Topic: PSP vs NDS: Capcom Support Rumors

[vudu]

do you mean the just original gameboy, or the gameboy line (i.e. gameboy, gameboy pocket, gameboy color, gameboy advance, gameboy advance sp)?  if you're counting the entire line, then i think you'd have to combine sales of the ps, psone and ps2 in order to level the playing field.  either way, i'd like to see some sales figures to backup your claim.

EDIT:  even if the gb/gba/entire gb line has sold more than the ps/ps2/entire ps line, it doesn't necessaryily mean that "gameboy" is a bigger name in gaming than "playstation".  most casual gamers think playsation when they think about video games.  

also, i remember reading somewhere that the average tie-in radio was something like 2.6, meaning the average person who owns a gameboy has less than 3 games, as opposed to something like 8 games for ever ps2 sold.  not quite sure what that proves, but i'm sure it's something.  

also, you have to remember that nintendo hasn't had any major competition for the gameboy in quite some time.  playstation has thrived amongst a sea of formitable consoles.

[Ian Sane]

"and there's no weaker name in mainstream gaming than 'nintendo'."

What about "Infinium Labs" or "SNK" or "Nokia"?

[vudu]

i wouldn't consider any of those names to be a part of "mainstream" at all.

[matthewwithanm]

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Originally posted by: ruby_onix
And here's one I haven't heard before. The disk media of the PSP is a horrible mistake. Sure, Sony can make minidisc players that almost eliminate disk skipping, but they only REDUCE the chance of skipping. And when you're playing an mp3, and it skips, the song might stutter. If you're playing a game, it will crash. Combined with Sony's infamous quality reputation with the PS1 and PS2, the disk media is a flat-out mistake.

There are definitely work-arounds for this and I'm sure a company like Sony wouldn't miss a mistake this big.  Here's an idea I have...for the hypothetical GameCube GOD-playing GBA2 but I guess it could be applied to this.  Suppose that the GBA2 has a small hard drive.  Say...about 1.5GB.  Then, as the game began, the contents of the GOD could be transferred to the hard drive.  Let's see...at a transfer rate of 100mb/s, that's about 15 seconds.  So after 15 seconds of not skipping, you're home free.

By limiting the hard drive size, you can prevent piracy.

[jasonditz]

If you can show me an optical media drive that can transfer a sustained 100 MB/sec (let alone a portable one), I'll be very impressed. That's a factor of 10 faster than the existing gamecube disc drive.

[matthewwithanm]

d'oh, you're right.  I was only thinking about the hard drive transfer rate.  But even if it took five minutes, you get the idea.

[ruby_onix]

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There are definitely work-arounds for this...

Yeah. There was some discussion about similar topics in the "Likely to cost over $99" NDS thread. I figured I'd leave it to more knowledgeable people.

Although it does seem that the biggest problem from "skipping" would only be indefinitely increased freeze/loading times (if shaking occurs at a point when the unit's trying to load something, or maybe if you're in the middle of an FMV sequence).

Like how if you open the GameCube's door, the game will pause and ask you to close it. Of course, PS2 games (depending on the game) seem to want to keep running if you open the door, until they need to load something, at which point they crash fatally. Some games don't crash. I guess the "error protection" just uses up more system resources, and is only "optional" on the PS2.

Although I personally think that Capcom developers may have been complaining about this (if what that guy said about their opinions was accurate), because Sony's claiming that the PSP's drive is going to be "error proof", just like Sony's more recent Discman units are, and Capcom already knows that's not exactly true. If a Capcom game's gonna be "error proof", it's probably gonna come from something Capcom does (or is required to do), not because Sony says the PSP's drive is somehow as reliable as a cartrige.

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...and I'm sure a company like Sony wouldn't miss a mistake this big.

I wouldn't put it past them. They've made some pretty big blunders. In areas where they're really supposed to know better. They just seem to expect that success will hide their errors. And they'd be right. But self-fulfilling prophecies are not always reliable.

(BTW, Nintendo has had their fair share of blunders too.)    

[KDR_11k]

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Originally posted by: matthewwithanmLet's see...at a transfer rate of 100mb/s, that's about 15 seconds.  So after 15 seconds of not skipping, you're home free.

Harddrives can skip. It's even worse with them since if the head hits the disk the whole device is FUBAR (headcrash).

[jasonditz]

Hard drives also eat power. I've got a Microdrive for my PDA and I can basically only use it when I'm plugged into the wall, the battery (which is considerably more powerful than a GBA SP battery) is gone in a few minutes.

For that matter, so do optical media drives. I would not be surprised if the PSP gets 2-3 hours of gameplay between charges or weighs as much as a slim notebook PC.

[KDR_11k]

Sony said 3-6 hours of battery life (what's that mean, 3 hours when gaming, 6 hours with just MP3s from a flash card?). That's Sony we're talking about, so 2-4 is the maximum you could expect...