the PSP article

[NFG]

The PSP thread was wiped out in a horrible, horrible database corruption last night.  My humblest apologies.  As of now backups will be made several times per day.  Here's a rough draft of my post that started this thread last time:

I started off with a reminder that this is still only a prototype system, and that all this fanboy lunacy is as productive as masturbating the last cow on earth.  Only one of you's gonna enjoy it and when your done nothing has changed.  Here's the post:

I think we're all agreed that the buttons look a bit like celphone buttons, with miniscule movement and a very resistant 'click' before contact. If the PSP uses these, it would be bad. I don't think it will, it's not hard to make a button that moves only a little and still performs and feels well. many modern pads feel too mushy, and could do with a little less play IMO; there's certainly room for most any kind of mechanism under there, so I'm not worried so much about that as the fact that there doesn't appear to be any tactile indication of a button's location. Are they convex or concave? A couple of positioning dots like the F and J keys on your keyboard (or like most of Sony's media players) maybe? being able to locate the buttons without looking away from the screen is crucial.

The pad, from what Sony's always said, will be analogue. Making it flat will decrease the chances of a stick snapping off in your pocket, which is nice, but how does that work? My guess was the outer ring would move, or perhaps the concentric rings would act like a series of separate discs so that when fully pressed there would be a stair-case-like profile. There's no way the center button is a stick, unless it pops out of the deck - you can't move it without contacting the next ring, and there's no 'grip' surface on it. No way you'd have success moving a shiny surface horizontally with any accuracy.

This thing still screams prototype, and I think it's highly unlikely it's the final form. It may be suggestive of the final, but I'd be willing to bet it won't look exactly like that when it's finished. This unit clearly isn't even a prototype, with the fake screen inside. It's quite probable the buttons were merely painted on this device to show the layout.

The final product probably will be smooth for better pocket sliding, but there has to be a tactile difference between control and non-control surfaces, so this is pretty obviously (IMHO) not going to be the final design. There's no sign of an eject mechanism either - I think we're being misled, or at the very least, shown a 'what sony hopes it'll look like' mockup.

[Vertigo]

I'm sort of wondering why the snap-off lid, really. Easily-losable, so you leave it at home, and your screen gets scratched to shit.
I have a theory on the pad, but apparently it's wrong. They could have a normal 8-way pad but please not like the PS pads, coz the chasms in between the 4 directions make them so hard to use extensively, but have them function like PS2 pad buttons, in an analog fashion.

[NFG]

I haven't seen any pictures with a snap off lid, to what are you referring?

[Vertigo]

The main concept pic that everyone's seen. There's one that shows that machine with it's lid seperate. I can't find it now though, just pics of the unit complete and sans hat.
And to quote GameSpot, even though I know I shouldn't take absolutely everything as gospel: " the concept art of the PSP showed a thin, rounded rectangular handheld game deck with a 4.5-inch 16:9 letterbox LCD screen, sporting a snap-on cover and hand lanyard."
I know it's only concept art, but with Sony's track record it is likely to be highly representative of the final product.
In other news, does anyone else have the Sony Design Centre book? It's great.

[Haohmaru]

As my previous (lost) post summarized, I could care less about the PSP. The GBA SP, Zodiac, and impending cell phone phenomenon are enough to whet my appetite for portability. Maybe I'm disenchanted because it says "Sony" on it. I dunno.

[NFG]

I'd have to say you're disenchanted 'cause it says Sony on it.  The GBA/SP is a pile of poo, regardless of how you like the games the hardware is 1996-era and the screen is complete crap.  Even the SP doesn't solve the issues, reverting to a hand-cramping flat GBC-profile with a blue-tinted frontlight and un-great pad design.  The Zodiac still doesn't strike me as a proper game machine, and celphone gaming, as much as I like it, doesn't have the kind of flexibility the PSP looks to.  

So far the GP32 is the handheld of choice for me.  If Sony's new beast was going to be in any way an open platform I'd be thrilled to bits.  That kind of powerful hardware is stunning to me, with both radio + infrared wireless to boot.  Shame we're gonna get the typical Sony region-protected price fixing ass fucking we always got, but in terms of hardware and capability I'm expecting it to be the king hands down.

[Haohmaru]

I'd have to say you're disenchanted 'cause it says Sony on it.  The GBA/SP is a pile of poo, regardless of how you like the games the hardware is 1996-era and the screen is complete crap.  Even the SP doesn't solve the issues, reverting to a hand-cramping flat GBC-profile with a blue-tinted frontlight and un-great pad design.  The Zodiac still doesn't strike me as a proper game machine, and celphone gaming, as much as I like it, doesn't have the kind of flexibility the PSP looks to.  

So far the GP32 is the handheld of choice for me.  If Sony's new beast was going to be in any way an open platform I'd be thrilled to bits.  That kind of powerful hardware is stunning to me, with both radio + infrared wireless to boot.  Shame we're gonna get the typical Sony region-protected price fixing ass fucking we always got, but in terms of hardware and capability I'm expecting it to be the king hands down.

Yuck. I'll take the SP and its awesome library over the fledgling/unproven PSP any day. I might sound like I'm anti-Sony, but you're up a similar tree with regards to Nintendo. Fire Emblem, Tactics Advance, Tactics Ogre, Advance Wars (x2), and many many more from a wide variety of genres? Hell, yes.

The GP32 is cool, but it's very limited, has no support, and it's more of a "tinkerer's dream" than an acceptable every day handheld system.

I'll hold off on my perception of the Zodiac until I have one, which should be soon.

[NFG]

I refer mostly to the hardware.  I have hope for the PSP because it'll be very capable.  I loath the GBA because it's really terrible hardware.  Every time I look at it I think of how many things they did wrong, and how uncomfortable it is to hold.  If I'm at all looking forward to the PSP I'm ten times more excited about the new Nintendo handheld.  You just know Nin's been stockpiling their dimes, releasing antiquated crap like the GBA because they knew they'd need the money for a real system someday.  =)