Prelaunch Sony PSP editorial Part 1
With the impending launch of the psp, I felt the need to assess what Sony's Playstation portable has to offer to the market. Both software and hardware. Instead of drilling down the exact specs, I'm going to just go through what the psp can do. The hardware: The first and major ability that the psp has is games. Games are available on a proprietary umd disc format (just think of a semicircular minidisc) that hold about 1.8g of information. The umd discs are read only, meaning that any game information such as game save files need to be saved else where(on a memory stick)
Now on to the memory storage. Since the psp (just like the disc based home consoles) can't write to the disc, information needs to be saved another way. The removable format that the psp uses, of course, is Sony's memory stick duo pro. A flash based memory format invented by Sony. The available sizes for the memory sticks range from 32mb(four times the storage of ps2's memory cards that are 8 mb) to 512mb, soon 1g cards will be available. The prices vary widely so it is no use even to quote a price, but why would anyone need so much memory to save games? There is an answer which leads me into my third point.
The psp's ability not only to play games, but to play movies and music. The psp plays movies two ways. The first is the psp plays movies off the umd disc. These movie umd discs can be purchased at retail outlets. The first million psp's will be packaged with a umd movie of Spiderman 2. One thought has come to mind when researching the umd movie format. Dvd's hold at the very least 4.8g of information while umd's hold 1.8g. That is a great difference in capacity. What will change for a movie to fit on a umd. Obviously compression will take place, but will it affect the quality of the movie. The psp has a brilliant screen and it would be a shame for it to be wasted. Another possible area that could be limited to make a movie fit on a umd. The special features could always be minimize or eliminated to conserve space. Considering both options it is most logically that the movie studios and sony would want to create a cutting edge compression to both save quality and the special features. The movie must be watchable and should have the same features as a dvd to even merit a purchase of a dvd that a consumer may already own.
Now onto the psp's second way of playing movies, off of the memory stick. Here is one of the reasons for having a large memory stick. Movies obtained through ripping a dvd or another manner on a computer are then encoded to play on the psp using sony's encoding software provided with the psp (since the only encoder is in japanese, at this point, and I can't read or speak japanese I can't tell what the hell to do with it. An average 90 minute movie usually comes out about 300mbs on other handheld devices. So I would expect the same from sony's encoder. The other reason for a large memory stick sizes is the psp's ability to play music. It's not a huge stretch of technology for the psp to do this, but it is nice.
My final point of this part 1 editorial and far by the second most interesting ability of the psp is built in the wifi. The psp will be the first console (home or handheld) to have games support online play right from launch. There are four sports titles from 989 studios as well as some from ea that come launch day will have online play. The structure will be set up very similar to that of the ps2. I will be writing a story on online play when the psp launches march 24, but here are the basics. The psp will connect via a wifi hotspot, no matter if it is your home router or at your local starbucks. You will then be brought to a menu, a lobby really, from there you can select to enter a game that is about to begin or start your own. The psp will also be able to play wirelessly with other psps in the immediate area. So having a group of friends come over with psp to battle them in a multiplayer match is easy and there is no need for cables. Much like Nintendo ds's wireless capabilities. That's it for part one. In part two I will write about the software side of the psp which should be coming soon.stay tuned.
posted by ljbad4life @ 8:37 PM
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