sony handheld gaME console!!!!

I thought I wasn't gonna get another consolse till the PS3, but I guess I'm gonna get this one now

sounds awesome. i always thought it was funny that no one had felt the need to challenge Nintendo in the handheld market (recently).

got a bit of a wait ahead - not due for another year and a half

Finally someone is hopefully going to come out with a decent hand held. The new GBA is nice and all but the graphics are in my oppion still subpar to that of my old Sega Game Gear.

game bot graphics aren't good at all in my opinion. the reason noone has said anything is because GB is the only truely handheld system. i can't wait, although i wish there was a price so i can start saving up for one

Finally someone is hopefully going to come out with a decent hand held. The new GBA is nice and all but the graphics are in my oppion still subpar to that of my old Sega Game Gear.

You mean the screen quality or something ?

The gamegear was a cool little handheld (made the Lynx II I had at the time seem lame and dated) but it was only a tiny sega master system in hand held form, even played the Master System games with only a slot converter. The GBA is actually a SNES in hand held form, the SNES not only blew the master system out of the water but it made the megadrive look really silly aswell.

I find the limited number of buttons to be a let down on all hand helds right now though.

PSP will bew way better than gameboy becuase it will have access to playstation only developers, like rockstar games (for now at least) and on a 1.8 gig disk thats awsome. The only problem I forsee it battery life, running a cd rom drive on a portable device gameboy sized, that will kill batery life. And, if it is anywhere near the size of the GameGear it will fail, game gear was not portable. . . period. I wouldn't be surprised if this device doesn't see the light of day, I mean, they didn't even show any pictures of it at E3, let alone game screenshots and the standard promo's. We'll see, cuz trust me, how much would I love to play GTA3 on a handheld. Now how's that for mixed reactions.

Originally posted by barkmonster
Finally someone is hopefully going to come out with a decent hand held. The new GBA is nice and all but the graphics are in my oppion still subpar to that of my old Sega Game Gear.

You mean the screen quality or something ?

Click to expand...

I mean in overall display quality. The games on the GBA still look like an old old version of Doom. Where as the graphices on my Game Gear look like that of DoomII.

nintendo better watch out....

Originally posted by applemacdude
nintendo better watch out....

Click to expand...

Sony are going to release it in time for christmas 2004 so Nintendo have plenty of time to come up with something that can compete. Nintendo have many prototype handheld gaming consoles including a portable N64.

GBA SP can still come out on top

The specs of the Sony handheld look impressive on paper but we have yet to see how they will be implemented in this system. While the 16:9 screen and .MP4 playback are features I am excited about, the fact that USB 2.0 and an optical drive are part of the design are not good signs.

USB 2.0 is an inferior technology to FireWire which every Sony computer (including the PS2 until recently) has built-in. I wonder if us Mac users will be able to connect this device to our computers.

As for the proprietary optical media, it may have a big capacity but how will it perform on the road? What I mean is that optical discs may suffer from the shocks and vibrations that every hand-held system is put through in the hands of its users.

The biggest concern with Sony's portable is the battery life. A high resolution screen with an optical drive would put any small battery through its paces. Maybe some new technology that has yet to be unveiled will address this issue but until then I will remain skeptical about it.

Another concern is the price of such a system. Part of Nintendo's success with the GameBoys has been their low prices and with all the features listed, SONY will surely find it hard to compete with that. I suspect that the PlayStation Portable will compete with the much hyped N-Gage, simply because they are both expensive mobile games devices.

This would not be the first time that Nintendo has been challenged by a more powerful hand-held and we all know what became of the Lynx, GameGear, Nomad, etc. The GameBoy Advance is a very capable system and it has the software to compete with a portable PlayStation.

Sol: Word.

A proprietary optical drive, eh? Optical drive's aren't known for compactness. Couple that with frequent spinups >> relatively large battery, and you have some serious issues to overcome.

Unless PSP delivers better graphics than Playstation, I dun think it'll take off. Nintendo just has too much experience in this matter. It's like iPod vs. Zen

iPod: GBA, easy-to-use, nice features, compact, sleek
Zen: PSP, better tech specs, but less user-friendly and bulkier

Which is better-selling?



P.S. - Who really needs 1.8GB of memory in a handheld?
P.P.S. - About the screen, could Sony ditch lighting and go for OLEDs?

3xP. S. - GameGear was awesome while it lasted.

Originally posted by iMook
Sol: Word.

A proprietary optical drive, eh? Optical drive's aren't known for compactness. Couple that with frequent spinups >> relatively large battery, and you have some serious issues to overcome.

Unless PSP delivers better graphics than Playstation, I dun think it'll take off. Nintendo just has too much experience in this matter. It's like iPod vs. Zen

iPod: GBA, easy-to-use, nice features, compact, sleek
Zen: PSP, better tech specs, but less user-friendly and bulkier

Which is better-selling?



P.S. - Who really needs 1.8GB of memory in a handheld?
P.P.S. - About the screen, could Sony ditch lighting and go for OLEDs?

3xP. S. - GameGear was awesome while it lasted.

Click to expand...

I just have to note that when the Playstation was announced everyone laughed also. It had less processing power a CD drive instead of a cartridge etc, etc, etc. Now who is dominating the market?

This should be pretty cool. I probably won't get one, but I wonder how much they will be.

Originally posted by MacFan25
This should be pretty cool. I probably won't get one, but I wonder how much they will be.

Click to expand...

Sony isn't stupid I'm guessing they will be competitive though high at first. I'm thinking an introductory rate of around $149.

Originally posted by MacBandit
Finally someone is hopefully going to come out with a decent hand held. The new GBA is nice and all but the graphics are in my oppion still subpar to that of my old Sega Game Gear.

Click to expand...

I wholly agree with you. Back in the day (what a strange thing for a teenager to say right?) I used to have the sega gamegear, and like 20 games for it. True, it did use about what 8 batteries, per like 2 hours? I think that had SEGA come out with a rechargable pack, similar to wjhat you can buy as an accessory for the GBA, it would continue to be the best handheld gaming system ever made. It pains me to see people buying the latest Gameboy, when SEGA was soo much better so many years ago. Some people will never learn. I suppose this can be applied to PC users as well. Just a thought.

Originally posted by MacBandit
I just have to note that when the Playstation was announced everyone laughed also. It had less processing power a CD drive instead of a cartridge etc, etc, etc. Now who is dominating the market?

Click to expand...

I see your point, it is hard to tell, especially with a phantom product, but PlayStation didn't run on batteries.
(though Sony Walkmans have INSANELY long battery lives, and they constantly spin, so I dunno about PSP battery life)

PlayStation on the go

Who exactly was laughing before the PlayStation came out? The way I remember it, CD-ROMs were very exciting back then and the idea of Ridge Racer at home was something beyond belief.

If the GBA was a portable SNES then the PSP will be the portable PlayStation. I am sure PlayStation-class graphics will be more than adequate for the little screen.

There is no question about the technology SONY can bring to the hand-held market. The question is, will the PSP be as good on the road as it is on paper? Hopefully it will not be too bulky, power-hungry and expensive.

Re: PlayStation on the go

Originally posted by Sol
Who exactly was laughing before the PlayStation came out? The way I remember it, CD-ROMs were very exciting back then and the idea of Ridge Racer at home was something beyond belief.

If the GBA was a portable SNES then the PSP will be the portable PlayStation. I am sure PlayStation-class graphics will be more than adequate for the little screen.

There is no question about the technology SONY can bring to the hand-held market. The question is, will the PSP be as good on the road as it is on paper? Hopefully it will not be too bulky, power-hungry and expensive.

Click to expand...

I think you can look at the Sony laptops and know that they really can put together a class act when it comes to the portable market. Also look at there CD players and Mini-Disc players while your at it.

Re: Re: PlayStation on the go

Originally posted by MacBandit
I think you can look at the Sony laptops and know that they really can put together a class act when it comes to the portable market. Also look at there CD players and Mini-Disc players while your at it.

Click to expand...

I gotta agree with this. I have had a Sony cd player for so many years its not even funny. lol.

Sony is especially brilliant in miniaturization and power conservation. Very dudical.


Assuming it takes off...

Multiplayer capabilities: Wireless-G? Proprietary mesh networking?
It'd be awesome if there was a tactical action game where each handheld would be a grunt, and a computer guy would be a commander. That'd be cool. (I can already see the commercials, sorta like the Xbox Live commercials)

UMDs? Why don't they try FMDs? Buy up the crapped-out FMD company, rename the disc to microDisc, then begin making 15-layer 20GB Minidisc-sized muDs (greek "mu", maybe just mD (lowercase intentional)), Or maybe even cm-thick Dataplay-sized something-GB discs. That'd be sweet.

Originally posted by iMook
Sony is especially brilliant in miniaturization and power conservation. Very dudical.


Assuming it takes off...

Multiplayer capabilities: Wireless-G? Proprietary mesh networking?
It'd be awesome if there was a tactical action game where each handheld would be a grunt, and a computer guy would be a commander. That'd be cool. (I can already see the commercials, sorta like the Xbox Live commercials)

UMDs? Why don't they try FMDs? Buy up the crapped-out FMD company, rename the disc to microDisc, then begin making 15-layer 20GB Minidisc-sized muDs (greek "mu", maybe just mD (lowercase intentional)), Or maybe even cm-thick Dataplay-sized something-GB discs. That'd be sweet.

Click to expand...

Well Sony is one of the ones that has a blue laser HD-DVD player soon to be released and I think they already have the burner out. So I have to assume that the disc technology will probably be from that and that is why they can fit so much on such a small disc.

Oh, and I never heard of a FMD that had more then 8 layers even in a lab.

As I sit here reading this post with my Game Gear sitting at an arms length away I think to myself... you guys forget one GIANT thing!!!

Back about a year or possibly two after Game Gear, 1995, Sega came out with a portable Genesis called the Nomad..... that's right... so now that Nintendo has a portable SNES... Whoooo hooo <twirls his finger> Sega's old portable genisis actually took cartiges from the Genisis and used those... had a slightly bigger screen then the Game Gear was the exact same size... HOOKED into the TV for TV playing... had a built in SIX BUTTON controller ANDDDDD a port to hook in a SECOND standard Genisis controller!!!! This was about 4 years ago or more now before PSONE even came out...

Now why didn't that take off more?

I wish I could remember the name of the system... it started out I think at 150$

It was sooo great but I already had a genisis/sega CDX and a Game Gear so I pretty much couldn't afford it though I wanted it soooo bad...

and THAT system truely was ahead of it's time just like the Dreamcast was (and it started too high and had no game manufactures... grrrr)

as far as the PSP... go Sony!.... I just wish they'd come out with a next generation handheld instead of trying to make old systems hand helds (i.e. the GBA=SNES) and if they make the PSP I hope it's up there with PS2 capabilities and able to hook into a tv and possibly hook in a second controller via the USB2 port like you could with the mini genisis handheld

that portable Genesis system was called the Nomad.

Description of the Nomad and where to buy it possibly?