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Introducing the PSP

March 24, 2005 › Sandy McMurray | comment

The new PSP (PlayStation Portable) from Sony is now available in Canada, at a suggested retail price of $299. Each new game for the system will retail for about $60 Canadian.

Although the PSP is primarily a handheld game console, Sony is marketing the device as a "portable entertainment system." In addition to games, the PSP also displays photos, plays music, video and movies. "PSP lets users control their entertainment options, all in one package," says the Sony press release.

I look forward to getting some hands-on time with a PSP soon. Meanwhile, here are some first impressions based on the information I received at a launch event yesterday.

Background
Nintendo introduced the first Game Boy in 1989, and it has dominated the handheld game market ever since. Unlike Nintendo's previous Game & Watch devices, which played just one game each, Game Boy was a game system designed to work with removable game cartridges.

Nintendo's current products include the Gameboy Advance, the Game Boy Advance SP, and the new, dual-screen Nintendo DS. Each new generation of Game Boy brought new features, adding colour, better graphics, better sound, more memory, etc., but the latest Nintendo handheld devices are very similar to the original Game Boy.

Although there have been challengers and imitators through the years, Nintendo's Game Boy products have never faced anything like the PSP.

The Challenger
Sony's PlayStation Portable finally brings some real competition to the handheld game market and raises the bar for game quality. More than one million PSP units have been sold in Japan, and another one million have been manufactured to meet the initial orders in North America. With 24 game titles available today and another 100+ titles on the way, it's obvious that both Sony and its partners expect the PlayStation Portable to do well.

In terms of tech specs and processing power, Sony's new device beats any Nintendo handheld. The PSP offers wireless multiplayer gaming, and the media player features not available in any Game Boy.

As we'll see, the added power and features come at a price. Literally.

Problems
What's not to like about the new PSP? The price, for one thing. $299 is more than twice the price of any Nintendo ~~handheld~~ Game Boy. [The dual screen Nintendo DS game console retails for $199 in Canada.]

Sony is betting that people are willing to pay more to get more. We'll see.

The PSP uses an exclusive Sony storage technology called Memory Stick to store music, photos and videos. Unfortunately, the PSP comes with only 32 MB of storage space -- enough to hold about 30 minutes of music. That limits its ability to compete with music players like the iPod, which offer more storage space for less money. (As of this writing, a Memory Stick that holds as much as the 1 GB iPod shuffle costs $279 from SonyStyle.ca - $100 more than the retail price of the iPod shuffle, which is a music player and a storage device.

Sony is promoting the PSP as a movie player, but this is bit misleading. The PSP can't play industry standard DVD disks; it can only play a new disk format called UMD (Universal Media Disc), which is controlled by Sony. Only three film studios -- Sony Pictures, Buena Vista (Disney), and Lion's Gate Films -- have agreed to support the new format, and no release dates or prices have been announced.

It appears that Sony has chosen, once again, to back a new proprietary, copy-protected format rather than risk hard to its music and movie properties. I guess we'll see.

Wireless
Sony deserves credit for one very smart feature of the PSP: its built-in support for popular wireless technology.

Unlike Nintendo, which relies on connector cables to connect Game Boy devices together, the PSP makes it possible to hook up with other PSP gamers without wires, either locally or via the Internet. The wireless system used in the PSP is the industry standard 802.11b (also known as Wi-Fi and AirPort), so PSP owners will be able to connect to existing hotspots to get on the Internet.

Here again, the PSP fails to meet its potential. The device connects to the Internet automatically, but comes with no tools to browse the Web or check e-mail. The memory limitation may be to blame here. In order to browse or e-mai, you need to be able to store data on the device. The PSP has only its tiny Memory Stick, and no hard drive.

Summary
Ignore the hype about the PSP's multimedia capabilities. This is a handheld game machine with some neat extras thrown in. It may nibble at the market share of digital music players and video devices, but Sony's main goal is to take a big bite out of Nintendo's Game Boy revenue.

At $299, the PSP is not a toy or an impulse buy. Sony will have its hands full meeting the initial demand from early adopters, but it's going to take some convincing to get kids, parents and grandparents to open their wallets.

In the end, this game system will live or die based on the quality of its games library. It will be fascinating to watch and see what happens.

I'll have more to say about the PSP when I've had a chance to play with one.

March 24, 2005 › Sandy McMurray | comment on this item