Video of the PlayStation Portable in action
By Ryan Block 
posted September 27th 2004 3:13PM
posted September 27th 2004 3:13PM
If you're feeling a little lucky (or should we say, daring?), head over to Wireless Watch Japan and check out the vids they took at the PSP exhibit at the Tokyo Games show to complement those hilarious photos we showed you earlier. It took us forever to download the short 12MB video, but we gotta say, we (you know, for the most jaded tech site in the world) have high hopes for this thing and it looks like it may well live up to or surpass them. Sony, just make sure it plays DivX and MP3, for chrissakes!
a mirror?
How big is this thing? It looks WAY bigger than I expected. Screen is nice and bright. How does that affct battery life?
I have already gone through 3 PS2's that have all had terrible build quality. My Dreamcast and GameCube are still going strong though. It means that Sony needs to get its act togther cause I'm not throwing away $300 on a fancy Sega Game Gear that's gonna break in 3 months. (BTW, my Sega Game Gear is still going strong)
There is no way this is gonna play DivX movies. Sony would rather pull out their own toenails. Do you realize how much they will make by suckering people to buy movies again on the UMD format? Plus the screen isn't as high-resolution as most PDAs or Pocket PCs.
Even then, you have to buy a super-expensive memory stick to listen to music on it.
If you want to watch DivX on the run, get yourself a TapWave Zodiac and a little program called MMPlayer. The Zodiac is smaller with a higher-resolution screen so movies look incredible! On top of that, you get a kick-ass PDS too with a touch screen (like the DS!!!)
Sony keeps on making claims about their products that NEVER live up to them. They claimed the PS2 would achieve 66 million polygons/second. Average games push around 3 million. They claimed the PSX would play MP3s and pulled support 2 weeks before launch. They told me I would be able to download movies and music and play them on my PS2. They make all these claims about the PSP. How many of them will be true?
If they claim 6 hours of battery life, what will you have to do to achieve that claim? Will you have to play with the screen at the lowest brightness setting and turn off wi-fi and play games that load into RAM instead of off the UMD?
Sorry Sony. You have blown your credibility with me.
Anyone have any idea on what "promising" games have been announced for the PSP? Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but I think they would do good to release some PS2 classics. I think I speak for every GTA fan when I say that nothing would compare to playing it on the go (other than maybe on an HDTV :). Games like GTA3, Vice City, (San Andreas), etc. And it wouldn't hurt for Rockstar to release an exclusive GTA for the PSP that takes advantage of the WiFi - maybe it's in the works ;).
Anyone have any idea on what "promising" games have been announced for the PSP? Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but I think they would do good to release some PS2 classics. I think I speak for every GTA fan when I say that nothing would compare to playing it on the go (other than maybe on an HDTV :). Games like GTA3, Vice City, (San Andreas), etc. And it wouldn't hurt for Rockstar to release an exclusive GTA for the PSP that takes advantage of the WiFi - maybe it's in the works ;).
I think right about now everyone should understand that no console manufacturer has actually delivered on 100% of what they promised. No one jumped down Nintendo's collective throats saying that they'll never buy another GB variant when neither the GBC nor the GBA had the all essential backlight. Nintendo has very little competition in this market, especially in North America (overseas they had things like the WonderSwan Color and NeoGeo Pocket, but the companies that made them didn't feel it was worthwhile to present them to the North American market due to Nintendo's hold on haldheld gaming). It is competition that will shake up the market a bit and force Nintendo to be even more creative than before (and if not that, simply drop prices to stay competitive to anything that offers "more"). Thus competition in the marketplace is good for the consumer as no one will hold all of the cards.
However, I will state that I was one of those individuals who had those blasted disc read errors on their PS2 when reading CD based games. Of course I called their tech and got it repaired for free (not to say that this wasn't as result of many prior to me levying a class action suit against SCE). I've had only one PS2 (it's one of those SCPH-30001 units...the first run models) and have used it for extended periods of time (8 hour all night gaming sessions during spring breaks) and have even left it paused for more an hour or so and this is the worst thing that happened. It may be the luck of the draw, or maybe others are bitter, but my unit has only had that one defect.
My friend and I were discussing which system we might buy and both of us are pretty torn between the PSP and the GB:DS. If the GB:DS has better batterylife, gameplay, and is at a lower cost, then Sony will/does have an uphill battle. I wish them good luck and hope that they'll take more of a per-unit loss than they already are as to help with market saturation (despite their prettier graphics, they definately need to lower their price a bit).
a mirror?
How big is this thing? It looks WAY bigger than I expected. Screen is nice and bright. How does that affct battery life?
I have already gone through 3 PS2's that have all had terrible build quality. My Dreamcast and GameCube are still going strong though. It means that Sony needs to get its act togther cause I'm not throwing away $300 on a fancy Sega Game Gear that's gonna break in 3 months. (BTW, my Sega Game Gear is still going strong)
There is no way this is gonna play DivX movies. Sony would rather pull out their own toenails. Do you realize how much they will make by suckering people to buy movies again on the UMD format? Plus the screen isn't as high-resolution as most PDAs or Pocket PCs.
Even then, you have to buy a super-expensive memory stick to listen to music on it.
If you want to watch DivX on the run, get yourself a TapWave Zodiac and a little program called MMPlayer. The Zodiac is smaller with a higher-resolution screen so movies look incredible! On top of that, you get a kick-ass PDS too with a touch screen (like the DS!!!)
Sony keeps on making claims about their products that NEVER live up to them. They claimed the PS2 would achieve 66 million polygons/second. Average games push around 3 million. They claimed the PSX would play MP3s and pulled support 2 weeks before launch. They told me I would be able to download movies and music and play them on my PS2. They make all these claims about the PSP. How many of them will be true?
If they claim 6 hours of battery life, what will you have to do to achieve that claim? Will you have to play with the screen at the lowest brightness setting and turn off wi-fi and play games that load into RAM instead of off the UMD?
Sorry Sony. You have blown your credibility with me.
Anyone have any idea on what "promising" games have been announced for the PSP? Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but I think they would do good to release some PS2 classics. I think I speak for every GTA fan when I say that nothing would compare to playing it on the go (other than maybe on an HDTV :). Games like GTA3, Vice City, (San Andreas), etc. And it wouldn't hurt for Rockstar to release an exclusive GTA for the PSP that takes advantage of the WiFi - maybe it's in the works ;).
Anyone have any idea on what "promising" games have been announced for the PSP? Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but I think they would do good to release some PS2 classics. I think I speak for every GTA fan when I say that nothing would compare to playing it on the go (other than maybe on an HDTV :). Games like GTA3, Vice City, (San Andreas), etc. And it wouldn't hurt for Rockstar to release an exclusive GTA for the PSP that takes advantage of the WiFi - maybe it's in the works ;).
I think right about now everyone should understand that no console manufacturer has actually delivered on 100% of what they promised. No one jumped down Nintendo's collective throats saying that they'll never buy another GB variant when neither the GBC nor the GBA had the all essential backlight. Nintendo has very little competition in this market, especially in North America (overseas they had things like the WonderSwan Color and NeoGeo Pocket, but the companies that made them didn't feel it was worthwhile to present them to the North American market due to Nintendo's hold on haldheld gaming). It is competition that will shake up the market a bit and force Nintendo to be even more creative than before (and if not that, simply drop prices to stay competitive to anything that offers "more"). Thus competition in the marketplace is good for the consumer as no one will hold all of the cards.
However, I will state that I was one of those individuals who had those blasted disc read errors on their PS2 when reading CD based games. Of course I called their tech and got it repaired for free (not to say that this wasn't as result of many prior to me levying a class action suit against SCE). I've had only one PS2 (it's one of those SCPH-30001 units...the first run models) and have used it for extended periods of time (8 hour all night gaming sessions during spring breaks) and have even left it paused for more an hour or so and this is the worst thing that happened. It may be the luck of the draw, or maybe others are bitter, but my unit has only had that one defect.
My friend and I were discussing which system we might buy and both of us are pretty torn between the PSP and the GB:DS. If the GB:DS has better batterylife, gameplay, and is at a lower cost, then Sony will/does have an uphill battle. I wish them good luck and hope that they'll take more of a per-unit loss than they already are as to help with market saturation (despite their prettier graphics, they definately need to lower their price a bit).