go sony :chuckles:

 

it just wouldn't be as functional.. cables wouldn't reach as far, harder to plug in, etc.. i guess you could just get a multi tap, that would solve the problem?
what about the memory card slots?

game cube kicks ass. i love everything about it, except that it can't play full sized DVDs. there is a panasonic device in japan that is basically a game cube, but it has a different shell and a different DVD drive, so that it can play full size DVDs... its also like $400, or something...

anyway, i really hope that nintendo can stay in the market, especially with the psp coming out... the info on it seems pretty impressive. nurb rendering

 

nintendo ownz the handheld market, and they will for an long time at this rate, nokia and sony are gonna try and compete using the same principle as sony had on the ps2 (mutlitasks with a single unit), but nintendo has the developer support and teh hardware support (IBM and ATI)

the memory storage is probably all hard drive on that so no need for a memory card (unless you want to transport it to another unit)

 

I think the front console... thing flips down. notice the little handle near where it says... "Playstation2" :chuckles: I think that flips down and has memory card, controller, memory stick, and usb ports. I just threw in memory stick since everything made by Sony seems to have a memory stick slot nowadays. My work even has a Sony mouse with a mem stick slot...

In any case.... I'll buy it

 

um...no. the GC kicks ass because of Nintendo's kick ass first party games.
Sega has nothing to do with Super Mario Sunshine, The Legend of Zelda, Pikmin, Super Smash Bros Melee, Luigi's Mansion, and Metroid Prime.

 

true. i think a big reason that nintendo lost out to the PSone and PS2 was because of the media they were using - ROM cartridges vs CDs. CDs much cheaper to produce, and could hold more information for less money. nintendo switched over too late.

the PSP's graphics will be far superior than the gameboy advance, as they claim it will be more powerful than a PSone... its also rumored that the sony PSP will use their new Universal Media Device (UMD) that can hold 1.8 GB... if this is true people might be drawn from nintendo yet again. the UMD might be costly to work with at first, but sony might just take a loss to promote the medium. the drawback in using something like a CD or UMD is that there will still be moving electronic parts inside that read the disc, spin it, eject it, etc. these parts will be more sensitive to movement, environment, and wear and tear. with a high density random-access type media, it'll be a lot harder to implement skip-protection, and this could cause a lot of problems on a portable unit. the reliability will undoubtably be worse than any gameboy - gameboy has no moving parts unless you count the clamshell configuration of the gameboy advance SP. you could probably take a gameboy to the beach and not worry about sand getting in or on it... take an MD player (for example) there, and there's a good chance it'll die - that happened to a friend of mine. i guess it also depends on how they market it. the MD is a great form of media, and is extremely popular in europe and japan. but it flopped in america because of shit poor marketting.. we can only wait and see. i would hate to see nintendo be reduced to software only.


i think you're right about the flip-down panel. looks like there's a little tab for you to flip the thing down with. and yeah, sony doesn't want to use normal flash chips... they just have to use their own proprietary device that no one else uses

 

Can we say... mini disc? :jerkit:

 

i think the minidisc was meant to be an alternative to the CD, a format that could be easily written and re-written, that was very compact, and much more portable and less cumbersome than CDs.

whereas the memory stick seems to be more of an attempt by sony to make more money, and dominate another part of the electronics market. they'd rather have people that buy sony products ALSO buy their solid state memory cards, instead of being able to shop around and buy 3rd party flash memory from random taiwanese companies that sell it for much less. there's no obvious advantage of memory sticks, they're just kind of cool.

minidiscs didn't catch on in america because sony did a shitty job of promoting it, and the equipment was way too expensive until recently. they started out with a couple really expensive portable players that were too big and heavy at a time where the cassette walkman was still prevalent. they compounded this by attempting to offer a small selection of artists on the sony label on minidisc, and not at all locations. they've basically lost their chance now, because of portable MP3 players. however, consider this...
a minidisc holds 100 mb of information. its a proprietary audio format, but exactly a CDs worth (74 or 80 minutes).

a five pack of 80 minute MDs costs about $10 - $12.
the price of a 16 mb compact flash chip (which will hold maybe four or five mp3s) is about $14, $15.

flash memory is still a huge amount more expensive than minidiscs are. true, flash chips can be written to very easily. but with newer MD units with things like NetMD, you can transfer audio to minidiscs from computers much faster than playback speed - up to 64x on certain models. recent upgrades in the software side of minidisc technology has made it possible to write 160 minutes of stereo audio to a single, ordinary minidisc at a higher quality (132 Kbps bitrate) than the somewhat-standard MP3 quality of 128 Kbps. up the MP3 quality and you'll only be able to hold less and less on one piece of memory.

anyways, theres a good reason why minidisc is still very popular in asia an europe. just because its not popular in america doesn't make it suck

 

Sony is also working on a PSP - Playstation Portable, which is not going to
be compatible with other Playstations - it's supposed to go against the Game
Boy market.
It'll use an itty-bitty disk and have 3D graphics and a better screen than
the Game Boy. But it won't come out till like Xmas 2004.


About the PSX (duh - the old, original playstation was called the PSX!).
This thing is cool, but it's going to be *EXPENSIVE*. I'm guessing
somewhere around +/- 800$. Sony wants to put everything in one box - so it
pretty much replaces everything hooked up to your TV (VCR,DVD,Playstation
2,etc..)