Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pallette
Speaker 1: and I am the tech editor at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. Sitting across from me, as always is senior
Speaker 1: writer Jonathan Stricklin. What's shake and bacon? All right? Then,
Speaker 1: I think we, uh, we're gonna get into some games today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're gonna start off with a little listener mail. This listen, Now,
Speaker 1: I didn't I'm mean to go all Casey case in there.
Speaker 1: I don't know where that came from. This listener mail
Speaker 1: comes from Mikey, who says I'm getting the new PSP
Speaker 1: GO and I want to know more about it. Sent
Speaker 1: from my A T and T iPhone. Mikey sent this,
Speaker 1: by the way back in October, which probably means that
Speaker 1: he's had the PSP GO for a while now. So
Speaker 1: I apologize my key, but I think you're other people
Speaker 1: want to know about the PSP GO. So we thought
Speaker 1: we talked about the PSP system in general and then
Speaker 1: work our way to the go. Yes, the the PlayStation
Speaker 1: portable or PSP is a the newest venture from Sony
Speaker 1: in the I mean the line itself is newest venture
Speaker 1: from Sony in the the portable gaming market. Now, there
Speaker 1: have been many, many, many many many portable games over
Speaker 1: the over the years, dating back to the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: electronic games, I should say, you know, I wasna say, hey,
Speaker 1: baseball is pretty portable. Yeah, I need THEE and all.
Speaker 1: But no, no, I I remember somewhat fondly the days
Speaker 1: of the Mattel electronic football with the little blinking Yes,
Speaker 1: that red light is my quarterback and it's throwing this
Speaker 1: other blinking red light to this other red light, which
Speaker 1: is my who catches the ball from the quarterback. I'm
Speaker 1: no good with sports. Uh, you can just a receiver
Speaker 1: receiver se different people might. They were all just blinking
Speaker 1: lights to me. So since that's the problem. Is that
Speaker 1: everything I know about football I learned from those really
Speaker 1: primitive handheld games. They don't look anything like that in person. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I was very disappointed when I went to my first
Speaker 1: football game and the music wasn't done in these tiny
Speaker 1: little blips and bleeps. It was actually I was I
Speaker 1: was quite scared and ended up hiding under the bleachers
Speaker 1: for most of the game. No, no two bit sounds there, No,
Speaker 1: it was. It was overwhelming and frightening. But that's ah,
Speaker 1: that's that's talking about the early early days of portable gaming.
Speaker 1: And of course for a really long time, one particular
Speaker 1: name dominated in portable gaming. Actually in a way, they're
Speaker 1: still dominating. But that name would be Nintendo. Yes. Now,
Speaker 1: they weren't the very first though, I mean, there were
Speaker 1: other people who handed you know, making being the next
Speaker 1: electronic gaming giant, but the Nintendo Game Boy managed to
Speaker 1: catch on with gamers in a way that no other
Speaker 1: portable gaming system had at that point. And one could
Speaker 1: argue since even um there have been a lot of
Speaker 1: other portable gaming systems that have been out there, some
Speaker 1: from manufacturers like Atari and UH and Sayers, Sega and UH,
Speaker 1: and some of them had stats that and specifications that
Speaker 1: were very impressive. When stacked up against the Nintendo Game Boy,
Speaker 1: it was just amazing. You you look at the difference
Speaker 1: and think, wow, uh, this is almost as dramatic a
Speaker 1: a leap as the nes was over the old Attori
Speaker 1: twenty six hundred. But it turned out that the game
Speaker 1: Boy games the library was so huge, and the games
Speaker 1: were really well designed and had a very very strict
Speaker 1: policy when it came to um uh allowing games onto
Speaker 1: the system that uh. Most of these systems, even though
Speaker 1: they were technically more uh impressive than the game Boy,
Speaker 1: just didn't catch on. So when Sony got into the game,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a short thing. I mean, it wasn't a
Speaker 1: done deal. Well yeah, I mean many many companies had
Speaker 1: taken on UH Nintendo and tried to dethrone them because
Speaker 1: they had a pretty strong hold on the market from
Speaker 1: the early nines, and UH Sony has been the only
Speaker 1: one who's been able to hold on as long as
Speaker 1: it has. Although it's still you know, running a distant second.
Speaker 1: You're at least second place, maybe not distant second, but
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there are a lot of people that
Speaker 1: owned both. And again we're talking about a system that
Speaker 1: can do a whole lot more than just play games,
Speaker 1: which when you think about that, and you think about
Speaker 1: how relatively limited the Nintendo system is in comparison, it's
Speaker 1: amazing still that that Nintendo's system is still dominant in
Speaker 1: that market. However, Sony has fared better, better than some
Speaker 1: of the predecessors and as Chris was saying, the PSP
Speaker 1: is still alive and well, and it has its share
Speaker 1: a very vocal, very passionate fans. It's a good system.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's really really an impressive one. The first,
Speaker 1: if you have never used a handheld gaming system, um
Speaker 1: and or or if your only experience was with like
Speaker 1: an old game Boy or even a game Boy Advance,
Speaker 1: I think you'd be really surprised to see how the
Speaker 1: PSP performs because it is essentially as powerful as the
Speaker 1: PlayStation two and you've gotten a little portable framework. That's
Speaker 1: that's pretty impressive. Yeah. As a matter of fact, um uh,
Speaker 1: it has a better resolution than the than the Nintendo DS, yeah,
Speaker 1: which of course is the the you know, the current
Speaker 1: flagship on the Nintendo portable gaming front. Yeah yeah, um
Speaker 1: and it's got a number of other specifications that really
Speaker 1: have helped it cement its place as an entertainment device because,
Speaker 1: um it's got a sixteen by nine and resolution, which
Speaker 1: is the widescreen format as opposed to the four by three.
Speaker 1: Um And of course, the the first uh few iterations
Speaker 1: of the PlayStation Portable offered the opportunity to use U
Speaker 1: M D S H universal media discs which you can
Speaker 1: watch I mean, you can watch movies on it. It's
Speaker 1: not quite as good as DVD as far as uh
Speaker 1: you know, the resolution, but it is very close, so
Speaker 1: I mean it. You can you can listen to music
Speaker 1: on it, you can watch movies on it. Of course,
Speaker 1: the the Nintendo machine has caught up in some regards,
Speaker 1: but you're still not watching you know, you're still not
Speaker 1: going to the video store and picking up a movie
Speaker 1: to watch on your DS. Well, and you can listen
Speaker 1: to music and some You could also download content uh
Speaker 1: from a computer onto a memory stick and transfer that
Speaker 1: to your PSP, which had the capable ability of having
Speaker 1: memory six. I want to point out one thing really quickly,
Speaker 1: just something that tends to bug me. So U m
Speaker 1: d S yes, stands for Universe we medias. What else
Speaker 1: do U m d s run on besides the PSP?
Speaker 1: So what is universal about them? Well, you can put
Speaker 1: all kinds of universal content. And that, my friends, is
Speaker 1: why Chris should be in the PR department for Sony,
Speaker 1: Because seriously, if you're gonna call your media format universal,
Speaker 1: it darnwell better work for more than one device. This
Speaker 1: this is just a personal bone. I have to pick
Speaker 1: with with Sony in general, Sony is known for making
Speaker 1: proprietary UM inputs and and and connectors and uh and
Speaker 1: and cartridges and everything like that, anything that could theoretically
Speaker 1: be proprietary, like a memory stick. Like a memory stick. Yes,
Speaker 1: connectors for the power adapters right. Well, but you know,
Speaker 1: the one nice thing is that their USB connector for
Speaker 1: computer is actually the mini USB, so it it is
Speaker 1: the one thing that the p SP has that standardized.
Speaker 1: Everything else is a proprietary format from Sony. Uh. Sony
Speaker 1: tends to do this a lot with its electronics. I
Speaker 1: had a Sony camera actually still have the Sony camera
Speaker 1: that I was talking about that. Uh. I lost the
Speaker 1: USB cable for that, and of course as soon as
Speaker 1: I took a look, and I'm like, oh well, I've
Speaker 1: got other USB cables, and I looked at him, Oh wait,
Speaker 1: this is a Sony one, and sure enough it has
Speaker 1: one of those specific proprietary connectors you have to have
Speaker 1: in order to plug it into the camera. UM gets
Speaker 1: really really irritating. However, Uh, that's that's really neither here
Speaker 1: nor there. I was just wanting to point that out
Speaker 1: as something that was really bizarre to me. To see
Speaker 1: something called a universal media disc and yet it only
Speaker 1: works for one particular device. Well, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: you've got uh Sony's proprietary nature also gives you an
Speaker 1: advantage in some other departments because you with the PSP,
Speaker 1: you have the ability to take UH proprietary son game
Speaker 1: franchises like you know, Grand Tarismo and Ratchet and Clank
Speaker 1: on the go with you. Um so it's you know,
Speaker 1: you're not going to find those titles available for other
Speaker 1: gaming systems and some other things. We should point out
Speaker 1: that the PSP is able to do. You can use
Speaker 1: a you can use cables to hook your PSP up
Speaker 1: to a television and actually view content from your PSP
Speaker 1: on your television, which is that's kind of interesting. Um.
Speaker 1: Not everything is going to be full screen. It all
Speaker 1: depends on the particular application you're running. Um. There are
Speaker 1: also we should mention there are multiple generations of PSPs
Speaker 1: out there. They're not all it's not just one unit
Speaker 1: that has been on sale since it debuted and I
Speaker 1: think two thousand four. Yeah, and it actually started in
Speaker 1: two thousand four in Japan and made its way to
Speaker 1: the shores of the United States in spring of two
Speaker 1: thousand five, and um, that would be the very very
Speaker 1: first model. Yeah, and uh, back back when it first debuted.
Speaker 1: Just to give you an idea, this is this is
Speaker 1: something I think is usually a mistake for a game company.
Speaker 1: Debuting any kind of game console with only a few titles,
Speaker 1: I think is a bad idea. It's always a better
Speaker 1: idea to have as many titles as you possibly can
Speaker 1: upon launch or shortly after launch. Otherwise, Uh, gamers can
Speaker 1: lose interest very quickly. And I think when it first
Speaker 1: launched there was something like six titles in Japan and
Speaker 1: it wasn't until by the time I got to the
Speaker 1: United States that there were many more. There was closer
Speaker 1: than maybe thirty or whatever, which I think is a
Speaker 1: much more healthy number. Yeah. Well, people were saying the
Speaker 1: same thing about the launch than Nintendo. We that's when
Speaker 1: it first came out, because there were I mean, there
Speaker 1: were there were more than that, but you know, it
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly overrun with two hundred titles when it started. Nervous.
Speaker 1: I think that argument holds water too, because, as we see,
Speaker 1: the one of the main complaints about the Wii is
Speaker 1: still the lack of compelling games. So that's that's been
Speaker 1: a problem that's hunted Nintendo for a while, although it's
Speaker 1: not really hurt we sales. There was that one month
Speaker 1: when PlayStation three sales overtook the Wei, but that was
Speaker 1: a combination of several things. For one, that we had
Speaker 1: been on sale forever and the p S three had
Speaker 1: just had a massive price cut. Uh. And then of
Speaker 1: course in November of two thousand nine, we sales picked
Speaker 1: up again during the holiday season, so that you know,
Speaker 1: it's just took kind of a temporary breather. Getting back
Speaker 1: to the PSP they we were talking about the different generations,
Speaker 1: so there's a they they designate these by numbers. UM. One,
Speaker 1: the PSP one thousand is the first generation, correct as
Speaker 1: far as I know, I haven't actually seen it labeled
Speaker 1: that way. Um. But the PSP two thousand came out,
Speaker 1: it was the next version, and it came out in
Speaker 1: I believe two thousand seven, right, and this was slightly
Speaker 1: slimmer and lighter, lighter, and uh. Then you have the
Speaker 1: PSP three thousand, which came out in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: That's got that was even slimmer. And also one of
Speaker 1: the ways they managed to make slimmer was this is
Speaker 1: this is what I thought was interesting. They managed to
Speaker 1: reduce the size of the battery, which allowed them to
Speaker 1: make the case slimmer, and it also meant the battery
Speaker 1: was less powerful. However, they also made the system itself
Speaker 1: more efficient, So even though the battery didn't have as
Speaker 1: much of a charge in it as previous batteries, because
Speaker 1: the system itself was more efficient, you still had about
Speaker 1: the same amount of battery life as you had before. Well,
Speaker 1: if one I'm reading is correct, um, I learned that
Speaker 1: there are you have options in that regard. You can
Speaker 1: opt for a thicker battery pack, which gives you more life.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know that's also going to give you
Speaker 1: back some of the weight that you gave up when
Speaker 1: you bought one of the newer PSP models. Um from
Speaker 1: what I understand too, Uh, the systems became a little
Speaker 1: speedier the PSP two thousand and then three thousand UM
Speaker 1: they improved the processor speed, although it sort of depended
Speaker 1: on what game you were playing as to how fast
Speaker 1: it would access and the um U um D is
Speaker 1: also known to be sort of a pokey format. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it does take a little longer to load up a
Speaker 1: game than it would on a say, a cartridge based
Speaker 1: or or system. Actually, that's been a problem for a
Speaker 1: lot of gaming systems, not just portable ones. Any gaming
Speaker 1: system that uses discs rather than cartridges tends to have
Speaker 1: uh more of more loading times that you have to endure. Um,
Speaker 1: the cartridges tend to be pretty much instantaneous, and the
Speaker 1: anything that's on a disc, it just takes time for
Speaker 1: the laser to find the right information to read it,
Speaker 1: and then there's a little buffering period while the processor
Speaker 1: gets up to speed. I mean, it's it's kind of
Speaker 1: unavoidable right now. Um, the technology is just not fast
Speaker 1: enough for it to be instant. And of course, we
Speaker 1: as human beings used used to living in the digital age,
Speaker 1: we want our gratification as fast as possible. Gosh darn it,
Speaker 1: that's true. I mean, nobody really wants to be sitting
Speaker 1: around waiting anyway. Um. So, well, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. One other thing about the processor speed you
Speaker 1: were mentioned, Um, I had heard this is this is
Speaker 1: something I need to verify. Actually, this is one of
Speaker 1: those things that I read once and I'd have to
Speaker 1: really research to make sure. But I had heard one
Speaker 1: reason why the later models of the PSP are faster.
Speaker 1: It's not actually necessarily an improved processor. It's that the
Speaker 1: that Sony specifically limited the speed on the processor. It
Speaker 1: was it was able to to uh go at least
Speaker 1: three thirty three mega hurts, so they had lowered that
Speaker 1: to around two hundred and twenty mega hurts on purpose
Speaker 1: and and then so essentially they then remove that limitation
Speaker 1: later on in the life of the PSP, which effectively
Speaker 1: made it a faster machine even though it was really
Speaker 1: just going at the speed it could always go. So
Speaker 1: it's sort of fuel pardon the sports analogy here, uh,
Speaker 1: sort of like a restrictor plate on NASCAR racing, where
Speaker 1: they actually, you know, do some thing to keep the
Speaker 1: engine from pushing the car forward at a faster rate.
Speaker 1: They basically put a restrictor on the processor speed of
Speaker 1: the earlier machines to keep them from hitting their actual
Speaker 1: I want to say, yes, but you're talking foreign talk
Speaker 1: to me now, all right. Well, as far as the
Speaker 1: universal media discs disks, go, um, we do have an
Speaker 1: article about how the PSP works on the website. And yes, um,
Speaker 1: who's a fine fine writer. Um he from what from
Speaker 1: what he wrote in that article, UM. Sony chose that
Speaker 1: particular format because it would hold one point eight gigs
Speaker 1: of information and UH, you know, it's able to be
Speaker 1: manufactured very quickly and for a lower cost, which was
Speaker 1: the advantage of it. Now obviously, UM if you look
Speaker 1: at the PSP GO, UH, the point that you made
Speaker 1: earlier about how UM UH flash memory can be a
Speaker 1: lot faster, actually uh they they switch. There is no
Speaker 1: um D and the PSP GO Yes, that's the latest
Speaker 1: UH model to come out of Sony, and it's it's
Speaker 1: running concurrently with the PSP three thousands. So you can
Speaker 1: still get either the PSP three thousand, which still runs
Speaker 1: on the discs the u m d s, or you
Speaker 1: can get the PSP GO which does not have a
Speaker 1: slot for U m d s. The only way you
Speaker 1: get in games on that content on that is to
Speaker 1: download it and to transfer it either by memory stick,
Speaker 1: by USB cable or wirelessly. It actually has all these
Speaker 1: PSP products, by the way, are also have wireless UM capability,
Speaker 1: so that you can play games with friends without having
Speaker 1: to hook up cables between the two. You can even
Speaker 1: use it to make Skype calls on a PSP, which
Speaker 1: is pretty darn cool now the PSP GO. Since they
Speaker 1: got rid of the U M D option, they started
Speaker 1: to run into a little bit that it's had a
Speaker 1: rocky launch, it's had a rough couple of months. The
Speaker 1: system it's off is very sleek looking. When you first
Speaker 1: look at it, you think, oh wow, they must have
Speaker 1: gone to a touch screen display because there are no
Speaker 1: controls that I can see. Yes, um, the first ones.
Speaker 1: If you haven't actually seen a PlayStation affordable. Um. When
Speaker 1: you look at it, it is sort of sort of
Speaker 1: like what they call the candy bar phones. They're very
Speaker 1: long and the screen is in the center with controls
Speaker 1: on either side of it. But the PSP GO is
Speaker 1: a departure from that form factor, right, So the controls
Speaker 1: on your regular PSP very much look like the controls
Speaker 1: on a on a PlayStation controller. You know, you've got
Speaker 1: the basic buttons, the triangle and the X and the
Speaker 1: square in the circle, and you've got the direction pad
Speaker 1: and even a little analog joystick in the lower left
Speaker 1: hand corner. Uh. Now, the PSP GO, when you first
Speaker 1: look at it, looks like there are no controls on
Speaker 1: it whatsoever. But in actuality, there is a slide out
Speaker 1: section that you can you know, you slide out from
Speaker 1: beneath the screen, and that's where all the controls are.
Speaker 1: So you know, it looks really compact and sleek when
Speaker 1: it's all when it's all closed up. Um, And I
Speaker 1: guess ideally the you would be able to just slide
Speaker 1: it in whenever you were maybe watching media, like if
Speaker 1: you're watching a movie or something that didn't need the controls,
Speaker 1: you might just you know, close it up. Otherwise I
Speaker 1: can't really under I don't really understand the design behind that.
Speaker 1: I don't know why Sony would have gone with that
Speaker 1: particular design. Um, it's it's fun, it's fun, but you know, people,
Speaker 1: you know, I think it's a there's a tactile um
Speaker 1: pleasantness about something that slides out. I suppose so because
Speaker 1: I do. I do occasionally mess with my HTCG one,
Speaker 1: which also has a slide out keyboard. Yet so I
Speaker 1: can't deny there is a satisfying click when you slide
Speaker 1: the screen all the way. Um. It just seems odd
Speaker 1: because it does make the device thicker than it would
Speaker 1: have to be because you have that I'm sorry you
Speaker 1: have that extra layer. Yeah, and another disadvantage or or
Speaker 1: let me say this another complaint that I've read and
Speaker 1: and doing research for the podcast asked, is that it
Speaker 1: seems to be made for people with smaller hands because
Speaker 1: it is a smaller device. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: the screen is smaller, and but although it maintains the
Speaker 1: same resolution um sou it seems to be more appropriate
Speaker 1: for people with smaller hands. People with bigger hands have
Speaker 1: trouble playing with the the PSP GO, or at least
Speaker 1: as far as I've read, and there's been some other problems.
Speaker 1: One of the problems was that when it launched again,
Speaker 1: they did not have that many games available for the
Speaker 1: PSP GO. Uh. Now, ideally, whenever you would get a
Speaker 1: system like this, you would be able to make old
Speaker 1: games available via download as quickly as possible, so you'd
Speaker 1: have access to the library of games that already exists
Speaker 1: for the PSP. Yeah, it's not like you can go
Speaker 1: to a your local used game store and buy games
Speaker 1: for it, because the umd s are not going to
Speaker 1: work with it. This is very clever on Sonny's part,
Speaker 1: by the way, because it means that they are going
Speaker 1: to get a lot more first sales and then they
Speaker 1: don't have to about people selling their games to other players. Um,
Speaker 1: but it also means that, uh. The the other thing
Speaker 1: that that the promise that that Sony PSP go owners
Speaker 1: kind of had was that when a new game came out,
Speaker 1: it was gonna come out in uh, the PSP go
Speaker 1: format as well as the regular PSP format pretty much
Speaker 1: at the same time. So ideally, if you were really
Speaker 1: anticipating a certain game, you would be able to get
Speaker 1: on your PSP Go before your buddy could get go
Speaker 1: to the store, pick it up, come back and start playing,
Speaker 1: so you could have bragging rights, oh, you know, I've
Speaker 1: been playing this for forty five minutes while you went
Speaker 1: out to go and buy the physical copy. But in
Speaker 1: several cases, Sony has released games where the PSP go
Speaker 1: version was not ready, and so the physical format came
Speaker 1: out and the PSP go version did not come out,
Speaker 1: and so then you had all the people who had
Speaker 1: the old PSP saying, I don't know why you wasted
Speaker 1: your money on that new device because my old one
Speaker 1: I can play this game and you still have to wait.
Speaker 1: So that's been kind of a black eye. Another one
Speaker 1: is that there was talk for a while of a
Speaker 1: um D exchange program where if you had a U
Speaker 1: m D for a game for your old PSP and
Speaker 1: you now have the PSP GO. You could start to
Speaker 1: turn in your old U m d s to get
Speaker 1: either credit or some other kind of game in exchange,
Speaker 1: or even the same game in exchange for the PSP GO,
Speaker 1: and the idea being that, well, if you hand over
Speaker 1: the physical media back to Sony, they should there shouldn't
Speaker 1: be an issue there. They'd be like, all right, sure,
Speaker 1: here's your game. But that hasn't happened either. Even though
Speaker 1: Sony originally said they were going to make plans for it,
Speaker 1: that's still in the oh we're making plans phase. And meanwhile,
Speaker 1: the device has been out for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: so it's uh, yeah, from what I from what I understand,
Speaker 1: there just hasn't been any real, you know, communication from
Speaker 1: Sony other than the oh, well, you know, yeah, the
Speaker 1: there there have been a lot of there's been some grumbling.
Speaker 1: Now granted, things have been getting better as time has
Speaker 1: gone on, you know, more games have come out for
Speaker 1: the Go. Um, it's still one of those systems that
Speaker 1: I think most uh most gamer reviewer types would say,
Speaker 1: let's wait a little longer before you dive in and
Speaker 1: buy one. Of these things, because, um, if you can
Speaker 1: get the same experience on a on a PSP three thousand,
Speaker 1: and it's cheaper than the PSP Go and there's no other,
Speaker 1: like clear advantage to owning a PSP Go, why would
Speaker 1: you go and buy one? You know, go ahead and
Speaker 1: stick with the other current model that is still supported.
Speaker 1: Games are still coming out for it, the same games
Speaker 1: that are coming out for the PSP Go. It's not
Speaker 1: like PSP go has a ton of exclusive content, So
Speaker 1: stick with that, and you're going to save money, and
Speaker 1: you know you're not gonna have the same kind of
Speaker 1: headaches that a lot of the PSP go early adopters
Speaker 1: have experienced. Um, I do think that it's going to
Speaker 1: continue to get better for PSP go owners. Do not
Speaker 1: despair if you went out and bought a PSP Go.
Speaker 1: It just it's just gonna take a while. I don't
Speaker 1: think Sony had all their ducks in a row when
Speaker 1: they launched the product. Unfortunately. Yeah, well it's um I'm
Speaker 1: interested to whether or not they're going to continue with
Speaker 1: the original PSP form factor now that the Go has
Speaker 1: been launched. Well, we've heard some rumors. There are rumors
Speaker 1: of a new device in the PSP line that would
Speaker 1: still use the U M D S and it would
Speaker 1: be called the PSP four thousand, keeping in with the
Speaker 1: trend UH so far, this is just in the rumor
Speaker 1: phase at the time that we're recording this podcast. There's
Speaker 1: a fairly recent rumor that came out that kind of
Speaker 1: fueled this that U a an accessory for a game
Speaker 1: Little Big Planet actually was the game for the PSPUH
Speaker 1: had on its packaging UM a little label saying that
Speaker 1: there was support for the PSP four thousand, which, as
Speaker 1: we again at the time of recording this podcast, does
Speaker 1: not officially exist. So some people were wondering if this
Speaker 1: was perhaps an a leak, an accidental leak that indicates that, yes,
Speaker 1: Sony does have a new device I planned and has
Speaker 1: told developers, but has not revealed it to the public.
Speaker 1: Since then, the manufacturer has said, no, this was a mistake.
Speaker 1: Don't draw any conclusions. UM, So we don't know right
Speaker 1: now for sure. This was just simply a type of
Speaker 1: where someone was typing in, Okay, well we support the
Speaker 1: PSP one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, Is there a
Speaker 1: four thousand? I don't know, better put it in okay,
Speaker 1: or if it was that's one thousand, two thousands, three thousand,
Speaker 1: four thousands. Oh crap. They haven't announced the four thousand yet.
Speaker 1: We're not really sure. Um. I wouldn't draw too many
Speaker 1: conclusions about this, uh I think. I mean, if there
Speaker 1: is a four thousand coming out, I don't know when
Speaker 1: Sony would announce it. I mean, normally you use things
Speaker 1: like E three, that's when they announced the PSP GO.
Speaker 1: You would use an event like that to announce a
Speaker 1: new product. But that's not until next June. So yes,
Speaker 1: and you wouldn't want to sabotage your holiday sales. But again,
Speaker 1: they're selling the PSP three thousand concurrently with the PSP GO,
Speaker 1: so they're already kind of sabotaging their own sales. Well.
Speaker 1: The other thing to consider, too, is that the while
Speaker 1: the original PSP came out in two thousand five, um,
Speaker 1: the successive versions of that have been coming out about
Speaker 1: every year for the last couple of years. So they
Speaker 1: can be a surprise to see the four thousand at
Speaker 1: E three this year. I mean, they've been making essentially
Speaker 1: incremental improvements on the original design, better video performance. I've
Speaker 1: heard that some of the things they did for the
Speaker 1: screen recently, just made it a little more jagged. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't have a PSP three thousand, so I can't
Speaker 1: really make that that statement from firsthand experience. That was
Speaker 1: just from a review I read it. Then when I
Speaker 1: see them do. Yeah, I haven't worked up the nerve
Speaker 1: to actually mug someone for one, but you know, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's on the list. And something else we should point out,
Speaker 1: just very quickly before we wrap up. We were running
Speaker 1: out of time here, but uh, Interestingly, one of the
Speaker 1: maybe one of the reasons why the PSP GO came out, actually,
Speaker 1: Sonny has a new a new competitor, not just Nintendo,
Speaker 1: there's a new competitor on the scene, and that would
Speaker 1: be Apple. Yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch have become
Speaker 1: legitimate gaming platforms, and these these little games that are
Speaker 1: coming out for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch
Speaker 1: that are going for you know, maybe just a few
Speaker 1: dollars a pop, are posing a legitimate threat to other
Speaker 1: handheld gaming devices, which you know, traditionally their games are
Speaker 1: in the twenty dollar range. Yes, and with the UH
Speaker 1: the additional application source, with the Apple App Store model,
Speaker 1: other UH providers are starting to get on board with
Speaker 1: that too, uh, And I have the feeling that smartphones
Speaker 1: in general from all kinds of providers are going to
Speaker 1: be competition for the dedicated UM gaming devices, and Nintendo
Speaker 1: probably being the one in the most jeopardy because it
Speaker 1: does it is more geared specifically towards gaming. The PSP
Speaker 1: is more flexible, which gives you an opportunity to uh,
Speaker 1: to enjoy that. But the thing is, Um, you're right
Speaker 1: because a lot of the games that I've seen running
Speaker 1: thirty and forty dollars for the dedicated gaming platforms are
Speaker 1: ten dollars and less in the Apple App Store, right,
Speaker 1: So that might be a reason for the PSP go
Speaker 1: as well as a way for Sony to kind of
Speaker 1: develop a a gaming system that will have its own
Speaker 1: exclusive games that you won't find on the PSP three
Speaker 1: thousand or on um D format. But they're just gonna
Speaker 1: go for for a lower price and be more competitive
Speaker 1: with the iPhone and iPod touch games. And then of
Speaker 1: course there's the as we talked about with the Zoom,
Speaker 1: Microsoft not giving phone features to the Zoom. It's possible,
Speaker 1: I mean, Sony has the partnership with Ericsson, but I
Speaker 1: don't know that you'll see the two converge. Well, I think,
Speaker 1: I think the problem with that is you would, especially
Speaker 1: when you look at the form factor. You know what
Speaker 1: happens when you put an actual phone in the PSB
Speaker 1: you get the engage and that thing was awful. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, Nokia also had is a its own app
Speaker 1: store working up. So yeah, all right, Well, so that
Speaker 1: that's kind of our our take on the PSP. It's
Speaker 1: a a nefty gaming system. I mean it really it's
Speaker 1: it packs a big wallop in a small package. And
Speaker 1: h I've been really impressed by the games that I've
Speaker 1: played on it. Um I think, uh, I think, I
Speaker 1: think it's a really decent system. I I would not
Speaker 1: hesitate to go out and buy one myself if I
Speaker 1: didn't have a wife who would slap me upside the
Speaker 1: head if I went and bought another gaming system. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it is not Now that they have the
Speaker 1: PS three slim, that's not that much less. I've been
Speaker 1: trying to I've been trying to convince her that the
Speaker 1: PlayStation three is actually a Blu Ray player and that
Speaker 1: that's why we should get one. So far, she ain't
Speaker 1: buying because, unfortunately for me, I'm married a very smart woman.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, that wraps that up. So why don't we, uh,
Speaker 1: why don't we finish this podcast with a little more
Speaker 1: listener mail listless for mail comes from Brian, and Brian says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I've been a long time listener and I just wanted
Speaker 1: to say that I really enjoyed the Electronics Theory podcast.
Speaker 1: I really got a lot out of it. Keep them coming.
Speaker 1: I hope your head healed quickly, Jonathan, Well, thanks, Brian. Yes,
Speaker 1: my head did heal quickly. The scar is almost completely gone. Uh.
Speaker 1: I appreciate the concern. Yeah. I shave my head and
Speaker 1: occasionally I take a chunk out of it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just a self loathing thing. I'm working through it.
Speaker 1: I'm seeing someone about it. Uh. Anyway, I think he
Speaker 1: was actually talking about how you said your head was
Speaker 1: going to explode at the end of that podcast. Oh
Speaker 1: did it? Yes? Today? Oh? Well that Unfortunately, I'm still
Speaker 1: recovering from. Um. Yes, some some wounds never heal, Brian,
Speaker 1: some wounds never heal. So with that, let's wrap up
Speaker 1: another episode of tech Stuff. I hope you've enjoyed the episode.
Speaker 1: We do have a great article as Chris said on
Speaker 1: the site written by Ed Garbanowski about how the PSPT works,
Speaker 1: I recommend you go and check that out. We have
Speaker 1: lots of other articles about other video game systems, so
Speaker 1: head on over to how stuff works dot com take
Speaker 1: a look at those. Remember, Chris and I do a
Speaker 1: live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can find
Speaker 1: out about that at the tech stuff blog. Just go
Speaker 1: to the website and you look see the blog links
Speaker 1: on the right hand side, or you can go to
Speaker 1: blogs dot how stuff works dot com if you want
Speaker 1: to take the direct route. And remember, if you want
Speaker 1: to send us any email for suggestions, questions, anything like that,
Speaker 1: our address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Chris and I will talk to you again really soon
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot com and be sure to
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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you