[Edwood]

Whew, back from day 1 of E3.
All I have to say is that Sony owns the show.
And Nintendo DS is in Deep Sh*t.

Oh boy is the black one a fingerprint magnet.

Sony had MDR-NC20 Noise cancelling headphones hooked up to most of the PSP's there.

-Ed

 

[PodMan]

the sony looks so sleek. although the nintendo is not as flashy, they did model the design after the classic Game and Watch. plus they have backward compatiblity. I am looking forward to this nex gen of portable consoles. there will actually be competition and the competition appears to be pretty strong. plus the feature sets on both consoles are a huge leap over anything done in the past.

Pic of DS

Feature set Comparison from SFGate article:

Sony PSP
-- When: In stores in Japan at the end of this year, U.S. early next year.

-- Features: 4.3-inch LCD screen; 3-D graphics; plays music and movie files; works with Sony Connect music download service; and has Wi-Fi for network gaming..

Nintendo DS

-- When: In stores in Japan and U.S. by the end of this year.

-- Features: Two 3-inch screens (lower is touch screen); 3-D graphics; built-in microphone for voice commands; wireless networking capabilities, including Wi-Fi for online gaming.

 

[Edwood]

PSP has three different types of media that it will use:

1. Games
2. Movies
3. Music Videos

As for the audio side of the PSP, it is a huge leap foward in portable gaming sound. The treble does suffer from sibilance, but I think it has more to do the with the headphones and compression in the movie trailers, and music video demos they were looping. But the PSP has by far the best sound I've heard out of a portable system, period.

There are no line outs, only a headphone jack. There is a mini USB port on the top for periphials and other 3rd party add ons.
None of the models they had out had functional headphone jacks, I think they were all prototypes, with most everything hard wired in the back. (they were strapped down). So I didn't get a chance to try listening to them with my Ety's.

OK, this pic has nothing to do with PSP, but it's a fun one indeed. It's a character designed by Feng Zhu for the game Blood Rayne.

Sony PSP is slated for Japan launch for the Christmas season 2004. United States is due for Spring 2005 (they said, probably March), and unknown for Europe.

Sony has not decided whether or not to regionally code the games, but they are going to regionally code movies and music, like DVD's already are.

No prices have been released yet, but rumors are that it could be as mch as $400 at launch, with it possibly as "low" as $300 if Sony decides to lose money on the launch to help gain a foothold. My bet is that it will launch for 45,000+Yen in Japan and $350 in the USA initially.

No word on software prices either.
Still two days left of E3, so we'll see.

-Ed

 

[Edwood]

The Nintendo DS was simply embarassing for Nintendo.

They need to lauch it at $100-$150 max, to do well. They kept up with backwards compatibility, which IMO is crippling Nintendo's possibility for advancing.

The DS is completely designed with Kids in mind, but their presentation at E3, showing corporate executives and other adults playing with it, was just laughable. Especially after Sony's showing.

The DS is pretty bulky too, especially compared to the Advanced SP. While the touchscreen part is interesting, it lends little to any "tangible" gameplay right now. What few titles they had shown, was all gimmick and no substance.

Nintendo is trying to turn the Gameboy into a PDA, while Sony is creating a portable Entertainment System.

Sony has made a fantastic showing for a portable system.
However I can think of one major problem with the PSP.
Battery life.

Sony claims 2.5-10 hours use. 2.5hrs being movie playtime, as the disc spins constantly, 10 hours for music playback with the screen turned off. Gameplay falls somewhere in between.

I can already see some pretty funny 3rd party periphials, like a huge add on external battery (Sony already envisioned an external battery), or a battery belt pack.

-Ed

 

[aos]

Well, GBA is available now and PSP isn't. That's really all that matters. When technology is concerned, 1 year is eternity; who knows what will happen.

Also, as you mention, battery life is bad. So bad that I wouldn't call it portable, and if isn't portable, then it looses most of its appeal. Furthermore the fact that it doesn't actually play standard media (because it is so small) and there is no provision for owners of old PS games and DVD movies to copy them free of charge or even by buying a special recorder, makes the whole compatibility thing moot - the only good thing is for Sony, that they can just re-release old games without having to do any development.

I've read some coverage of this today and came out dissapointed.

 

[minya]

Ed, is the thing on the lower left (that kind of looks like a speaker) actually an analog stick? I've heard rumors that the D-pad was actually analog but it sure doesn't look like it.

- Chris

 

[commando]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edwood Sony had MDR-NC20 Noise cancelling headphones hooked up to most of the PSP's there. -Ed

C'mon man, how are the headphones!

 

[KR...]

What kind of games will it play? PS1, PS2. or something else or all?
Can it play any DVD?
Can it be hooked up to a PC moniter or TV?

 

[stuman]

Quote:

Originally Posted by KR... What kind of games will it play? PS1, PS2. or something else or all? Can it play any DVD? Can it be hooked up to a PC moniter or TV?

from the pictures it seems the disks will be little 3" ones like NGC but in a liddle plastic case, from the looks of things the dvd's are also that size, you will have to buy your hole dvd collection again.

 

[zeplin]

here is what i know about the psp so far to be true...

as of now, battery life is crappy, but there's almost no doubt that it will be fixed before its release in over a year from now...sony would be incredibly dumb NOT to fix this. and as far as the videogame market goes, we all know sony ain't dumb. battery life specs: with movie viewing it is a crummy 2.5 hrs. listening to music with the screen turned off will allow for approx 10 hrs. playing the actual videogames lie somewhere in between.

it will be able to play movies, just not with regular dvd's, obviously. there will be movies on umd disks to purchase, or there will be some way to covert your dvd's onto the umd disk....same goes for the music.

it will not be playing any ps1 or ps2 games. this is an entirely new system that lies somewhere in between the ps2 and ps3 in terms of what the system will be capable of graphics/hardware wise.

the sheer amount of developers already on board, not including the companies not yet on board, is staggering!! there will be some old ports, but from what i've read, there will be more new games plus the games based on already developed series (i.e. GT 4).

imo, having a ps2 (at the very least) quality system at my fingertips anytime anywhere (provided the battery issues will be taken care of) has me sold no matter what. go to ign.com and watch all of the demo videos given by all the gaming companies working on the PSP. simply AMAZING! the Nintendo DS may be cool and the dual screen may be innovative, but when i want to play video games, i just want to play videogames the plain old fashion way. however, i will not rule out the Nintendo and the DS. plus, in about 2 years, the GBA 2 is schedualed to come out. i just don't think having 2 screens is neccessary. nor do i want to draw out my characters with a stylus or have to use a touch screen in order to play a game...unless of course nintendo uses every game to be controlled in this manner. these are just some of the "innovative" ideas Nintendo is marketing the DS to be known for. i think pocket pc's and other creative pc programs should be used and implemented for all that "innovative" type thinking/creating...not videogames. otoh, some people might like it, so having two very different types of systems will reach out to more people...all the more power!!! again though, i will not rule the DS out until i play it. for me, good old playstation style type videogames/playing is all i need and if i can now do that on the road, i'm going for the psp.


>>>oh yeah, KR, i'm not sure about being able to hook the psp up to a pc or tv??? i'm sure there will be adapters (made by sony or not) that will allow for this no matter what.

personally, id love to watch movies on a little high quality screen while on the road. as i've read on various videogame forums, most people don't really like the idea of watching movies on such a small screen.

 

[Rassilon]

Are you insane?
Nintendo blew everyone else away at E3.

The DS looks to me to be far far more interesting than the PSP.
The game lineup (metroid prime, mario, mario kart, final fantasy), as well as the (possible) innovation of using the touch-screen, and wireless capability completely ace the PSP.

Plus the gamecube lineup also beats the pants off of ps2 and xbox put together.

 

[bangraman]

Impressive.


The PSP isn't bad either.

 

[dariusf]

Sweet looking babe

... the PSP look cool too, but the babe ....

 

[dhwilkin]

You know, I was thinking the PSP was looking pretty impressive... right up until the bit about using proprietary media. I already have a big music/movie collection. There is NO WAY I'm paying for it again on Sony's format. If I actually got some benefit from doing so, like improved sound quality or something (i.e. buying a SACD version of a CD), I'd consider it, but right now, no way. And I've heard nothing substantial about if/how you can transfer your existing collection. Oh, sure you can watch/listen if you hook it up to a PC, but then why wouldn't you just watch/listen on the PC in the first place? That makes the movies/music function worthless in my eyes. As for games, we'll see what they come out with, hopefully some good stuff. But, I would've loved to have been able to take all my PS2 games on the road w/ me and play them on the PSP... not gonna happen now.

My other qualms w/ it are the battery life (we'll see if this gets fixed... if not, they just lost alot of sales) and not having a cover (imagine the damage if you accidently drop it on the lcd side).

The DS is definitely not in deep trouble, don't know where some people get that idea. It's not the best thing since sliced bread, either, but it did impress me since my expectations weren't very high for it. It's got loads of potential (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, touchscreen, two screens), but unless games come out that capitalize on this potential, it's just a higher-powered GBA SP. The fact that I can still play my GBA games on it is also very nice.

 

[lan]

Do you have any more pics of other things at the show? Or were you just about the ladies and portable video games?