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a pda for games?

i think its dumb to use a disc in a portable. they are going to get more room sure but at the expense of battery life. imagine 3 hours on 6 AAs. prob be worse than game gear

[QUOTE]the Walkman of the 21st century[/QUOTE] sony logo? walkman logo? where can i subscribe?

I already got it pre-orderd! in my mind...

Discs are surprisingly good at keeping power consumption low. The example of a MD with 50 hours is a perfect example of this. Powering a flash device or other solid state memory device can easily take up much more power. Depending on the rotational velocity of the disc, the power could be very low. And since it's for a portable gaming device, it probably wouldn't need to push out much data. The other thing to look at is the real possibility of MD type movie distribution. Note the "the Walkman of the 21st century" quote. Well when I think of natural progression of the walkman, I DON'T think of games. I think of movies. DVD's can hold 4.7 - 9 GB per side. A compressed movie designed for this player could fairly easily fit on that 1.6 GB disc. But they would be real releases, like a DVD. The real question, then, would be content. For movies, they would have to get around the MD problem they had. Basically no content was out for MiniDisc from the start. So everyone had to make their own, yet original players were playback only. So we'll see if that happens. Perhaps the USB2 port is a sign that the thing could read/write to these discs? That'd be pretty awesome. Of course since it IS a portable PS1, games content is a no-brainer. Much like many superNES games are being ported to the GBA, the PSP could have games VERY easily ported to it. Basically send the data to Sony, and they make you the discs. Done. No re-coding, no nothing. It's a no brainer, and since they are disc based, the cost of entry for a game is much less. Unlike the GBA where there is a starting limit of games where your first order requires sales of over 100,000 just to make the cart production worthwhile. These are all presumptions, of course. But I just want to see it!!! How long must we wait, sony! How long! I hope it's smooth, small, and stylish like the GBA SP. That'd rock. And just THINK of playing MGS in full glory on a tiny handheld. *drools*...

to add 2 this... [QUOTE]PSP is powered by super chipsets that take advantage of the latest 90nm semiconductor technology. Alongside traditional polygons, PSP also utilises NURBS (that's Non-Uniform Rational B-Spline for the technologically minded among you) for graphical quality that far surpasses that of PlayStation. The PSP's 4.5" screen is a 480 x 272 pixel TFT LCD monitor that uses the widescreen aspect ratio of 16:9. The video CODEC is MPEG4, and it's estimated that the PSP will be capable of around two hours of high resolution full motion video playback at DVD quality. [/QUOTE] source: http://uk.playstation.com

how about the ability to save and store the games? with the gba, saves are stored on the catridges. with a disc, I guess we'll need a memory chip again... or in this case, a memory stick.

Hmm, I dunno. It's just the 2D wonder that I love on the Game Boy. It's simplicity is the key that has won the hearts of many gamers. I've always loved 2D games. They just have more of a play over and over again feel. Even many RPGs for the GBA (Golden Sun and Golden Sun: The Lost Age) keep on making me want to play them over and over again. I'm not so sure about 3D on a hand-held.

My goodness, 2D games is what I love about my GBA SP. Now sony is going to force Nintendo to make theirs 3D also. This sucks, Now they are going to take my only source of 2D games away and end the 2D generation...

SWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEET!!! I was thinking about getting one of those new GB SP LMNOP thingamajigs or a PDA but this could be good my friends! Although my only worry is what jagedEdge commented on about how the 3d would look...on ALL the gameboys ever made theres always been a bit of ghosting and I think thats why people would shy away from the whole 3d ultra-cool-graphix-roxing-hand-held-mania-machine but if they put a good lil LCD and figure out a good control to operate the games with I think they'll be just fine.

Competition. This can only drive prices down. I'm all for it.

... im sure Microsoft will have some sort of product to compete

wow... this sounds great. im a big fan of the Playstation consoles, and i do enjoy playing on my GBA every once in a while ( pokemon ruby rocks me ) i would love to play a bunch of my fav old PSX games on the road. and the USB2 would open up tons of possibilities... like backing up saved games to yoru computers hard drive, hex editing them there if you liek cheating or al sorts of otehr stuff. and i assume the usb would be used for multiplayer linkups, aswell... my bigest question ATM would be wether they will be trying to fit 2 analog joysticks on it :o (and i hope they dotn amke it shake...)

this is great news, but on the other hand, i feel sorry for nintendo because they being slaughtered in a market that they used to 0wn.

Wow, I'm surprised I didn't think of #11's point. Yeah, this'll be competition, and competition is always great when it comes to console prices. I also dig new gadgets. Regardless of who's making it, it'll be neat to see what Sony comes up with. They have some good design staff. I'm sure it'll be a sexy look. But dethrone the Game Boy? If anything, their timing is good. Wait a few years after the GBA comes out, so the game library will be pretty full, and the gamers will be eager to see something next-gen. It just might sell. I just hope the games aren't too cinematic. Handhelds aren't exactly a medium that draws undivided attention. Pausing and setting them down, etc., are frequent behaviors of mine.

hell yea

finally something to realistically compete with gameboy

even without competition, the the prices of handheld consoles (GBA etc..) are already very low.... so, i don't think the introduction of the PSP will drive the price down...