I don’t know if anyone’s heard yet, but Sony just announced at the press conference at E3 that they will be unveiling their new handheld gaming unit, the PSP, at the end of 2004.
Apparently Sony is shooting for a single answer to portable entertainment. It will play games, MP3’s, movies, and be able to connect to PC and PS2 via USB. The medium is going to be small optical discs encased in plastic, like a version of the MiniDiscs that are out there now. From their claims, it is going to be capable of some mean graphics, and just the 4.5 inch BACKLIT screen is going to be great.There are no pics of software for it yet, but just based on what they are saying this could be some serious competition for Nintendo for the first time in Gameboy’s long history.
Any thoughts? I for one know I will be at my local EB games at midnight when this thing comes out, no matter how much it costs…
Ignore the reference to the PS2, and that sounds like a 2-year-old press release for the Xbox…
I doubt it’ll challenge the Gameboy. Back when the 'Boy was still spinach green, it was challenged by the Atari Lynx and the Sega Nomad - games with color displays and better graphics - and they got absolutely WHOMPED.
I’ll wait 'til there’s some more information on this. If they can get it close to the Gameboy’s cost… maybe. Hell, I might even pick one up (if it can play Minidiscs, I REALLY will pick one up).
The GBA SP is FRONTLIT - this makes a HEEUUGE difference in terms of clarity and depth of colours etc. etc.
As for whether Sony can take on Nintendo in the market - time is the only thing which will tell. Since it’s first opponents chose to make themselves too complex - and thus too expensive to compete - it’s had the market to itself.
Now we have Nokia attempting to ‘get in on the action’ with their N-Gage - tho what I’ve read upto now suggests they don’t have a CLUE frankly - not a clue…
A device which plays MP3s, movies and games isn’t going to be cheap tho - and the cost of the media will be a BIG factor (it’s the Gameboy’s noose - the carts cost too much to make).
As for connecting to things - the tech is easy, but what are you going to do with it? The potential for the GBA and Gamecube to talk has been there since launch but next-to-no use is made of it…
Sony may ‘do a Playstation’ on this market - but they could also crash and burn - who knows. Playstations success came largely from taking consoles from a specialist market into the ‘mainstream’ - that’s going to be a LOT harder to do with a handheld…
I think Sony’s gadget would be kinda cool, if it was priced properly. That being said, I think it’ll be a tremendous flop. “Do everything” machines rarely fare well, and going up against the GBA is suicide. It’ll depend somewhat on how it’s marketed. If it’s an MP3 player that also plays movies and oh yeah, btw, it’ll play PS1 games, and if it’s comparable in price to current high-end MP3 players, they have a shot. More likely, it’ll be pitched as a portable gaming console that also happens to do MP3s and movies, and it’ll bomb mightily.
One thing, though… This thing has to be at least as big as a CD, and has to possess all the functionality of a Dual Shock controller. Isn’t it going to have to be a mammoth of a handheld? I’m curious to see the design. Hopefully they’ll have at least a mock-up at E3 this year that I can check out.
Jeff
I doubt they’ll be able to make the price point they need. Especially since by then Nintendo will probably have cut $30 or $40 off of the GBA SP.
Also, end of 2004?! Who knows what the tech will be like by then? What’s to stop Nintendo from coming out with an add-on to the GBA to do what Sony is adding and just crush them?
People have already mentioned the biggest thing, price. From the press release, it just sounds expensive. Even though it’s caused a lot of criticism, most of it deserved, it was a good decision for Nintendo to choose to honor the <$100 price point above all else. Even if it meant sacrificing a backlight or a headphone jack. Each iteration of the gameboy has been relatively cheap, completely backwards compatible, and simple – it just tries to do one thing and one thing only, making it appropriate for little kids as well as gadget freaks.
Another thing is the discs. Although, as Sony’s PR points out, cartridges are more expensive, they’re also a hell of a lot more durable and portable. Which is essential for a portable machine. If I want to take a BART train or plane flight with my gameboy, I just take the unit itself and put a couple of extra cartridges in my pocket. If the thing took discs, I’d need a separate case or something to keep them from getting scratched or lost.
Nintendo makes great games, and they have good customer dedication, but they fail to realize some basic things… They still seem to have no clue how important image is to profit for a gaming company for one thing. The people who create the games at Nintendo should stay. Everyone else - the ad guys, the execs, etc. - they all need to be tossed out and replaced by people who know two things.
Nintendo’s gamemakers create truly phenomenol console games and should be given plenty of free reign.
Everything every Nintendo exec has ever done since Sony entered the picture has been DEAD WRONG.*
If they did that, they’d be on top again in no time flat.
If I recall correctly, Nintendo manufactures its hardware such that they actually profit off of it. I know it was true with the N64, and I think it’s true with the GC. Not sure about the GBA. At any rate, Nintendo as a company makes money. Based on that alone, the management must be doing something right. Nintendo has positioned itself as a niche product, and niche products can be very profitable, if you know what you’re doing. You don’t need a 60% marketshare to make a buck. Look at Apple.
Jeff
Since they say it can take MP3s etc, it will clearly be able to read writable/rewritable discs.
If they made this thing compatible with the Playstation by letting you record playstation games on the smaller discs, it would have the key “backwards comaptability” thing that made PS2 and GBA desirable to their existing markets. They could even put game demos and mini-games online to download as promotions.
Killed it off? Not hardly! I’ve got my (year old, but still produced) NetMD player right next to me. Wouldn’t give it up for the world. Or $250. Whichever is less.
Hmm… I wonder if it’ll have basic PDA functionality. That in and of itself would make it worthwhile to me; I can’t justify shelling out for a Gameboy and all the expensive games I want for it, but for a PDA that does games well and plays MP3s I would pay a good chunk of change.
SPOOFE, let me have my dreams, okay? I can dream, can’t I? I can dream of a day when PDAs and handheld game machines merge in a divine union of neat technology, to make sure that I no longer have a single productive minute in my life. I can dream of a time when I have one device, one tiny little device that will control my whole life, and make me basically irrelevant. That’s the future I want, and by God, as an American, I’m gonna get it!
Like Sony are going to allow you to download PS games over a cable onto the new hardware. Has nobody heard of privacy?
A machine a lot more powerful that the Gameboy Advance is certainly possible (the GBA uses a very ancient and slow ARM7 running at around 40 MHz so it is hardly cutting edge). The big issue is going to be battery life: a fast processor, possible dedicated graphics hardware, etc, is going to draw a lot more power than a tiny old microprocessor. They’d need a laptop-sized unit just to fit the battery in.