There's a little more in the article that I didn't quote (mostly just BG info), but I got most of the news quoted. The price is about right for the value pack, but what makes it bad is that they seem to only be offering the "value" pack, at least for the time being. Too bad it really isn't much of a value. I'd much rather pay ~$200 for the base unit and then pay for whatever else I wanted by myself, especially since I would much rather have a memory stick with more than 32MB. Oh well, I know I'll probably cave in like much of the US, I'm sure. The PSP is selling extremely well in Japan and until sales die down, Sony can make us pay a little more for the device that we may want.
Sweet, I pre-ordered mine last month at EBGames. I would suggest anybody wanting one do the same. This thing is going to be awesome! I think the biggest thing might be the abiltiy to watch movies. Hopefully some other movie studios will embrace the UMD disk and make a lot of movies availible.
Not as good as the Gizmondo....better as a gaming unit, but lacking in overall features. The movies is ok, but you have to use UMD to watch them. Where the Giz only needs an SDram card, and away you go. DD
Or you could download to the MemoryStick. Also has a web browers, and future plans for watching TV...way better than a Gizmandocrap
Basically what wesnesked said. The PSP, from a movie-watching perspective, seems better to me than the Gizmondo. IIRC, they don't have much support other than their own studio, Square-Enix studios (basically just FF7:AC) and Bandai (Gundam Wing series), but I imagine that may change soon. Even if it doesn't, they still have the Sony studios (MGM, Columbia, Tristar, etc). This could all be helped out even more if the let UMD burners out, although that may not happen until sales for UMD's, PSP's, and memory sticks are doing good. The 1 gig sticks/cards are pretty expensive right now, leaving the UMD as a pretty good alternative to store media. And of course, there's the PSP screen...so um, I like the PSP from a movie perspective as well. The Gizmondo does have some more features, but like I mentioned before, the price tag kills it for me, and probably plenty of others. Gamers were complaining about the PSP including stuff they didn't care for or already had devices for (Music, movies, etc), and the Gizmondo seems to be the same. Plus, there are plans for the PSP to pretty much offer the same stuff as the Gizmondo, from what I can tell, as add-ons (Cell phone, GPS, keyboard). BTW, I forgot to add the game list. Here's the list (24 games): Rather impressive lineup, although it is pretty sports heavy and only had 1 RPG, IIRC. Should be plenty more after a while though.
Are those launch games? *drool* -- Dynasty Warriors(R), KOEI -- Metal Gear Acid(TM), Konami -- MVP Baseball, Electronic Arts -- NBA Street Showdown, Electronic Arts -- Need for Speed(TM) Rivals, Electronic Arts -- NFL Street 2 Unleashed, Electronic Arts -- Ridge Racer(TM), Namco -- Wipeout(R) Pure, Sony Computer Entertainment America Those are the ones I want. I'm gonna blow like 500 bucks on this damn thing.
Oops, yeah they are. Forgot to specifically say that. I talked my dad into preordering it as a bundle (basically, everything mentioned plus MG:Acid, Spider-Man 2, and the Sony RPG). Actually, I didn't even really want to do it considering how I felt about bundles and packs, but he was willing to do it, or as willing as you can be to pay $400 for something. Hmm... I wonder why my dad keeps mentioning that his car needs to be waxed.
I kind of implied this earlier, but Sony isn't going to give out any UMD burners, at least not initially IIRC. Like I mentioned earlier, if everything goes according to plan or even better, they may eventually release them, but not right now. Since I view the PSP more as a gaming device with some additional features instead of a multimedia device that plays games, I've gotten used to the idea of not being able to burn UMD's. A memory stick should be ok for what I plan to use it as. In fact, considering how much less of a drain the memory stick is, I would have preferred using them anyways. I still would like to see a UMD burner though, so everyone needs to go out and buy these products.
I've been debating putting down the $50 at Gamestop to reserve one. I don't go on trips or anything, and my job discourages it of course (they get upset if a guest of the state escapes because you couldn't find a good place to pause your game) so the playing opportunity would be limited. But it still looks pretty sweet.
If you are primarily interested in the gaming aspects, there are some caveats to be aware. http://www.gamespot.com/news/2005/01/24/news_6116985.html Note that it isn't a production error, but a design flaw that they won't care to correct. Also, there's been reports of long load times in between loading up the games. On a console, games can usually stream data while playing, but that takes up valuable energy to spin the disc player, so Sony forced the designers to load everything up front to conserve battery life. Some load times can be as long as 30-60 seconds. Even then, the battery life can last a conservative 3 hours. I think the screen is worth drooling over, but gaming on a road trip might need more investment (spare PSP batteries) and patience than what people expect from handhelds.
Wait a minute, what game takes 60 seconds to load? The longest I can recall were around the 20's, although I admit I hadn't paid much attention to the games since the PSP launched. And the battery should probably be able to last a little longer than 3 hours. Probably more like 4-5, which I believe Sony said it would at minimum. It seemed like most of the battery tests for Ridge Racers, probably the most battery intensive game for the PSP so far, lasted to the high 4 to low 5 hour marks. The only way I can think of most games only lasting 3 hours is if you have it on the brightest setting (which seems TOO bright to me) and use the Wi-Fi. Depending on the game and use of the PSP though, you may be able to get 6-7 hours out of it, which isn't too bad. I would like to see either Sony or a 3rd party come out with some stronger batteries pretty soon though, and hopefully developers will adapt to the PSP and learn how to maximize the quality of their content while keeping both the battery drain and load times at a minimum. The square thing is something that I am a little worried about, along with a few other problems with the PSP. However, while a lot of people mentioned that the square button was a little different at first, once they played it for a little while, they got it to feel like the other buttons. I think the actual number of PSP's that had to be fixed due to this was pretty low though, although maybe not everyone with a problem bothered to send it in. Of course, these are some of the reasons why it is a little risky to get hardware right when it comes out, especially something like the PSP. Just hope they can fix some of the things before the get here. I didn't even think about it at the time, but I think I actually "knew" they would only be selling the value pack here a couple of days ago. I believe a US manual for the device got leaked or something like that and they only mentioned the value pack. Didn't think much of it at the time, especially since I believed they wouldn't do that, but I was obviously wrong. At least we're getting a little more than the Japanese did at pretty much the same price for the value pack.
Looking at more and more photos/stats to the system I really can't wait to get my hands on one of these: . Great info and pics, etc.: http://ga-forum.com/showthread.php?t=37677 Man, it would be so awesome to be playing a baseball/basketball game onthe airplane. No more boring flights.
About the battery life.... Sony also issued a recall for the button issue that happens in 10% of the PSPs. I'd wait a little before becoming an early adopter.
There is one battery pack out there for people who are crazy about battery life. It is supposed to have a life of around 18-25 hrs, although it is a little bigger than normal batteries. Also, IIRC, Sony has already fixed the button issue, so that shouldn't be a problem for the US launch. BTW, I also wouldn't take Spong too seriously most of the time. While this article is more or less correct, AFAIK, they often put up articles that really have no truth to them. I believe they've had articles saying that RE4 would be on the Xbox as well as Tekken 5, and their latest article talks about Nintendo revealing the GBA 2 at E3, where they will also start marketing the DS as a PDA-type device. Matt from IGN has this to say about that: So basically, I would treat them like those basketball rumor sites that Clutch has filtered out. They seem to make up articles based on no real info just because they sound good.
I wonder if they have the same limitations on market-specific games and movies like the playstations do? I might have to get a Japanese version if so. I'm still waiting to find out how functional the memory stick is. I have a 256 MB and a 512 MG chip for my camera already. If I can play movies, mp3s, and view pictures off of it, I'll probably get one at some point. I suspect I may be waiting a while though.
