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[Rumour on]: New PSP without UMD drive to be announced this E3, coming this fall
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I'm not talking about the touch screen, I'm talking about it being a new system, instead of just another PSP revision.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
Oh, I'm not disputing any of that.
I'm just saying that even as a formet used only in one device, there is plenty of precedent for that in the gaming world.
But whatever the case, the big hurdle is price, of course. People just don't want to pay that much for a PSP-only movie when they could instead get a DVD. Or something.
Steam ID: slashx000______Twitter: @bill_at_zeboyd______ Facebook: Zeboyd Games
I would agree with the concept that without a used game market that the money spent on those games would not all go directly to the pockets of developers, but basic economics does not support something as drastic as your assumption that none of the money currently spent on used games would switch to new game purchases if the used game market disappeared.
Can you please provide some kind of link or something with data veryfiying your claim that it is a fact that economically the video game market is dependent on used games. I have never seen anything that even comes close to proving a fact on that, only some very biased, statiscally useless information that alluded to the slight possibility of it. I'm not trying to cut you up or anything, I'm actually really interested in seeing the type of information that would support your conclusions so I can be better informed.
As far as the topic goes the rumored revision is something that might be the tipping point that makes me purchase a PSP if its true. I hate trying to hunt games down, switching disks, and the lesser drain to the battery seems a pretty big advantage to me. I understand many PSP owners already recieve some of the advantages of the rumored revision through modding but thats not my thing. Even though this is something I personally would like my first impression is that it may not be the best move for Sony and could be a huge loss of money or even cause some serious negative backlash from current PSP owners depending on how it is done. It could however be more of a test that could provide some valuable information on whether it is viable or not to have the next generation of PSP be completely DD.
Depends if you are trying to store absolutely everything on it at the same time. With 4gb, I can store a couple of movies, a decent amount of tracks (about 150, and I won't say MP3, because I use my PS3 to rip them to ACC, so size wise they are pretty small) and a full game. At 8gb (which rumour says will be the internal storage of the cheapest SKU), make that a couple more games and/or movies. Back up everything else to a PC/PS3 and transfer it to the PSP when you want it - say, before you leave the house. It only takes a couple of minutes.
I'm exagerating when I say none. There would be offsets, though, and honestly, I predict a net-negative for the money going to developer pockets.
I don't have any specific data, all I can give you is analysis based on commonly available data and my own observation. The fact is (as I've said many times before) physical copies of games are worth more to consumers, because they carry a salvage value. A guy can walk out of a store with a brand new title, and feel like he really only spent $40, because he knows that he can get $20 back for it when he's done with it in three weeks. it adds up too because in three weeks, when he trades that game in, and buys another, he's going to feel like that $20 of store credit wasn't coming out of his pocket, meaning he'll walk away feeling like he bought a $60 game for one third of the price. (60 - 20 store credit = 40. 40 - 20 future trade in = 20.)
Additionally, some portion of used sales actually DO go in to devewloper pockets, because if a game sells out used, then new copies are sometimes ordered to re-plentish, if it is popular. A lot of folks who attempt to analyze the industry tend to ignore the fact that when you buy a new game, no money is actually going to the develoers, but rather, money ges to the developers IF, as a result of your purchase, more new copies of said game are ordered from the distributor. In fact, the BEST way to support a developer is to pre-order their games, because there is an almost 1:1 correlation between pre-orders and additional copies ordered, but interestingly enough, the same folks who decry used games as hurting the industry are often seen bitching about how much they hate pre-orders.
Also, the used game market serves to deal with the very severe pricing issues in the game market. Teh fact is, there is NO good reason for almost every game to come out at $60. It's absurd that they would all be priced at the same spot to begin with, but the fact that they are up so high actually serves to deterr many purchases, especially on the less-hyped titles. Used games allow people to experience these titles at a price they can afford, and while this may not affect the developers directly, it allows the market to be larger, because there are plenty of people whom, if faced with ONLY $60 games as options, would choose to simply get another hobby. We have to rememebr that when looked at the market economically it is NOT just about maximizing profits, it is about maximizing overall utility, and finding the proper equillibrium point. Consumers deserve to have just as much consideration at the developers.
Ultimately, though, it comes down to the fact that A) trade-ins of old games often finance purchases of new copies (and indeed, gamestop incentivizes this by giving extra credit on trades towards pre-order or purchase of certain "hot" new titles) and B) used game prices allow consumers to remain in the market who otherwise would not be able to afford to be gamers.
That's more of a hassle that you are making it out to be, depending on the quality of the hardware that a person owns.
It also means that If I go on vacation and get bored of the games I have, I can't easily drop by the store and pick up a new one. (before you say wifi, consider that A) wifi isn't always accessable, and B) even if it is, it take forever to download a game, versus just popping a new disc in.)
There's no significant benefit to consumer for having download-only games. The current sysatme allows you to have either. Taking away an option is incredibly consumer-negative.
As for the rest, I had written out responses but then I realised how pointless it is. You're clearly never going to change your mind, I'm never going to agree with you, so there's no real point continuing.
Every time I think that you couldn't possibly be more dense you surprise me.
The TECHNOLOGY behind the DS slot is based on Secure Digital, yes, but the HARDWARE is still proprietary.
You don't have to pay a new R&D cost everytime you manufacture a unit, so it's all completely irrelevant.
edit: or wait, if I follow your own failed logic, and point out that UMDs use red lasers just like DVDs and CDs, will that completely change your world-view?
Not really. I've done it both with PC and PS3. Before I owned a PS3, I stored everything on my PC. Considering the PSP has the ability to go straight into USB mode when you put a USB cable into it, and if you organise your media on your PC, you should be able to relatively quickly transfer stuff. Don't bother with media manager crap, just plug the PSP into the PC, open explorer, copy what you want, paste into the correct folder on the PSP.
On a PS3, you just select what you want, hit triangle, hit copy, select the PSP and the PS3 does it all for you. It's not hard, and the PC only has slightly more of a hassle of having to hit Ctrl-C, go to the PSP, Ctrl-V.
There is the case of if someone doesn't own either a PC or a PS3, but Sony should be pretty safe in that regard. PC penetration is ridiculous these days.
that's assuming that Sony don't have something in mind for getting games quickly onto a PSP, like a kiosk service. We don't know enough yet to make these sort of calls. And anyway, if I was on Vacation, I wouldn't be playing my PSP. I'd be doing what I went on vacation for. Travel time, well, 8gb+ is plenty of storage for some games to play.
Faster game loads, better battery life without having to hack your PSP. Something not everyone wants to do. it's taking away an option, yes, but again, we don't know enough about what Sony is planning, so arguing about the lack of UMD's is pointless until Sony unveils everything it's planning to do.
Yeah, sorry, misread your post.
I haven't had issues with either of those since getting a PSP 2000 and an extended battery (first party)
Even so, those benefits do not come from REMOVING the UMD drive, they come from playing downloaded games instead of disc based games. A feature which is available with ALL models of PSP already.
So no, no benefit to consumers at all.
Oh, sorry. I forgot that we aren't supposed to discuss things until after we already know every single detail..
Let's go ahead and shut down the entire internet then.
:|Why do you think I said 'not really'? In that the technology behind it's technically proprietary but that it wasn't created from scratch. And it's only irrelevant if you've already forgotten what I was talking about beforehand, the extra expense of the actual UMD drive. Compared to that, creating a port for flash cards is pretty damn cheap.
But whatever, continue to ignore whatever you don't agree with and be a complete dick to anyone that disagrees with you.
How does the fact that the R&D costs are lowered have ANY affect on the cost of each unit?
And while you may assert that it's cheaper to create a reader for solid state, you're completely ignoring that the individual solid-state media is more expensive than individual discs, which if you are sucessful with software, leads to a tipping in the other direction.
edit: and you whole "not-really_ thing is a load of BS. Proprietary either is or isn't. I mean, all of these different types of media use ones and zeroes. Does THAT make them somehow "not really" proprietary in your mind?
The point was that a lot of the videogame industry relies on kids getting dropped off at Gamestop for hours on end with more money than they deserve. If there isn't a system in place that caters to that, Sony just made a device that invites fewer sales than even the original PSP.
To be fair, the kids that get dropped off in the store actually result in very few sales. It's just an attempt by parents to get a free baby-sitter.
This WILL lose Sony the sales of the kids who head over to the store after school or on weekends, though, which are not insignificant. There's also a percentage of grown adults who don't have credit cards, or refuse to purchase things online.
Ultimately,. the whole point is that what they are doing is shrinking their market, without doing anythng to grow it (the current PSP models all have the same DigiDistro capabilities that these new units are rumored to have)
It is a consumer negative attempt to force consumers to give money directly to Sony, because they don't want a midle-man taking a cut anymore. The problem is that cutting out that middle-man ALSO cuts out certain value-adds for the consumer.
:^:
Has Sony ever free'd up the PSP's restrictions on playing back video? I know back in 3.30 they finally allowed full-resolution video, but for fuck's sake it's still difficult to get a video to play on the damn thing. It's so finicky.
Of course I have an iPod Touch which plays whatever I throw at it so it's a non-issue on my end, but still.