Topic: psp specs revealed

[vudu]

ign.com has an article that shows the sony psp specs.  psp specs revealed

unfortunately, i'm not that technically inclined, so the information in the article means very little to me.  anyone care to explain?

[KnowsNothing]

I have no clue what it means, and i really don't care.  Let Sony release their little (or quite larg) PSP.  THEN, I'll go out and buy a "GameBoy One After GameBoy Advance "

FWGOMH!!!

[oohhboy]

The parts look awfully like the N64. Why include NURBS when HW lighting qould have been a heck of alot more useful? and has it got enough cores? This isn't going to win any awards for intergrated hardware.

Why multi-channel sound beyond 2 channels? This is a handheld right?

No word on the screen. Divx would have no problems fitting 6 hours of video on that disc. Why use such a hungery compressor?

This thing is a frankeinsten. It looks like a whole lot of parts thrown together and half of it isn't got anything to do with gaming. It is going to be so bloody exspensive and burning batteries.

[KnowsNothing]

It just goes to show that Nintendo does handhelds.  Not Sony.  And if Microsoft EVER comes out with a handheld, I'll bet it'll be just as big as the xbox itself.

[Grey Ninja]

I am not really a hardware person myself.  I am more inclined to look at the software available for a system than it's hardware.  Nevertheless, I do have an idea of what all of that can do.

I gather that it will be able to handle graphics about on par with an N64 or maybe a little better, but I ain't going to say that it's outright better until I see some gameplay shots.  The sound capability seems to be quite good, although the speaker present on the unit will likely be quite crappy.  If you want to buy one, buy some nice headphones, or be prepared to spend a lot of time plugged into your reciever.

They have included some hardware MPEG playback, so be prepared for a lot of FMV in your handheld games from Sony.  *sigh*

However, I must mention that they still have not mentioned the power requirements for all this.  The specs are quite impressive, and a lot more than I thought they would be.  But that's meaningless if the power requirements are absurd.  It goes without saying that it won't be running off AA batteries, and will require a lithium ion battery.  But jsut how much life that battery will have remains to be seen.  I am thinking that it won't last much more than 3 or 4 hours tops.

[evilnate]

Quote
Originally posted by: oohhboy

Why multi-channel sound beyond 2 channels? This is a handheld right?

At a guess, I'd say that they're planning on giving the thing the ability to be hooked up to a television and reciever straight out of the box.  It would be a selling point vs. the GBA, since in order to play GBA games on television you have to buy a Gamecube and a gameboy player.  However, like everyone else here, I've got some serious questions about the battery life of this thing, especially given it's parallel processors.

[Ian Sane]

Do you know what I find interesting?  There's no mention of a D-pad, only a "single analogue thumb pad" which I assume is an analog stick.  Even if it isn't it at least means that Sony will actually be changing up their control scheme for once so the PSP won't get a crappy split D-pad.

There are a couple of issues that haven't been addressed and I'm not going to really make any judgment until they are.  Like everyone mentioned battery life is of course a major issue.  Another one has to do with the screen.  What size is it?  Is it lit up in someway?  One of the big flaws with the N-Gage is the sucky screen.  There's also the issue of the system size and shape.  The system has to be small and ergonomic or it won't cut it.  And finally of course there are the games.

[vudu]

i was wondering about the screen myself.  if what grey ninja said is true, and the thing is as powerful as a n64, how are they going to make the screen clear enough to view the graphics?  the amount of pixels that would be required to display such an image is mind-boggling on a handheld.

[MadMan]

Exactly, all the specs by themselves sound great, but when you try to put them together into a plausible handheld they just fall apart.  I wouldn't be surprised if this is the usual Sony "1 million times as powerul, and running off a human brain" thing again.  They're probably going to majorly cut back on the specs before this thing sees release, and by that time Nintendo will have their's out.  Which if history is to be trusted will outperform Sony's spec heavy monstrousity.  

[HiTmaN]

Whys everyone downing the PSP? I think its because deep down, everyone knows it going to blow the GBA away. The specs look great, but I dont think I'm going to get one. I dont really portable game because when I go places I just bring a cd player.

[manunited4eva22]

The reason I am going to down it is because there is no plausible way this thing can be called a handheld. 7.1 sound....right I am only aware of 5.1 headphones and that requires plugging into a receiver. 802.11b support, well either I will be playing a game with a nice bit of lag because of dropped packets, or learning how some guy hacked the mac address and figured out how to play online.

If I ever pick up one it will be to take it apart and figure out how they crammed all of these things into something I can fit in my pocket. Just one more thing on it's size. How many people own a wireless router? How many own a pda? How many own a high end sound card or receiver? How many people have a lithium ion battery?
-How many people wonder how hot something with all of these things will be when probablly not cooled at all in their pocket?

The thing is a heat disipation nightmare. First you have a disc drive. Thats a great start to keeping down heat /rolls eyes. Gee only 20 or so watts Next you have two decently powerful cpus, basically copies of each other with different bus architecture. (CPU has double the speed, GPU has double the bus) thats another 20 watts atleast. Next the wireless. This wont get too hot on its own maybe 5 watts. Sound. if this thing is going to run 7.1 sound through the cpu, it could only possibly be done during a movie, and frankly I have to wonder why if thats the only reason. The only time I have even used 7.1 sound is for 3 classical songs, and even at that, it devoids movies. Have you ever heard of a 7.1 sound movie? For that matter can you name 10x 6.1 movies? There just aren't that many. Now you want to add in the fact that sony will basically control the media, this is going to make for a great idea. Buy movies designed for low quality, forced into a handheld.

Blah, expect this thing to put out 60 watts of heat. For any of you that wonder how much that is, rip off the heatsink of a pentium 3 1.3ghz and put your hand on it. You will get about the same feeling.

Oh well, I have ranted a lot but hey, when someone puts together what is beyond most laptops and says it is a handheld, I have to wonder.

[Clonester]

Quote
Originally posted by: manunited4eva22
If I ever pick up one it will be to take it apart and figure out how they crammed all of these things into something I can fit in my pocket.

I wonder which is more likely- Sony cramming all that into a handheld or someone being able to cram the PSP into their pocket?

Gamespot says the screen will be 4.5 inches. It is pretty clear that there is no way anyone will be able to fit this thing in their pocket. With a huge screen, disk based media, and a $#@! load of hardware, I'll be surprised if they can even make it small enough to be a portable. Nokia has bashed the GBA for not being something you would want to be seen carrying in public. What about a huge "portable" gaming device?

[HiTmaN]

Yes all that, but dont you think Sony has thought of that? Sony is trying to dominate the handheld market now. Do you  think Sony would get all this hardware, and make a gigantic portable system? Think with your brains here, Sony has definetly thought about that. I'm going to guess its going to be between a Game Gear and Atari Lynx in size.

[aoi tsuki]

Again with the “portable” comments? If you consider a laptop portable, then so is the PSP. Pocket-sized it may not be, but i'd expect it roughly the size of Sony's Nx-series of PDAs, which are a little longer than standard PDAs. The disc-based nature of the device shouldn't add much more size, shock sensitivity, or power consumption to the device as any recent Minidisc owner can attest. "Shock proof" is even noted in the specs.

The 7.1 sound is interesting. I remember Rick Powers saying how cool it would be to have Dolby's headphone technology incorporated into a handheld system. I had thought the same too, although power and CPU usage seemed like it would be too high. Looks like Sony's using their own surround sound tech in the PSP to emulate Dolby and DTS's technologies, although it's worthwhile to note that even Dolby's technology only employs five channels (six if you include the LFE channel mixed into the left and right speakers).

Remember that the device will be used to play movies as well, which would be the best use of 7.1 sound. I don't expect it to be used in a real time environment (ie games), at least not all eight channels. I also don't expect it to be true 7.1 sound, with a true LFE channel. In any case it looks like i may be able to finally put my earphones to good use on a portable game system.

Regarding heat, i think it'll ultimately depend on what's being used, although i wouldn't be surprised if it got hotter than the GBA based on the sheer amount of hardware. Battery life will also be dependant on what's being used, but i'm sure it'll be shorter than GBA's in actual use. But if Sony's shooting for an older market, and i've posted this before, what's the big deal? How many of us in our late teens to twenties have gobs of time on end to play games? How hard is it to drop a device in a cradle to recharge it? Have i've gotten too accustomed to my bi-daily cell phone and PDA (before it got destroyed) chargings, or for those of us in that age range is it just not that big a deal?

Now if we could just get some info on price and games.  

[Mario]

Meh, call me in 3 years when PSP and N-Gage are busy fighting for a pathetic distant third place in the handheld market against the current GBA.

*switches GBA on*

DA DING!

[DRJ]

Sony is not trying to dominate the handheld market. At least not anytime soon. They want to get their feet wet in this market and see if they can make some money. There is alot of money to be made in second or third place. Look at the GCN. Its pretty close to XBox for 2nd/3rd place (different sources say which is in what place), but Nintendo makes a lot of money. By the time the PSP releases there will be close to 50 million GBA out there and 200+ million total gameboys. Sony is not going to release the PSP and all of a sudden sell 100 million of them over night.

Besides battery life I want to know the cost. With Nintendo selling GBA-SP for $100 I dont see the PSP competing very well. When the PSP comes out likely Nintendo will cut the GBA to $40ish and GBA-SP to $70 which will really hurt Sony. Not to mention that the GBA will be around 4 years old by then so Nintendo may be ready to release the next version. And Gameboy has like 1000+ games already for it. Whats Sony going to launch with? 10 PSOne ports?

I do like what it can play video, if you can copy a DVD to it for viewing later it would be nice. Also might be nice as a MP3 player. But with all these features the bottom line is price.

[BlkPaladin]

Supposedly they are going for a $200 price point. Another thing is Sony doesn't usally think, as much as people bash Nintendo for not thinking, Sony is guilty of the same things. The only thing has keep their electronic division afloat is their commercials not because they make the best componets. (They haven't had anything near quality since the 80's and their walkmans.)

A case in point is the launch of the PS2 they wanted to get it out so bad they released it with a subpar titles, and without a solid supply line.

And reading these specs they didn't think alot through. If you look at the board of a GBA there are two main chips (rather small) one is the entire GBC artecture they other is the 32-bit MPU. Looking at that list there are going to be be atleast 4 good size chips on board throughing out heat. And judging by the wording of things I have read they are going for power not function. "They want you to play PS2 games in you hand(s)." (From the Gamespy site.)

[PIAC]

33 Million theoretical polygons? o_O im not that tech literate, but come on.. even with no effects or anything thats gotta be BS... hasn't it?

[manunited4eva22]

Maybe 33million texels, I don't see 33million polys though...

[Grey Ninja]

Quote
Originally posted by: PIAC
33 Million theoretical polygons? o_O im not that tech literate, but come on.. even with no effects or anything thats gotta be BS... hasn't it?

Yes.  It's just as much BS as the PS2 being able to do 125 Million polygons, or whatever insane number they claimed.

I am personally thinking that it will be able to do about the same number as the N64, which at its peak was able to do something like 600 - 900k polys.

Basically, the polygon count that they give is with no effects, and the most pathetic polygons you've ever seen.  It means absolutely nothing when talking about the real world, as it gives no indication of what an actual game is going to look like.  It's my GUESS that it's going to be about at N64 levels, but I could be entirely wrong.  It all depends on how well designed the system is.

[aoi tsuki]

Thing is, i don't remember Sony spouting numbers above 60-66mpps. The 70 and 100+ figures, from what i remember, were bounced about by the media. 33mpps is as believable as 60-66 on PS2 given the same minimalist conditions. But the specs seem to suggest that those 33 million polys are transformed and lit. If that's true, i wonder why they didn't release the peak numbers for the first graphics core, which would likely be able to pump out more polys than the second core.

Quote

Basically, the polygon count that they give is with no effects, and the most pathetic polygons you've ever seen.

Haha, if i remember correctly, those numbers were also with no light sources. Most pathetic polygons you've never seen.

Quote
A case in point is the launch of the PS2 they wanted to get it out so bad they released it with a subpar titles, and without a solid supply line.

i think that's more of a case of "because we can". The hype surrounding it was so huge that the masses didn't care about the lukewarm launch lineup, and shortages only upped demand. Nintendo's good for that too.  

[mouse_clicker]

33 million polgyons would be more powerful than anything a console has produced to date, even. I think the game with the most polygons per second is Rogue Leader with something like 15 million, and Rebel Strike is closer to 25 million. No handheld is going to surpass the Gamecube or XBox for a little while longer.

[oohhboy]

You wouldn't get N64 visiuals because it is missing mip-mapping(sp?). Without that you end up with N64 game in terms of the number of ploygons and the same number of textures as an N64 game with the expansion pak, but with PSX unaltered textures which look like crap.

[Grey Ninja]

oohhboy, that sort of crap is done in software.  I have no idea what the system can do in hardware as far as graphics go, and I have no idea how much texture cache it has, so there's a whole lot of speculating going on about whether the games will look like ass or not.

[Ian Sane]

"there's a whole lot of speculating going on about whether the games will look like ass or not."

I think just the fact that it's made by Sony means the graphics will suck.  I mean they're already 2/2 in terms of making consoles with crappy graphics.  Sh!tty graphics is like a Sony trademark.