Under the PSP... Feature

Rumours that Sony would enter the handheld market have circulated for a number of years now; ever since the Playstation became an instantly recognizable brand, experts predicted that Sony would combine this with their expertise in consumer electronics and release a machine to try and wrangle some of the handheld market share from Nintendo

With the release of the Playstation2, rumours persisted that a portable PSOne was not going to be too far behind.

Whilst this fabled format never came to fruition, we’ve recently learnt that a portable project was in the works at Sony Corporation around this time.

Curiously dubbed ‘Project ET’, it’s claimed that the machine was similar to the GameBoy Advance in size and that both Capcom and Square had committed themselves to developing titles for the ill-fated format.

However perhaps the most intriguing aspect was Sony’s intention for delivering games to the format.

Instead of purchasing games from a shop, the idea was for gamers to hook their machine up to a special kiosk and download titles to a Sony MemoryStick.

Developed with the goal of allowing different types of digital content to be shared and exchanged amongst a wide selection of electronic products, Sony first introduced the MemoryStick back in 1998. Whilst initially the device only allowed 16MB of data to be stored, recent advancements have seen this spiral to 1GB. More importantly, Sony has always had the vision of digital distribution to mind and hence digital protection has been at the forefront of MemoryStick designs.

Whilst digital distribution may only be a buzzword at present, it should be noted that virtually everyone is looking into it - particularly within the videogames industry.

Funnily enough, Nintendo were amongst the first company to look into it with the 1986 release of the Nintendo Disk System; worried by the large costs of semiconductors and the limited resources available, the NDS slotted into a NES and allowed users to download games onto special disks for a fraction of a normal game cartridge price. Unfortunately Nintendo hadn’t counted on the rise of piracy and soon illegal copies and high royalties killed the idea before it ever saw the light of day outside of Japan.

With versatility and security to mind, the MemoryStick should provide some interesting possibilities for the PSP; whilst Sony haven’t officially claimed anything at this point, we suspect the PS3 will feature MemoryStick capabilities and that connectivity between the two machines will be a pivotal feature of Sony’s future plans. Whilst the MemoryStick is a temporary storage medium, Sony has invented a new medium capable of storing up to 1.8GB. The Universal-Media-Disc (UMD) essentially works on the same principle as MiniDisc technology; we’re assuming that these discs will provide the main storage medium for movies, music and games to appear on. What we don’t know so far is whether the discs will allow data to be written to them or whether games, music, and movies will be released as stand-alone titles; if Sony really wants the platform to take off and not be viewed as yet another medium to buy your movies and music on, then we urge them to allow people to use the versatility that such a medium allows. Whilst it’s only a hypothetical situation, we could certainly see ourselves downloading new movies and content to the PSX and then transferring these onto the PSP.

Perhaps as important as the versatility is the fact that the UMD isn’t constrained in the same manner as traditional ROM cartridges. GBA cartridges are currently limited to storing 16MB of data, whilst the cost and manufacturing times are significantly reduced in comparison. What this means to the gamer is lower priced games, music and movies; Chris Deering, President SCEE, recently confirmed that games could cost up to £41, however the majority will be released in the £14-£21 bracket; whilst movies are expected to be lower then DVD price and music albums to be released for approximately £7.

Further to the view of versatility the PSP will also feature USB 2.0 support, which will not only open the scope for a range of peripherals but also connectivity to other platforms such as your PC. The only sticky area surrounding the idea of this much versatility is the issue of copyright protection; whilst we’d all love the idea of having a handheld machine that can be hooked up to your PC to download your music and movies to a UMD, we can’t see movie and music executives being too happy about the increased risk of piracy. Whilst the MemoryStick medium offers digital protection, it’s not known how this will be implemented and indeed whether the PSP will offer the options that we’re hoping for - however if anyone can kickstart the digital revolution, it’s Sony. Whilst Sony has been keen to talk about the UMD and overall features of the PSP, it’s been less eager to talk about actual specifications for the format.

Leading up to the PSP announcement, it was widely believed that the PSP would offer similar performance to the original Playstation - essentially confirming the age-old rumours and hinted to in the name. However comments made since the announcement suggest the PSP will offer a far superior performance to what we initially suspected. Ken Kutaragi, President and CEO Sony Computer Entertainment Inc, has confirmed that several of the PS2 components will be used in the PSP whilst Sony were keen to promote the use of NURBS at the machines unveiling. For the technically less-savvy, NURBS are an intensive way of creating more organic and natural models in comparison to the traditional Polygon methods. We’re going to hold our lips until more information becomes available, however we suspect and hope that the PSP will offer a level of presentation that’s never been thought of from a handheld platform.

It’s also known that the PSP features MPEG4 support, which should allow movies of similar quality to DVD to be easily stored on the UMD medium. Elsewhere the only other technicalities known suggest the PSP will offer an impressive resolution of 480x272, which should ensure an extremely crisp display. If technical specifications were hard to come by, any details on the look of the PSP are virtually impossible to come across. Again taking the chance to speculate, we suspect the PSP will contain the four symbol buttons that have become synonymous to the Playstation, whilst we’re personally hoping for a dual control set-up if 3D games are to become popular on the format.

Many of TVG’s readers have expressed concern over the durability of the device, citing failed walkman’s and minidisk players as evidence; it’s true that durability and battery life are crucial to the PSP, however we’re pretty confident that Sony know the importance of these two areas and expect a similar battery to the lithium-ion device featured in mobile phones and the GameBoy Advance SP. Another aspect that TVG readers have expressed concerns over regards the price of the PSP - surely all of this is going to come with a hefty tag.

However comments made from Kutaragi-san suggest that PSP will be lower then many people had expected, because as we claimed earlier the handheld machine makes use of numerous components that have already been researched, manufactured and streamlined for use in the Playstation2.

We know that SCE know the importance of hitting the market at the right price and have no reason to disbelief comments that suggest the PSP will cost in the region of £95-£150 - not too bad considering the Nokia n-Gage which plays games as well as being a mobile phone is set to cost around £180.

It’s about time the handheld market evolved, Nintendo have had the market sewn up for so long that they’ve designated the progress and perhaps could be blamed for staying in the past for too long. Comparisons to the PSP will likely make the GBA look hideously outdated, whilst it’s a powerful 32-bit ARM processor behind the machine, from what we’ve seen they might as well have stuck a 16-bit SNES processor in there - simply put GBA games are mainly ports of eight-year old SNES titles, no matter how good they are it’s time for a revolution.  The PSP has already been dubbed the 'Walkman of the 21st Century', all we can say is that if Sony ensure the durability, cost and performance and deliver on its promises there's every reason that the PSP will become the next best thing.

Before the torrent of abuse from Nintendo fanboy’s begins, we all know Nintendo have the GBA successor in development, however having seen a brief glimpse of what Sony have in store we’re a little concerned that Nintendo may have been caught with their pants down once again.

An interesting parody to end with - Sony entered the videogames industry with the Playstation and were expected by everybody to fail under the dominance of Sega and Nintendo, fast-forward a few years and what has happened? Could Sony enter the handheld-market with a technically astute piece of hardware and once again succeed because of other people’s failings?