Sony's new Playstation Portable

According to Daily Variety, Sony and Nintendo "both revealed new mobile gaming devices Tuesday as vidgame pros from around the world converged on Los Angeles for the 10th annual E3 confab, which opens today.

"Sony's new device, the Playstation Portable (PSP), will be of particular interest to Hollywood, since it plays video and audio content along with games."

From the E3 Web site: Nintendo's new handheld device, code-named DS, "will offer backwards compatibility with Game Boy Advance as well as a new bay for new DS games. Two wireless communications protocols allow up to 16 people to play up to 100 feet apart, as well as across the internet via Wi-Fi. The console is controlled through Game Boy-style buttons and cross, as well as a new touch-screen interface that works with a stylus or your finger."

"As Nintendo is fond of pointing out, they are the undisputed kings of the portable gaming world," writes Eric Bangeman at Ars Technica, "and they hope to continue their dominance with the Nintendo DS. As widely rumored, the DS indeed has two screens, one of which is touch-sensitive. A demo given at the announcement showed an example of how developers could use the two screens: the DS version of Metroid had a map on one screen and a first-person view on the other, and another picture of the device shows a Mario Brothers game using the dual displays in a similar fashion. In addition, games can be programmed to span images and scenes across the two displays and is programmable in either 2D or 3D.

"Other features of the DS include built-in Bluetooth support, WiFi, two media bays, and a microphone for voice control. The Bluetooth and WiFi connectivity are intended primarily for head-to-head gaming, and the DS will support up to 16 players going head-to-head. One of the two media bays is for GameBoy Advance games, so there should be full backwards compatibility for the DS. Numerous third-party vendors have promised support for the DS, including Sega, Activision, and Atari. Questions remain about the true usability of the dual screen (is it more of a gimmick than something that makes the gaming experience better?), battery life, and the controls not being particularly friendly to southpaws. Pricing is expected to be in the US $150 range and availability is expected by year end (read: holiday shopping season) in the US and Japan, with Europe and Australia seeing shipments in 1Q 2005.

"Touted as the 'Walkman of the 21st Century' by father of the PlayStation Ken Kutargi, the Sony PSP does more than just play video games. In addition to its primary purpose, the PSP can be used for listening to music or watching video on its 4.3" widescreen LCD (480x272 resolution). The PSP measures 6.7" x 2 .9" x 0.9" and sports the same button layout as the PS2 controller. Connectivity comes via USB 2.0, 802.11b, and IrDA. In addition, it has a Memory Stick slot and can be controlled via an infrared remote. The guts of the PSP include 32MB of system RAM, 4MB of embedded DRAM, a 333MHz CPU (proprietary), a Li-ion battery with 2.5 hours of usage for video and 8-10 hours for gaming/audio, and Sony's Universal Media Disc (1.8GB) for media. The choice of optical media for the games over cartridges is an odd one, especially given Sony's poor track record with the PlayStation2 and the increased battery demands over cartridges. The PSP will be available in Japan for the 2004 holiday season and in US and Europe in early 2005. Pricing has not yet been announced, but it speculated that it will be around US$ 50-100 more than the DS."

"Handheld gaming is [still] a relatively small size of the gaming market, generating just $750 million in hardware sales and two of the top games in the $11.2 billion videogame industry last year. But it's a space totally dominated by Nintendo," echoes Ben Fritz in Variety. "Company execs said they expect to lose some market share among dedicated gamers to the PSP, which features a larger screen and better graphics, but that they hope to maintain the lead among younger and casual players."

In a related gaming report from E3:, CNN.com reports, "Nekkid people are coming to a video game near you. Some will be funny. Some will be sexy. And some will be just plain raunchy. At least three games on display at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (better known as E3, the annual trade show of the gaming industry) feature characters frolicking au naturale -- with two of those introducing sexual elements."

# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 5/12/2004 11:40:00 AM

Comments (2)

 
Along with 60,000 of my closest friends I was hands-on with the PSP and DS at E3 last week. Before I tell you what I think about them I need to say that it's almost impossible for me to understand why anyone would want to play games on a handheld device--they entirely defeat the main pleasure I derive from gaming, which is the experience of being in a fully realized world and,through good movement and level design and camera control, having a sense of fluidity and agency in that world.

That said, I thought that the PSP was pretty great. It's beautifully designed and balanced and the quality of the image on the 4.2 inch screen has to be seen to be believed. It is easily good enough to function as a portable movie player--which to me would be its principal virtue. The gamelike demos that were available for playing were rudimentary at best but they did seem to promise a much more immersive game experience than currently available on the (for me wholly underwhelming) Game Boy Advance, Tapwave Zodiac, or (christ help us) N-Gage and cellphones.

The DS is, in a word, nutty. I'm starting to think that Nintendo inhabits a fundamentally different universe that Sony or Microsoft. They continue to turn out signature first-party games that feel quite different, to me, from most other games; they continue to insist on their leadership in the console market while the GameCube becomes increasingly irrelevant; and now there's this: the two-screen I don't know what.

The DS is just, well, odd. Odd to hold, odd to play using the touchscreen interface (poking away at enemies with your index finger or stylus), odd to keep track of the information displayed. The various minigames, from a multiplayer Metroid to a novelty item in which you elongate Mario's facial features, while diverting, we equally kind of weird.

Maybe like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory Nintendo games and products can only truly be appreciated by the pure of heart. If that's the case the company will continue to corner--or paint themselves into the corner of--the under-eighteen market (22 million GameBoys sold!), and perhaps not much more.
# posted by  Graham Leggat @ 5/18/2004 1:56 PM  

 
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