But they're in a tight spot. Taking a huge loss on PSP is risky for various reasons, it's never worked with the handheld game model and they'll likely have to take big losses just a year later with PS3. At $300 PSP will still sell out to the enthusiast market and create buzz... I don't think Sony's looking at the 3 year lifecycle for PSP that most handhelds get, it looks like more of a long term platform to me (6+ years). By revising manufacturing over time, they'll drop the price enough and build up a decent enough market to make it a serious competitor for the next GB. I think we'll also get a new model of PSP in 2-3 years (OLED screen, better battery, etc).Insertia said:
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All PSP bullshit goes in here
- Thread starter bishoptl
- Start date
sonycowboy
Member
jarrod said:
The iPod just sold 2 million units last quarter alone. (3 months). Those are absolutely insane numbers for absolutely any handheld.
DaCocoBrova
Finally bought a new PSP, but then pushed the demon onto someone else. Jesus.
What 2D game is that? Looks like Darkstalkers or something. I want more 2D on the thing. Then I'd buy one.
Smiles and Cries
Member
well to be fair HP plans to sell 1 million HP iPod per month his holiday season
so the iPod has been selling higher numbers lately
so the iPod has been selling higher numbers lately
jarrod said:
They have no choice other then taking a loss. The handheld market is an extremely finicky market and at $300 casual gamers won't bite. Especially when GBA:SP is $79 and DS is $149. $300 with that kind of competition digs PSP's grave before it hits the retail.
Taking a loss even with the arrival of PS3 is a far greater advantage then wasting years of R&D and a chance to break into the handheld market (and at $300 that won't happen) They will break even eventually, so pricing high and not penetrating the market from the start isn't a smart decision.
Sure.. but Sony might not be able to afford to do that with PS3 only a year away. Besides, PSP's got enough industry support and momentum, even at $300 it'll penetrate the hardcore.... then when SCEI can bring costs down, they can drop the price accordingly and drive mainstream/casual sales.Insertia said:
jarrod said:
It's difficult to tell if Sony can or can not afford it considering we can only speculate how much they will lose. But regardless, Sony has deep pockets and for a product with as much sales potential as PSP I'm sure they would be more then willing to accept a loss.
And I agree, at the moment PSP does have enough momentum to be priced at $300 and sell out, but it's going to be the equivalent of PSX's momentum which sold well out of the gate and dropped like a stone a month later. At $300, PSP will be a repeat of PSX.
Sony's 'deep pockets" are in question though, some around here were speculating over the viabilty of PS3 losses, much less PSP. Buying MGM recently took a hefty chunk of change, and by most accounts pretty much only PlayStation and Spider-Man movies are keeping Sony above water... they're not in the best shape financially.Insertia said:
PSX's failure was due to it's design though, not cost. As you said yourself, it flew off shelves... it was only afterward when the negative consumer reactions started coming in that sales dropped. For PSP to be a repeat of PSX, it would mean Sony would have to fumble on the hardware side, not pricing.Insertia said:
If you're talking strictly power, then yes, that's generally true (obviously there are exceptions, but for the most part).BojTrek said:
If you're talking about games, both are receiving plenty of original content, though the DS looks to be getting more at this point, probably due to the two screens and stylus making it difficult for a developer to simply port a game over (versus the PSP, where it doesn't seem to be too hard to adapt the PS2 code for the PSP version).
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Because it uses better, more expensive screen. I see how one could think they should look the same as they are both backlit, but that's simply not true. There are dozens of various backlit TFT screens, all of varying quality.
Project Midway
Member
True. Not all TFT displays are the same.Marconelly said:
And PSP screen has more and smaller pixels.
ArcadeStickMonk
Member
Play Darkstalkers on a portable, against the CPU, with a pad, and a four button face...DaCocoBrova said:
Next 2D game please.
though it don't look bad at all
seismologist
Banned
Insertia said:
yeah but f'n A look at the thing. This is no Ngage we're talking about.
Nothing, really...but I think that if enough "normal" DS games used these features, a simple port that didn't would look bad in comparison. In addition, the PSP is suited for ports of games currently hitting the PS2, which means a PSP version can be developed in tandem. By comparison, a DS port would almost have to be of an older game, which could mean digging up/changing art assets, altering code, etc.MattCoz said:
I'm not saying the DS will not receive any ports, of course -- just that the PSP is logically more suited for them.
In terms of chipset performance, pretty much. There's still some differences though, both good and bad. PSP is only capable of about half the polygon output PS2 is and it's far less programmable, but it also has plenty of hardwired effects that'll make things much simpler and a better RAM layout. DS is lacking the texture filtering of N64, but it has slightly better ploygon output, much faster (and more) RAM and some hardwired effects as well (cell shading being the big one). Not sure about audio, but DS has many more sound channels than N64 and I've no idea how PSP/PS2 compare.BojTrek said:
It's outside chipsets though that the handhelds differentiate from the consoles. DS moreso though... both have wireless/WiFi out of the box but DS also has a touch screen, microphone and a second screen as standard.
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
Far less programmable ? Last I checked they still had a programmable VFPU and more features in the Pixel Pipeline than the GS 
.
.Hey, just the way it's been explained to me. From my understanding, devs could do more with VU1/VU0... if I'm wrong feel free to let me know details?Panajev2001a said:Far less programmable ? Last I checked they still had a programmable VFPU and more features in the Pixel Pipeline than the GS
Also, Pana could you give a comparison between audio on PS2/PSP & N64/DS? Everyone seems to gloss it over, I'd like to know how they compare?
jarrod said:
Sony isn't in the best financial situation atm, but they're in no hole. They've made three multibillion dollar company purchases this year alone.
They're more then stable enough to make it through PS3 and PSP while taking hits. The potential for those two is so great that it's worth the momentary loss.
Camcorders, cellphones, digital cameras, and portable music players are also keeping Sony afloat.
And I'd say PSX's failed largely due to cost. Didn't PSX become the best selling DVD player (or recorder?) after it's price drop?
Well, I've gotta say I doubt it. Finalcial stablilty is actually what Sony needs right now, and unloading PSP at a massive loss won't help that, especially when they'll have to start doing the same thing with PS3 a year later.Insertia said:
And yet, Sony Electronics was in the red right?Insertia said:
Recorder, and that's due to the firesale clearance. DC did pretty well when it hit $49 iirc.Insertia said:
PSX's downfall was in it's sloppy integration. Period. It was a great idea though, SCEI should've done it inhouse imo.
I'm not trying to turn this into a PSP vs DS thread but I need to bring the DS in for a second as a frame of reference for discussing cost differential.
With Nintendo announcing the DS at a retail cost of basically $150, is the assumption that they are basically losing little or no money on the production of the DS at this cost? If so, if we examine what potentially adds/substracts on the PSP production cost, relative to the DS, we might get at a reasonable estimation of unit cost that's about the same level of break even for Sony as Nintendo is presumably getting with the DS:
+ 30% pixel count
+ 28 meg of internal memory (DS has about 4-5 meg internal, right?)
+ processing power greater by approx 1 "console generation" measure
+ (?) optical disc drive instead of remaining solely solid state
+ (?) USB 2.0 connection
- touchscreen capability
- only one form of wireless
- (?) no built-in microphone
- (?) no built-in software beyond system OS
+/- battery type (unknown)
I've put question marks next to the things that I think may have negligible effect on the cost of the unit itself, either way. I think what it boils down to is that the PSP's greater pixel real estate can probably be factored out of the equation based on its lack of a second wireless connectivity option and lack of touchpanel capability. Meaning that the biggest drivers of cost differential between the DS and PSP are probably the extra internal memory and the extra processing power.
If you then look at the next most comparable devices on the market at the moment, Tapwave's Zodiac handhelds, there's a $100 price difference between the Zodiac 1 and Zodiac 2 which are only different in that Z1 has 32 meg ram and Z2 has 128 meg of ram. So, if the going rate for an extra 96 meg of ram is approx $100, then 28 extra meg gets you approx. $30 bump in price.
So that would just leave the biggest question marks round how much the extra processing power adds to the PSP and what type of battery tech it uses and how much more expensive that is than DS battery tech. If we're floating around $180-190 for the cost of the PSP at this point, without having accounted for these two factors yet, how much more will these add to cost?
Considering that the GBA SP retails for $80 at this point, $70 more will get you the DS with:
+ 250% greater pixel count
+ two forms of built-in wireless
+ 1x generational leap in processing power
+ touchscreen capability
+ approx. 4 meg internal memory
+ 2nd solid state media reader slot
+ built-in software
+ built-in mic
Now, of course, the PSP processing power is something more like 2x generational leap in processing power compared to the GBA, but looking at what DS gets you over GBA, its possible that a 1x generational leap doesn't account for the better part of $70 price increase and as such suggests the possibility that a 2x generational leap wouldn't account for more than $70 by itself.
So I think its possible for Sony to sell a barebones PSP at $250 without losing a lot on the cost per unit, but would probably offer a bundle package at $300 that includes extras that generate the perceived extra value for some - i.e. include a memstick, headphones remote, etc. - while still letting them fully recoup unit cost because the extras don't fully account for the extra cost of the package.
With Nintendo announcing the DS at a retail cost of basically $150, is the assumption that they are basically losing little or no money on the production of the DS at this cost? If so, if we examine what potentially adds/substracts on the PSP production cost, relative to the DS, we might get at a reasonable estimation of unit cost that's about the same level of break even for Sony as Nintendo is presumably getting with the DS:
+ 30% pixel count
+ 28 meg of internal memory (DS has about 4-5 meg internal, right?)
+ processing power greater by approx 1 "console generation" measure
+ (?) optical disc drive instead of remaining solely solid state
+ (?) USB 2.0 connection
- touchscreen capability
- only one form of wireless
- (?) no built-in microphone
- (?) no built-in software beyond system OS
+/- battery type (unknown)
I've put question marks next to the things that I think may have negligible effect on the cost of the unit itself, either way. I think what it boils down to is that the PSP's greater pixel real estate can probably be factored out of the equation based on its lack of a second wireless connectivity option and lack of touchpanel capability. Meaning that the biggest drivers of cost differential between the DS and PSP are probably the extra internal memory and the extra processing power.
If you then look at the next most comparable devices on the market at the moment, Tapwave's Zodiac handhelds, there's a $100 price difference between the Zodiac 1 and Zodiac 2 which are only different in that Z1 has 32 meg ram and Z2 has 128 meg of ram. So, if the going rate for an extra 96 meg of ram is approx $100, then 28 extra meg gets you approx. $30 bump in price.
So that would just leave the biggest question marks round how much the extra processing power adds to the PSP and what type of battery tech it uses and how much more expensive that is than DS battery tech. If we're floating around $180-190 for the cost of the PSP at this point, without having accounted for these two factors yet, how much more will these add to cost?
Considering that the GBA SP retails for $80 at this point, $70 more will get you the DS with:
+ 250% greater pixel count
+ two forms of built-in wireless
+ 1x generational leap in processing power
+ touchscreen capability
+ approx. 4 meg internal memory
+ 2nd solid state media reader slot
+ built-in software
+ built-in mic
Now, of course, the PSP processing power is something more like 2x generational leap in processing power compared to the GBA, but looking at what DS gets you over GBA, its possible that a 1x generational leap doesn't account for the better part of $70 price increase and as such suggests the possibility that a 2x generational leap wouldn't account for more than $70 by itself.
So I think its possible for Sony to sell a barebones PSP at $250 without losing a lot on the cost per unit, but would probably offer a bundle package at $300 that includes extras that generate the perceived extra value for some - i.e. include a memstick, headphones remote, etc. - while still letting them fully recoup unit cost because the extras don't fully account for the extra cost of the package.
I know I'm simplifying some things here in ways that may over- and underestimate in different cases, with the hope that these basically balance out. Best a mere layman can do with what's provided for some simple back of napkin calculations. I'm not trying to write the definitive cost differential study here.
Sure, but really the chipsets likely aren't the highest cost in either platform. Looking at things 'generationally' also downplays other comparative aspects (media/drive, TFT quality, etc) that work in DS' favor. What you're proposing is totally unrealistic and hoping things will basically balance out? Why bother in the first place?kaching said:I know I'm simplifying some things here in ways that may over- and underestimate in different cases, with the hope that these basically balance out. Best a mere layman can do with what's provided for some simple back of napkin calculations. I'm not trying to write the definitive cost differential study here.
We're looking at generation shifts here, Kaching brought up the comparison between GBA to DS to PSP being 3 generaional shifts. The analogy works.kpop100 said:
Wasn't my intent to downplay anything, else I would have left certain things off the list entirely but which I instead included for others to weigh in on. Its just representative of my personal evaluation of various tech trends in the portable/handheld arena. I think there's still value in establishing a baseline of feature differentials in order to ultimately get at a reasonable deduction of cost differential. I'm more than happy for anyone to provide more accurate information that better situates each factor's proportional significance to cost relative to other factors.
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Yes, and with PSP you can do other things, not any less advanced or interesting. It all bogs down to that they are both fashionable looking, solidly built devices that utilizes some sort of high tech, and are (or will most likely be) priced appropriately (hell, iPod is actually way behind as far as tech goes compared to PSP). I think PSP would do just fine at $300 as long as good games are there to get people interested beyond the 'wow' this looks awesome' point.
Teh old?
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/15/news_6110669.html
TOKYO--In an interview with Impress Game Watch, Sony Computer Entertainment's chief of network system department Izumi Kawanishi confirmed that the PSP will be capable of downloading games via wireless LAN and playing them off a Memory Stick.
Whether Sony will take advantage of the functionality in the early period after the handheld's release is another issue entirely. But the capability can allow the company to distribute game demos in a similar fashion to what Nintendo announced for the Nintendo DS press event last week.
"It is technically possible" for the PSP to download games and save them on the Memory Stick, said Kawanishi. "But we want to push the Universal Media Disc (UMD) in the beginning, so we will start off with the release of games on disc."
Kawanishi noted UMD as used in the PSP is a read-only medium, meaning any data recording will have to use a Memory Stick. He went on to confirm that saved game play data for PSP games will also be recorded on the Memory Stick. And since data on the Memory stick can be accessed by connecting the PSP to a PC via USB ports, you'll be able to copy your saved data to your PC and retrieve it whenever you want.
While this sounds like a welcoming invitation to users that want to hack their game data, Kawanishi mentioned that SCE will be taking steps to prevent against such occurrences.
Later in the interview, Kawanishi noted that SCE is planning to give the PSP a resume function so that the player can stop playing the game at any time, and continue from that state later on. "It can really be done in software," commented Kawanishi. "The game developers can make and use their own various resume systems [in their games]. We're also planning to include a resume function on the PSP's internal software [firmware]."
Kawanishi confirms that the PSP will be able to run massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, which was first hinted late last month when SCE updated its PSP game line up, listing a to-be-named MMORPG as one of its titles in development. "Network games will be no problem" comments Kawanishi. "They can be produced just like the ones for the PlayStation 2."
When asked what would happen if the UMD is ejected while a game is running, Kawanashi answered that while it is not something users should do, there wouldn't be major issues. "The lid can be opened at any time, and what happens [to the game after that] can be controlled by the software," commented Kawanishi. "It's the same structure as the PlayStation or PlayStation 2. With most PlayStation 2 games, you can continue playing the game again once you close the disc tray."
For movie UMDs, Kawanishi comments that SCE is planning to give UMDs a region lock that follows the current industry standard, such as DVD-video.
Kawanishi, like every other Sony executive, avoided making specific comments on the PSP's battery life. He did state that the handheld can play back a full-length feature film and still have battery power left over. Charging the battery will be done by connecting the PSP to an AC adapter, and you'll be able to play games while the battery is being charged up.
Kawanishi stated that battery charge time should be similar to that of modern mobile phones (average mobile phones in Japan recharge in under two hours). Additional batteries will be available for purchase separately for the PSP, which uses a detachable battery rather than an internal battery. Kawanishi says that SCE decided to go with a detachable battery since the user can simply swap them out when the battery gets low.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/15/news_6110669.html
TOKYO--In an interview with Impress Game Watch, Sony Computer Entertainment's chief of network system department Izumi Kawanishi confirmed that the PSP will be capable of downloading games via wireless LAN and playing them off a Memory Stick.
Whether Sony will take advantage of the functionality in the early period after the handheld's release is another issue entirely. But the capability can allow the company to distribute game demos in a similar fashion to what Nintendo announced for the Nintendo DS press event last week.
"It is technically possible" for the PSP to download games and save them on the Memory Stick, said Kawanishi. "But we want to push the Universal Media Disc (UMD) in the beginning, so we will start off with the release of games on disc."
Kawanishi noted UMD as used in the PSP is a read-only medium, meaning any data recording will have to use a Memory Stick. He went on to confirm that saved game play data for PSP games will also be recorded on the Memory Stick. And since data on the Memory stick can be accessed by connecting the PSP to a PC via USB ports, you'll be able to copy your saved data to your PC and retrieve it whenever you want.
While this sounds like a welcoming invitation to users that want to hack their game data, Kawanishi mentioned that SCE will be taking steps to prevent against such occurrences.
Later in the interview, Kawanishi noted that SCE is planning to give the PSP a resume function so that the player can stop playing the game at any time, and continue from that state later on. "It can really be done in software," commented Kawanishi. "The game developers can make and use their own various resume systems [in their games]. We're also planning to include a resume function on the PSP's internal software [firmware]."
Kawanishi confirms that the PSP will be able to run massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, which was first hinted late last month when SCE updated its PSP game line up, listing a to-be-named MMORPG as one of its titles in development. "Network games will be no problem" comments Kawanishi. "They can be produced just like the ones for the PlayStation 2."
When asked what would happen if the UMD is ejected while a game is running, Kawanashi answered that while it is not something users should do, there wouldn't be major issues. "The lid can be opened at any time, and what happens [to the game after that] can be controlled by the software," commented Kawanishi. "It's the same structure as the PlayStation or PlayStation 2. With most PlayStation 2 games, you can continue playing the game again once you close the disc tray."
For movie UMDs, Kawanishi comments that SCE is planning to give UMDs a region lock that follows the current industry standard, such as DVD-video.
Kawanishi, like every other Sony executive, avoided making specific comments on the PSP's battery life. He did state that the handheld can play back a full-length feature film and still have battery power left over. Charging the battery will be done by connecting the PSP to an AC adapter, and you'll be able to play games while the battery is being charged up.
Kawanishi stated that battery charge time should be similar to that of modern mobile phones (average mobile phones in Japan recharge in under two hours). Additional batteries will be available for purchase separately for the PSP, which uses a detachable battery rather than an internal battery. Kawanishi says that SCE decided to go with a detachable battery since the user can simply swap them out when the battery gets low.
A movie that shows how to put the UMD in the drive:
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20041014/psp_oc.mpg
http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20041014/psp_oc.mpg
Lord Error
Insane For Sony
Are you crazy! Enjoy paying $300-400 per game
P
Smiles and Cries
Member
I demand Sticky Thread for this
Panajev2001a
GAF's Pleasant Genius
These are positive news IMHO.
Rainbow L33T
Member
I wonder if they'll really do it though.Upgrade download no problem,but a whole game,humm,I wonder if people are ready.
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