RSSSony Announces 'PSP' Entertainment Platform
By Eric Steil | Published May 13, 2003, 11:29 PM
As E3 gets underway in Los Angeles, Sony has unveiled a new platform for portable gaming and beyond. The device, dubbed "PSP," represents Sony's first foray into a market currently dominated by Nintendo. But Sony's continued lead in the console gaming space and vast reach within home electronics could give the company a distinct advantage over its competitors.
PSP will feature a 480x272 pixel TFT LCD display and utilize a Sony-developed storage format called Universal Media Disc. UMD is comprised of a 60mm optical disc that can hold 1.8GB of data. Akin to Sony's MiniDisc platform, each optical disc will be contained within a cartridge. Sony also plans to support the latest copyright protection to ensure publishers a secure environment for their content.
Although PSP will become part of the PlayStation family, Sony's plans for the device more resemble Microsoft's Media2Go efforts. PSP includes a USB 2.0 port for connectivity with other devices, along with a slot for Sony's Memory Stick media. PSP will additionally feature native support for MPEG-4 audio and video.
"Along with game applications, PSP will have a huge potential for delivering other forms of entertainment as well as live entertainment through the network, anywhere, anytime," said Ken Kutaragi, CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. "This is the Walkman of the 21st century."
Licensing for PSP developers is slated to be announced this summer, with PC-based development tools to follow in fall 2003. Sony has not said when it expects to bring PSP to market, but is already touting the importance of the product.
"Just as PlayStation and PlayStation 2 revolutionized in-home computer entertainment, we aim to become a new driving force in the portable entertainment platform arena," said Kutaragi.
I have Sega Nomad. It's a great system. It does eat batteries, but it has a HUGE collection of games that are almost all COLOR unlike GBA whose 1000+ library of games are almost all BLACK AND WHITE. Nomad is much more advanced than GBA. But you must remember that the game cartridge for Sega Nomad is larger than a GBA-SP itself.
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|I predict this will be a wonderful way for gamers to pay again for their PSX titles slightly updated on a prorietary media format.
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|i think this was exactly what Nintendo should have brought from the beginnin. I mean a portable N64. i was disappointed when they made that low profile SNES handheld version called GameBoy Advance. I mean they could have made a portable N64, not a low SuperNES GameBoy.
SERIOUS, didnt SEGA made the same thing 8 years ago with the Sega NOMAD? That was a complete portable Sega Genesis. Already at that time . But the people saw the GameBoy Advance as a super thing , when that was already a long time ago made. Or am I wrong?
That with the PSP i think is OK, a lot better than the GB-Advance.
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|Game Gear.....
It's all a matter of battery life. Of course Nintendo can make a more handheld gaming device that has more graphics power than the SNES, heck, they could make a handheld device with the power of the Gamecube if they wanted... but battery life would b horrible.
Take Game Gear for example, it took, what, 8 batteries and lasted about 30mins?
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|mmmm , i used to have a Game Gear wich had color and like 10 years before the GameBoy Color (wich also didnt have the half of the colors the GameGear had) , better sound and that with 2 batteries more than a oooooold' GameBoy Monochrome. For someone with rechargeable batteries wasnt that a problem (wich I think also also also also... is a MUST for not insane people with a portable console) . Now look in Google for the Sega Nomad , wich I guess was like every piece of Sega just a collectors piece, but not a hit [ like the Atari Lynx wich also curiously had color 15 years ago, but lack of games]. The NOMAD got high reviews everywhere, but that doesnt mean also that if ogg vorbis is better than MP3 , or Mozilla than IE , people will like them or make em more popular ... :-/
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|Finally nice to see a worthy competitor in the portable gaming market. Nokia doesn't have a chance with their Frankenstein cell/game machine, but Sony has enough clout to barge into the market. I think we have all been waiting for Sony or MS to pull something like this out.
Hopefully this will spruce things up and reduce the amount of rehashed 16-bit games in the portable market. With 1.8gigs of data storage, who's going to want to re-release another Mario?
Hopefully they fix their thinking, though, and make this a game-centric device, rather than submitting to hype and creating a "synergized multimedia platform for delivering high quality digital experiences".
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|I agree with you on the whole 'it should focus on games, not multimedia entertainment' ... considering the probable screen size, movies and such wouldnt be worth it, but perhaps music playback wouldnt hurt.
On another note... the 1.8GB is great, can prolly fit some nice games on there.. but my concern is... does this mean we now have to deal with '...Loading...' on a portable gaming device? That is practically unheard of, since most portable game devices use ROM/RAM chips that dont require loading. My hope is that they will find away around the loading process though.
Otherwise, i'm also glad Sony is taking a step into the handheld gaming industry, i myself think Nintendo and such arnt doing the best job that can be done...
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|You cant 'find a way around loading'. On cartriges, its there too, its just alot faster... so fast that you dont see it. But cartriges are limited spacewise. Loading isnt that bad concidering what you can get from a 1.8gb CD. I dont mind the loading when the game is worth it.
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|If I have to sit through loading screens to play kick a** portable games like the ones that will surely appear for this system, then so be it :)
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|How about Microsoft making a game like .hack /SIGN ?
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how about .hack /SIGN people making a Windows Os , as in have the .hack /sign people work with the microsoft people to make the newest windows a anime gui windows desktop?
-OR-
how about the .hack /SIGN people ports those ps2 .hack /SIGN games to the pc? and make them better with the 3d by using ati technogle or something like that
.hack /SIGN can be found at www.dothack.com
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|that's just spam dude, though i like the episodes...
anyways, like everybody says it's good to have -finaly- a worthy competitor as uposed to those who make the more older type of games..
let's just hope we'll get some reviews soon ;)
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