PSP2 Discussion

Cheesing it up said:
Sorry if this has been said, or if this is incredibly ignorant of me, but surely if you 'accidentally' buy a console with 3G you can just turn it off? Or not use it?

As for phones replacing games consoles, I dunno. This last gen has easily been the highest selling for handheld consoles, and you could argue that phone gaming is a different market, for people that wouldn't buy a handheld console anyway. In fact, it may even lead people to handheld gaming. I think it's far too early to say that it will usurp handhelds.

Yeah but to get 3G in the first place Sony will either make the 3G model very epensive so your paying off the data costs through the hardware, this scenario is similer to what amazon does with the kindle but seeing as ebooks are measured probably in the kilobytes this will be an unlikely solution for sony who probably want you to buy games in the 500MB - 2GB range.

So you will probably end up having to buy a contract along with the console, they might actually subsidize the console kind of like what they do with phones but do you really want to have a contract phone and a contract console both paying for separate 3G services?

iPhone apps and the like outsell DS games

No they don't, at the moment the iOS market share around a little bigger than a quarter of the market PSP's is a little less than a quarter with the DS making up everything else.


( Edited 13.02.2011 15:50 by Jimmy2000 )

Echoes221 said:Don't forget, that ping test was to a nearby server, when you are doing peer to peer gaming (which the majority of it is on console, very rarely server based) that ping will increase substantially based on where they are in the world and how good their connection is.

Yeah, I realized that.... It makes me think that either they're not going to allow 3G for online gaming at all, or that nobody will use it for online gaming. I think the only way for 3G to make sense is if it's free, like Kindle, and only used for buying stuff and trophy sync. The Kindle comparison is more apt than the iPad comparison; I forgot that there are 3G/Wifi-only models of Kindle. You use 3G for store access, bookmark sync, and community features like popular note highlights, and there's no monthly fee. That would make sense for the NGP, wouldn't it?

Martin_ said:
I think the area where phones will struggle matching games consoles at their own forte is the interface. We now have touchscreens as a standard on phone units, but that was only ever part of the DS formula. This relegates phone games to either simple point-n-click formula, or over-ambitious titles that assume that phone keypads are as good as gamepads for games.

What I think we'll see in the future is mobile/portable games which are very simple (in terms of how they're played), with complex gaming left for home consoles/PCs.

But that's exactly the point of NGP: it's a home console to go! You can play any sort of game on it, not just the simple sort that work on a smartphone. and personally, I can't stand any games more complex than the pont-n-click stuff on my iPhone. I especially hate accelerometer controls. They don't work at all when you're lying down or in a moving vehicle! Even if the graphics catch up, most games still need the buttons.

I think that there will always be a market that isn't satisfied with "Angry Birds" on their smartphones and will want a "real" portable console. I can't be the only one!

I see 3G being used in the NGP the same way its used in phones, really. Downloading apps or games anywhere, checking the web, watching youtube videos etc. Perhaps the PSN stuff you guys are mentioning too.

But you're definitely not going to be doing anything like online CoD over 3G.

Sony is supposedly going to allow saving games to the PSN account. 3G could conceivably also be used for game save sync.

I'd totally get the 3G version if there isn't a monthly fee attached.

Edit- so the Xperia Play was officially introduced today. Who is this product for? Would anyone buy this and an NGP? Compared to the NGP, it has a lower screen resolution (480x854 vs 544x960), no backpad, a mircoSD slot instead of whatever proprietary slot the NGP has, and stupid touch pads instead of real analog sticks.

It doesn't make any sense. Sony is most heavily promoting the Play's PS1 game library, but the Play can't do PS1 games properly because it doesn't have R2/L2 triggers (the NGP has a backpad for R2/L2). Engadget said that Crash Bandicoot can map R2/L2 to the touch-sticks, which means you can't have analog control, or to the touch-screen, which means you gotta lift your thumbs OFF AND ABOVE the controls for access. The hell were they thinking?

As for new games, will they be released on NGP and Play? I doubt it, since the Play lacks the backpad and the proprietary memory slot. Does the Play even have the same quad core CPU/GPU the NGP does? Probably not! Furthermore, their differing screen resolutions means that any software released for both will require two sets of optimized bitmapped elements. They could scale everything, but it would look bad. There might be a few "universal" games, like simple puzzles and stuff, but what's most likely is that the majority of cool NGP games won't work on the Play at all. Will they build a dedicated Play library? Will they sacrifice making superior NGP-only games in order to maximize the number of games compatible with Play? Or, will they just dig Play a shallow grave?

The NGP's screen is exactly 4x the original PSP's, probably to make porting games easier. Since the Play's screen isn't, will it be compatible with re-released PSP games?

The hardware on the NGP is better for gaming in every single way over the Play. There's no reason to own both- I can't even think of a reason to own the Play!

edit- under the press release there's this gem:

Entertainment
3D games

( Edited 14.02.2011 00:54 by keith )

I was right, the Play can't do PSP games: http://consumerist.com/2011/02/xperia-play-wont-play-psp-games-youve-downloaded.html

I will buy this...

obviously!!

The PSP is currently outselling the 3DS in Japan. 3DS sales will probably pick up again once Star Fox and Zelda come out, but I think this is a bit of an indication that the 3DS isn't doing as well as we would've thought!

Also, in response to Jacob's earlier question of "What does Sony have" to offer against the 3DS: I offer this! What the NGP offers is that it's a portable PS3!

I think that the idealization of a portable console would be a device which can somehow package the full home console experience, with its graphics, huge screen, and surround sound, into something that can be carried around. Just look at the SNES ports for GBA and the N64 ports for DS/3DS! In my opinion, the biggest issue with "portable-izing" old titles were (1) limited handheld horsepower, and (2) limited handheld controls. SNES ports on GBA had to make do with the lack of X/Y buttons, and N64 ports on DS had to work without C buttons or an analog stick. Remember how Nintendo tried to emulate an analog stick with the phat DS's "thumb slider" strap?

But the NGP! It's powerful enough to "almost" run PS3 games, but more importantly, it has controls for every single button on a Dualshock 3! Hell, since it has cameras, it could even be theoretically compatible with Move games! Also: NGP should offer nearly PERFECT PS1/PS2 game emulation! So I think that the huge thing about NGP is that it's really getting closer to the idealization of a portable "home" console, and I think that this is an appealing concept to many people. I know that I would instantly purchase a 3DS if it also ran GameCube games.

There is also added value when you can go to the store and pickup a single game that is PS3 and NGP compatible (unlike ports for 3DS, such as StarFox and Zelda, which much be purchased twice). And when you realize that this is a portable console that really dissolves the line between "home" and "portable" games, I think you'll realize that it's a truly "Next Generation Portable", indeed!

I really feel like Sony is getting its shit together, especially when you look back to the 2006 E3's "RIIIDGE RACCER"/Giant Enemy Crabs/$599 USD embarrassments.



( Edited 13.04.2011 01:49 by keith )