PSP Official Discussion thread.

[areaseven]

Now for some anime on UMD news, courtesy of the Anime News Network:

Stateside UMD Releases from Bandai

Bandai Entertainment is planning on releasing some of their theatrical titles on UMD later this year. While nothing is finalized yet, they are looking at titles that will "mesh well with gamers," for example Gundam Seed Movie 1, Escaflowne: The Movie and one other unnamed catalog title.

At this time it isn't clear whether or not Bandai will be able to include multiple audio tracks and subtitles on the UMD releases. As the product and authoring process is brand new, the limitations of the technology aren't entirely clear at this point.

Bandai is looking at a $19.98 price point for the UMD releases, which will not be bundled with regular DVDs.

[bandit29]

Some of these movies are 29.99 at Best Buy. That's more than the DVD version and with no extras etc.. What a rip off   Considering that probably most of these movies made made a profit already, its pure greed.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?ty...mcat56200050011

they are? I was just there on tuesday and they had a whole section and the prices were all 14.99. Are you sure it was 29.99?

I called my local Best Buy to see how much they wanted for House of Flying Daggers, and they said $19.99.

Well if ya would click on the link you'd see that some(like I said) are 29.99 on Best Buy.com. Haven't seen them in the stores yet.

Kill Bill Vol 1(not even the uncut version), Pirates of the Carribean, National Treasure, and Regin of Fire are 29.99. The rest are between 14.99-19.99.

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

i read an article somewhere that the psp has the ability to be overclocked? is that good?

[JB0]

i read an article somewhere that the psp has the ability to be overclocked? is that good?

It just is.

Technically, everything can be overclocked.

Just a matter of how easy it is.

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

it said in the article that it was easy...i guess there's gonna be some guys doin' that to their psp's...but making them work faster will make the battery life last less right? i would imagine that they'd be more power hungry than they are now

[NSJ23]

A question for people (like me) that hate card battle games but like the Metal Gear series. Is Acid worth picking up? If you like card games don't answer.

Thanks.

[Gunbuster]

it said in the article that it was easy...i guess there's gonna be some guys doin' that to their psp's...but making them work faster will make the battery life last less right? i would imagine that they'd be more power hungry than they are now

I was going to say that, why do you would u want to overclock it, the battery life is already short enough and you want it to be shorter?

[Zentrandude]

Don't know why you want to overclock a handheld. overclock would just make the games run faster since there isnt any speed control in them. homebrew games for psp starting to look dim with the magicgate technology being tightly guarded plus homebrew games suck majorly anyways (gameboy has tons of homebrew stuff but its mostly pictures and engine demos that do one thing so I doubt if a PSP homebrew came out it would better)

[JB0]

Don't know why you want to overclock a handheld. overclock would just make the games run faster since there isnt any speed control in them.

Actually, it depends totally on the game.

Most modern games actually DO use a clock with actual speed control code.

homebrew games for psp starting to look dim with the magicgate technology being tightly guarded plus homebrew games suck majorly anyways (gameboy has tons of homebrew stuff but its mostly pictures and engine demos that do one thing so I doubt if a PSP homebrew came out it would better)

Pfft.

Look at the homebrews for the pre-NES stuff.

Got software coming out over there that's as good as or even better than many commercial releases.

Same applies to PC homebrews.

Homebrews aren't inherently bad. There's just a lot of people that can't be bothered to learn how to do anything more than draw a background, so they make a pornographic slideshow.

[Zentrandude]

not for handhelds and consuls, its not needed since programmers know the specs of the machine unlike pc where its a super huge varible.

link

If its controllable like the GBA accel it would be nice to slow it down once in awhile when playing wipeout but its just a simple overclock methud so its just stuck on fast or what you got it on at when you modded it.

only real purpose for simple overclock is emulation of other systems in the handheld.

for homebrews

gba dev

pdroms

only good homebrews are some apps but games, its just meh. When magicgates gets cracked it will follow the same path. current ps2 homebrews are tetris and space invaders.

sure they might be few programmers that makes something very good but I would bet he/she would be hired by game companies to work for them and he/she would drop the current freeware project.

for the battery problem with psp I hope they come out with this windup charger for it like for the gba. I could see it now.

psp owner: hold up let my charge my psp. *whizzzzz whizzzz whizzzz whizzzz hoff hofff hofff (2 mins later) whizzz whizzz whizzz whizzz*

(30 mins later)

psp owner: K think I charged it up enough to play for 5 minutes.

Edited April 23, 2005 by Zentrandude

[JB0]

not for handhelds and consuls, its not needed since programmers know the specs of the machine unlike pc where its a super huge varible.

And yet, you can overclock a Genesis and NOT break everything, though it DOES fix slowdown issues.

It's just EASIER to use a timer loop.

sure they might be few programmers that makes something very good but I would bet he/she would be hired by game companies to work for them and he/she would drop the current freeware project.

Hasn't happened yet.

The authors of most good homebrew games haven't been hired.

[Zentrandude]

you can break a gensis as easily as other systems depending oh how extreme you go and your mod skills.

link

Heh also its a nice trap you set. but its not bullet proof there is some games (Sonic the Hedgehog 2) thats with the mod runs faster than it suposed to be and when it hits a spot where it would slow down it would go down to normal speed (best way to word it i guess 125%speed then slows down to 100% compared to 100% then slows down to 75%).

It would be hard to prove or disprove it, lots of homebrew programers don't host a site for a single game. But if the programmer drops out of the HB scene it can be only 2 things, he/she got tired of HBs or he/she got hired.

[JB0]

you can break a gensis as easily as other systems depending oh how extreme you go and your mod skills.

link

Heh also its a nice trap you set. but its not bullet proof there is some games (Sonic the Hedgehog 2) thats with the mod runs faster than it suposed to be and when it hits a spot where it would slow down it would go down to normal speed (best way to word it i guess 125%speed then slows down to 100% compared to 100% then slows down to 75%).

It would be hard to prove or disprove it, lots of homebrew programers don't host a site for a single game. But if the programmer drops out of the HB scene it can be only 2 things, he/she got tired of HBs or he/she got hired.

Bleh. Only Genesis games I have with slowdown ARE Sonic games.

Anyways, I wouldn't really have expected it to be bullet-proof. But as I understand things, it works on the vast majority of games with no hitches.

HAHA! They overclock the NES?

...

I wonder how many games that works well on. If ever a system needed a bit more power, it was the NES.

[Zentrandude]

yah i saw that. funny since it messes it up graphicly way more then a megadrive depending on how much you oc it.

[JB0]

yah i saw that.  funny since it messes it up graphicly way more then a megadrive depending on how much you oc it.

Yah. Can't say I'm surprised.

Older system, more simplistic programming, more "integrated" hardware.

As you get more modern, the components are less closely tied to each other, and the software coding gets more complicated.

Genesis and SNES both have multiple processors running at diffrent clockrates, for example.

And on the SNES, you HAVE to use both of them, since the only chip in the system that can acess the sound hardware is the SPC700 processor(the sound system is really like it's own independent computer), but the main processor that everything else talks to is the 65816.

...

Of course, there's exceptions. 2600 games all have timers, because they HAVE to.

No VSync signal internally, and the system draws scanlines, not frames. So if the game doesn't start a 1/60 second timer at power up, it doesn't know when to draw what line.

Edited April 24, 2005 by JB0

[mikeszekely]

i read an article somewhere that the psp has the ability to be overclocked? is that good?

It's not so much that you can overclock it... it's more that most PSP games are running with the processor deliberately underclocked.

The PSP's processor is supposed to be a 333mHz chip. But the games released so far run it at 222mhz. This is apparently done to conserve the battery power. Sony has said that, on a case by case basis, some games may actually run at the full 333mHz, with Gran Turismo 4 Mobile supposedly being the first.

[JB0]

i read an article somewhere that the psp has the ability to be overclocked? is that good?

It's not so much that you can overclock it... it's more that most PSP games are running with the processor deliberately underclocked.

The PSP's processor is supposed to be a 333mHz chip. But the games released so far run it at 222mhz. This is apparently done to conserve the battery power. Sony has said that, on a case by case basis, some games may actually run at the full 333mHz, with Gran Turismo 4 Mobile supposedly being the first.

Oh, so GT4's been exempted from Sony's "games must conform to our battery life estimate" rule?

That IS why the games are running slow. Sony told the developers that their games WOULD NOT be licensed if they drained the battery faster than Sony's "estimated" battery life.

Apparently now that they've cemented the PSP's battery life "estimate" as a real-world number, they're going to start letting games miss it.

[Limbo]

Is more like they underclock the PSP so the reviews of battery juice during launch would be better. I expect games that use heavy streaming, like Grand Theft Auto, where the whole world is being streamed all the time to last 3 hours at it best

[mikeszekely]

i read an article somewhere that the psp has the ability to be overclocked? is that good?

It's not so much that you can overclock it... it's more that most PSP games are running with the processor deliberately underclocked.

The PSP's processor is supposed to be a 333mHz chip. But the games released so far run it at 222mhz. This is apparently done to conserve the battery power. Sony has said that, on a case by case basis, some games may actually run at the full 333mHz, with Gran Turismo 4 Mobile supposedly being the first.

Oh, so GT4's been exempted from Sony's "games must conform to our battery life estimate" rule?

That IS why the games are running slow. Sony told the developers that their games WOULD NOT be licensed if they drained the battery faster than Sony's "estimated" battery life.

Apparently now that they've cemented the PSP's battery life "estimate" as a real-world number, they're going to start letting games miss it.

As much as I like the PSP, and as much as I'm usually inclined to argue against your cynicism, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. And are you really suprised that the first game to be exempt is published by Sony?

I'd complain more, but it seems I'm always pretty close to an electrical outlet. Longest I've gone without was while I was playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour for an hour and a half while my wife was shopping at T.J. Maxx. I suppose, though, that's why I have a car charger.

Hopefully somebody, most likely a third party, will release a battery with a higher capacity/longer life than the regular one.

Oh, and has anyone seen those Power Bricks? They seem pretty cool. I might be tempted to try one...

Edited April 24, 2005 by mikeszekely

[JB0]

As much as I like the PSP, and as much as I'm usually inclined to argue against your cynicism, you've pretty much hit the nail on the head. And are you really suprised that the first game to be exempt is published by Sony?

Didn't know it was a Sony game, honestly. The attention I pay to racing games is pretty minimal.

And it's not like it wasn't a highly-publicized fact in advance that the PSP battery life estimates would be right because Sony was only licensing games that met the battery life expectations.

Which, honestly, I never expected to last. They didn't put all those transistors in there to sit idle.

This is where my cynicism kicked in, after a logical evaluation of the issue.

[goldenboy_forever]

Hi guys I went to the local japanese electronis store in san jose they were doing system up grades for the japanese version psp for like 30 buck in stead of what other competetors were charging 50 bucks. does any one know what these system upgrades are I tryed to ask the lady what is was but she doesn't know. Also I heard they may do a region code for the games later so japan games only play on the japanese psp and american psp games only play on the american psp?

from Rich

[Zentrandude]

im guessing the firmware upgrade that the us version has when it came out.

[mikeszekely]

Hi guys I went to the local japanese electronis store in san jose they were doing system up grades for the japanese version psp for like 30 buck in stead of what other competetors were charging 50 bucks. does any one know what these system upgrades are I tryed to ask the lady what is was but she doesn't know. Also I heard they may do a region code for the games later so japan games only play on the japanese psp and american psp games only play on the american psp?

from Rich

Well, as Zentrandude mentioned, there's been a firmware release to bring the Japanese PSP XMD (that's the fancy name for the OS that Sony developed to run on the PSP, and probably the PS3 as well) up-to-date with the US release. But you shouldn't have to pay for it. Find a wi-fi hot spot, set your PSP's network settings so it can get on the network there, then scroll all the way to the left, then all the way up to the Network Update option. From there, the PSP should be able to update the firmware itself.

As far as region coding goes, the option to use it has always been in place, but there are no plans to do so with games. It's the UMD movies that are being regionally coded. So, if you own a Japanese PSP, you can import the American version of, say, Ridge Racer (which has 7 more tours than the Japanese version), and it'll play fine. But don't import the R1 version of Pirates of the Carribean.

[eugimon]

Hi guys I went to the local japanese electronis store in san jose they were doing system up grades for the japanese version psp  for like 30 buck in stead of what other competetors were charging 50 bucks.  does any one know what these system upgrades are I tryed to ask the lady what is was but she doesn't know.  Also I heard they may do a region code for the games later so japan games only play on the japanese psp and american psp games only play on the american psp?

from Rich

Well, as Zentrandude mentioned, there's been a firmware release to bring the Japanese PSP XMD (that's the fancy name for the OS that Sony developed to run on the PSP, and probably the PS3 as well) up-to-date with the US release. But you shouldn't have to pay for it. Find a wi-fi hot spot, set your PSP's network settings so it can get on the network there, then scroll all the way to the left, then all the way up to the Network Update option. From there, the PSP should be able to update the firmware itself.

As far as region coding goes, the option to use it has always been in place, but there are no plans to do so with games. It's the UMD movies that are being regionally coded. So, if you own a Japanese PSP, you can import the American version of, say, Ridge Racer (which has 7 more tours than the Japanese version), and it'll play fine. But don't import the R1 version of Pirates of the Carribean.

Also, a japanese version can't multiplay with a US version.. so if you get wipeout japan for the d/l content you won't be able to race with your buddy that has wipeout US...

on that note.. when are they going to release that /dl content over stateside...?

[mikeszekely]

on that note.. when are they going to release that /dl content over stateside...?

Not sure where I heard it, but I thought I heard it was delayed due to some legal crap. Not cool... we get the game first, but we have to wait for the downloadable content. Doubley not fair... Tigron was my favorite team in Wipeout Fusion... I want to try them in Pure!

[NSJ23]

In case none of you have seen this on various deal sites, Dell Home has

1gb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo's for sale $95.19. Since its Dell Home, no tax

for most states (one exception being CA, sucks ). Get em while they last! I just

ordered mine...

Dell Home - 1gb Mem Stick Pro Duo

Finally, I can start putting episodes of 24 and Scrubs on my PSP

Well my ship date changed from 4/25 to 5/17 but It wasn't cancelled so I'll wait and see what happens.

[bandit29]

In case none of you have seen this on various deal sites, Dell Home has

1gb Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo's for sale $95.19.  Since its Dell Home, no tax

for most states (one exception being CA, sucks ).  Get em while they last!  I just

ordered mine...

Dell Home - 1gb Mem Stick Pro Duo

Finally, I can start putting episodes of 24 and Scrubs on my PSP

Well my ship date changed from 4/25 to 5/17 but It wasn't cancelled so I'll wait and see what happens.

Mine still says 04/25. Did yours change recently?

EDIT: Just as I was typing...mine got pushed back to May 2

Edited April 25, 2005 by dejr8bud

[Valkyrie23]

Dell also pushed my date back as well. My order was supposed to ship on 4/22, but on that day, they pushed it back until 5/17.

I hope Dell can fulfill these orders. I've never had them cancel my order before - - hopefully there are still enough stock for our orders...

[Valkyrie23]

For those of you with the Logitech Playgear pocket case, I found a post at GameSpot that has some templates for custom images. People have been customizing this case just by placing Image cut outs behind the rubber layer of the case (which is clear on the outside) and there have been some cool designs. I lack the photoshop wizardry to whip up a Macross playgear image, but maybe some of you can =)

See attached for template

and the forums with some templates in place here: Gamespot Thread

Edited April 25, 2005 by Valkyrie23

[Valkyrie23]

Here's a sample of a template that someone made

Edited April 25, 2005 by Valkyrie23

[Valkyrie23]

Oh and for those of you who don't know which case I'm talking about, its this Logitech one.

Note: This isn't my case - - just a pic I found off the web. I would have a Macross one =)

Edited April 25, 2005 by Valkyrie23

[JB0]

Oh and for those of you who don't know which case I'm talking about, its this Logitech one.

Ooooh, pretty....

I'd've oriented Rei horizontally, so I could make her bigger, but...

Prettypretty.

[Zentrandude]

muahaha thing would burst into flames like matter and antimatter.

[Dat Pinche Haro!]

i've tried to order one of these since i got my psp and they pretty much sold out all over the place...now that i have a chance to get a Logitech PlayGear i don't get the chance to get one...but damn...it's either get this or gas for my car... i know for sure i'm gonna get one of these when i get paid...

[JB0]

muahaha thing would burst into flames like matter and antimatter.

PikaPikaSP!

Edit:

I figured as long as I was criticizing the existing Eva skin, I should go ahead and make one. Mainly because I was bored.

The pose made it a little awkward to frame.

...

Hmmm... maybe if I'd rotated it a little more than 90 degrees I could've done it a little better.

Edited April 26, 2005 by JB0