are slivers of plastic-encased circuitry not much bigger than a postage stamp these days, fragility is an issue on both fronts. The size of flash media that is cited only as a pro can be a con as well because of how it enhances the fragility issue as well as for making it that much easier to lose one.
You cite nonwriteability as a con for optical media, but this isn't a limitation of the technology, its a choice of implementation.
Fragility is cited as a con for optical media only but with the majority of flash media tending towards physical formats that are slivers of plastic-encased circuitry not much bigger than a postage stamp these days, fragility is an issue on both fronts. The size of flash media that is cited only as a pro can be a con as well because of how it enhances the fragility issue as well as for making it that much easier to lose one.
You cite nonwriteability as a con for optical media, but this isn't a limitation of the technology, its a choice of implementation.
Fragility isn't a problem with carts small or not. I could throw my DS carts around the room without a problem 
What ever way you look at it they are far less fragile then a UMD disc. Also no way can you consider a small size to be a disadvantage.. that's just clutching at straws.
What ever way you look at it they are far less fragile then a UMD disc. Also no way can you consider a small size to be a disadvantage.. that's just clutching at straws.Teasy said:
ESP...
archie4oz said:
Play hockey with the MDs as the puck and then I'll be impressed.
Normally disks are easily damaged because they can get scratched, the only thing a UMD has to worry about is being crushed, but I don't know if its casing is more like a jewel case or like a cartridge shell.
The only real reason to go carts at this point in time is for battery life, and to a much smaller extent cost. I wonder if PSP would match or beat DS in battery life if it used carts instead of disks...
That wasn't my point. The console has to be more expensive when using optical media. While the media is cheap and has high capacity, developers will take advantage of that capacity which adds to development cost and time. That's why PSP games are not cheaper than DS games even though they use cheaper media in terms of per/MB costs. The only way to make cheap PSP games is to lower the costs of development associated with the amount of content. People who buy a PSP want games that take advantage of the PSP hardware and those games cost more than DS games. If they wanted PSP games that are cheaper with less content and hence less storage requirements, they wouldn't be buying a highpriced PSP in the first place. Why would any sane person buy a highpriced PSP to play games with N64 level visuals that cost $30?
But the GB line of games on carts have been doing extremely well. How well do you think PSP games starting at $40 will do sales wise? If it turns out that less people are willing to pay $40 for portable only game titles then there's less profit to be made from publishers/developers correct?
What difference does it make? A card can easibly be encased in a hard shell. What do you think a DS game is? Is CF a card or a cart?
The largest N64 games was 64Mb. That's 6 years ago, if ROM follow the same "rule" as RAM in cost reduction and process improvement, that should mean that we have 4Gb ROMs at the same price today, no?
But even 512Mb ROMs would be more than sufficient for portable gaming needs.
I don't see anyone wanting to watch hour-long FMVs on a handheld, and real-time cutscenes are getting more popular than FMVs anyway as they give the game a more homogenous and coherent feel.
And watching whole movies on a handheld? It's been discussed to death already here and elsewhere, so I won't say anything else than I don't see it happening. TVseries and short cartoons maybe (which will easily fit on a Memstick), but not whole movies.
And the piracy issue? I should think SCE has learnt to build powerful DRM into all of their product by now? Even then, PSP has a Memstick port that it's possible to run software from, so already there is a backdoor for pirates, so SCE can't be that bothered by it (it won't be long before 2Gb flash sticks a available).
Even if ROM games turned out to be to expensive for some publishers, they could make their games available for download to a flash stick instead, either through the cell phone network, via WiFi or USB.
If SCE plan on making the PSP the start of a series of backwards compatible handhelds (and as suggested by a rumour, tie it with the existing line of stationary consoles) it won’t look good if they ditch discs next gen. So they are essentially tied to discs for a looong time to come.
But even 512Mb ROMs would be more than sufficient for portable gaming needs.
I don't see anyone wanting to watch hour-long FMVs on a handheld, and real-time cutscenes are getting more popular than FMVs anyway as they give the game a more homogenous and coherent feel.
And watching whole movies on a handheld? It's been discussed to death already here and elsewhere, so I won't say anything else than I don't see it happening. TVseries and short cartoons maybe (which will easily fit on a Memstick), but not whole movies.
And the piracy issue? I should think SCE has learnt to build powerful DRM into all of their product by now? Even then, PSP has a Memstick port that it's possible to run software from, so already there is a backdoor for pirates, so SCE can't be that bothered by it (it won't be long before 2Gb flash sticks a available).
Even if ROM games turned out to be to expensive for some publishers, they could make their games available for download to a flash stick instead, either through the cell phone network, via WiFi or USB.
Writeable media tends to always be behind read-only in terms of capacity and cost.
But then you would still have the drive taking up space and sucking power when disc games are played.one said:
If SCE plan on making the PSP the start of a series of backwards compatible handhelds (and as suggested by a rumour, tie it with the existing line of stationary consoles) it won’t look good if they ditch discs next gen. So they are essentially tied to discs for a looong time to come.
Squeak said:
I wrote they might choose downloadable games for the main distribution media for games. Aside from games, as PSP supports UMD-video too it has to continue to support the UMD form factor anyway. Also, you talk about the PSP successor? Then my argument 1. revives, since the successor can adopt blue-laser or hologram drive or whatever optical disc drive technology available then, with supposedly even larger space than flash ROM available in the same timeframe.
It'd be interesting for you to ask yourself back in 2000 why you'd need 1.8GB disc for a portable with a 4.5" screen...PC-Engine said:Why would you need Blu-ray or HVD for a portable with a 4.5" screen?
Basically, mainstream disc media will retain the 12cm size for the next decades, so a smaller disc size has its own markets elsewhere, and one of them is gaming.