Just taken from the Sony’s E3 conference. Major points:
Minidiscs - 1/2 size of CD player with 1.8 Gig size.
3D video graphics 480 x 272 16:9 aspect
Full 3d sound.
Mpeg4 support.
The Walkman of 2004.
Link to a press release:
Fourth quarter 2004?
Talk about “pre-announcing…”
Sounds like the Clie guys finally talked to the PlayStation guys.
Denny - any thoughts on battery life for a machine like this that has to spin a disc? I wonder what they can squeeze out of a battery that fits into a handheld machine.
I also question their ability to compete with Nintendo’s $99 price point. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this come out at $199 or even $299 with all the features they’re packing in there.
Sounds fun, though! About time someone really challenged Nintendo.
PSP, huh? How creative.
I think the innovation is more in the media it uses. Sounds like they’re taking the best of the cartridge world (durability) and the best of the optical world (low cost, high capacity) and combining them.
The PSP will of course, come with its own completely different power wart and dongle adapter/charger.
As Douglas Adams once said – Sony isn’t in the consumer electronics business, they’re in the dongle business.
Definitely sounds expensive. Certainly not a $99 device from the description.
It also seems like a pre-emptive blow to the GBA SP. They’re probably not so happy that the GBA has been outselling PS2 in Japan and over here.
–Dave
Admittedly, it sounds cool, but there’s no way it will top the GP32. Though it might manage to tie the NGP for second coolest.
Wouldn’t necessarily be terrible if it only spins the disc when loading. But that would require them to put a decent amount of RAM in there.
No way they’ll release at over $199, no matter what costs.
Don’t know if they have been talking to the Clie group… Apparently they’re talking about the PSP playing ATRAC3 music. The Clie group was wise enough to realize that MP3 was a must in the USA. (The original Japanese Clies played only ATRAC3.)
Anyone feel like that now that we know this is coming, Nintendo must have known about it in advance somehow? It seems like the SP is currently being introduced to counter any weaknesses left in their ironclad domination.
By the time the PSP comes out, its likely to be even cheaper than it is now, so Sony might have a really price war on its hands. But if anyone can break Nintendo’s hold, its Sony.
The screen seems rather large, hopefully its not much bigger than the SP, Sony shouldn’t make the mistake of trying to add too much and not being quite as portable.
3D games on a handheld make me go :( . I mean, there’s nothing wrong with them, but I LIKED the great 2D renaissance that has just started to gain speed on the GBA. Now, if Nintendo’s forced to compete with Sony, that’s all about to go bye-bye. It makes for a great diversification of play styles. 3D, large games on the consoles, predominantly 2D in nature, yet not less sophisticated games on the GBA. I also really don’t like the idea of playing 3D games on a handheld, especially platformers, I guess racers and fighters would benefit, but everything else seems to demand a TV or larger screen, or you’re just asking for bad play mechanics and gameplay swamped too little for its own good.
I noticed they mentioned it has USB port so you can connect it to the PS2. I wonder if they plan on doing the same type of connectivity that Nintendo has been focusing on.
Too early to say if it will be successful, but I wonder how Sony is going to manage to offer a better library than Nintendo. Will 3rd parties want to commit the extra resources and expense in developing Sony’s brand of handheld games if the prices they can sell at are the same as the GBA’s? If they are less, will it be harder to make a profit? If they are more, will it be harder to sell compared to the GBA? I assume if it has MPEG playback and such, then soon FMV and other budget-munching types of flash will eat up increasingly higher handheld game production and with most third parties already “enjoying” small profits on the GBA, will Sony be able to offer a more profitable model and thus woo them that way? Will Square leave Nintendo AGAIN? Will Jessica find out who the father of her alien baby is? Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion!
Either way, it should be interesting to see it develop, though to be honest if it does focus on 3D, I’d already like the GBA to crush it in its path, so that the 2D scene can go on reviving itself unchallenged. ;) Maybe though, the development standards won’t be too much higher than the GBA, and people will hate 3D games on a handheld.
-The King of Handheld Enthusiasts 2003, Kitsune
Combined with the Gamecube’s lagging sales it is tempting to interpret this extremely early announcement as primarily motivated by turning up the heat on Nintendo. If Nintendo say, was pursuing a strategy of using revenue from its handheld device to try and prop up the Gamecube in the console market, this announcement might persuade them to think otherwise.
Well, investors must have thought it worthy. Nintendo shares took an immediate 10% hit on the news.
Investors are sheep.
What it boils down to, what games can this thing play? The GBA brings us games from the golden age of 2D that you don’t get anywhere else these days. Like Kitsune said, that’s a major attraction of this system.
What can the PSP play? I’m guessing it will be revamped PS1/2 games, in other words games whose improved but otherwise identical successors are available on any home console. Seeing how the PSP will likely be bigger, heavier, more expensive, and encumbered by a shorter battery life than a GBA, I don’t really see the point.
Of course, if they’d port the entire Sega Dreamcast library to the PSP…
Good thing it supports 7.1 channel sound, I was beginning to think I had wasted my money on these 8 speaker headphones I just bought. Wireless LAN is pretty sweet, though.
Still, no games announced, no hardware shown. Looks like they’re not going to show the PSP until next E3, and even then they won’t have actual game software running (probably just demo stuff). The PSP’s game library will be displayed at next September’s TGS. System launches Q4 2004.
Also, no word on the price yet. The specs are very impressive, let’s just hope the games are there and it doesn’t cost $300.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony went high-end with this system. They need to do something to distinguish it from the GBA, which has an unprecedented chokehold over the portable game market. Even so, they have an uphill battle ahead of them. I’m curious to see what they have planned, though.
Combined with the Gamecube’s lagging sales it is tempting to interpret this extremely early announcement as primarily motivated by turning up the heat on Nintendo. If Nintendo say, was pursuing a strategy of using revenue from its handheld device to try and prop up the Gamecube in the console market, this announcement might persuade them to think otherwise.[/quote]
Preannouncing was Sony’s death-blow against the Dreamcast.
Thats what MS tried with the Xbox, and it didn’t help them. Name recognition, and installed base will trump it IMO. Sony is going to run into the same problems with the GBA as MS has with the Playstation.
I’ll be truly surprised to see sony take any ground from nintendo. The only way they have any chance at all is if they compete on the same price point (unlikely, given the specs we’ve seen), and if they manage to get more original titles rather than just ports of older games.
Edit: On the upside, maybe the competition will spur more original titles out of nintendo.