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Famitsu glowing positive about PSP

Z

ziran

Member
aka - A constructive discussion about the PSP and its future in Japan.

Please leave your hate at the door, thank you :)

Next Gen

The front cover of this week's Famitsu shows Monster Hunter Portable. It's orange and moody. The top news story inside has a headline that reads "The PSP is incredible!"...



Top selling games:

1) Hot Shots Golf Portable 399,257
2) Monster Hunter Portable 381,866
3) Dynasty Warriors 286,274
4) Ridge Racers 273,521
5) Brain Training ~250,000
6) Winning Eleven 220,000

8) Mahjongg Fight Club
9) Ape Escape Academy



Sony's four goals for the future with PSP:

1 - A killer lineup of games
2 - More traditional online games that use the infrastructure mode
3 - More Colors
4 - More entertainment functions



...Famitsu concludes their article with "The PSP is the spirit of possibility."...
Click to expand...
I think the PSP is selling well in Japan, but Sony needs to find a way to generate more game sales. It's a powerful handheld and delivers what Sony said it would, but the diversity of the platform may be some of the problem. I also think PSP is predominantly being bought by PS2 owners and is competing with PS2 software. People only have so much money to spend on games. I think a solution could be companies develop cheaper, innovative, handheld friendly titles, like Lumines and LocoRoco, and less home console games should be made, but the ones that are be sequels or new franchises equal to a PS2 game, in terms of quality and depth.

IMO the PSP has a healthy future in Japan, which is great because competition creates better games for everyone.
 
with Tekken coming out, as well as the Square-Enix games (Itadaki Street and Crisis Core, whenever the hell that's coming), the PSP DMC, this new Metal Gear- PSP is about to start picking up as far as popular franchises go.

I'm curious to see how well these effect the PSP's sales.
 
Falch said:
Winning Eleven sales are disappointing, I really thought that would have been a system seller.
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Considering its a completely assed adaptation, I would say no. Could have been higher, should have been much lower IMO. They need to put more attention to their port and i think it will sell better. :)
 
You left out the best part...the Tim Rogers article.

http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2296&Itemid=2

The front cover of this week's Famitsu shows Monster Hunter Portable. It's orange and moody. The top news story inside has a headline that reads "The PSP is incredible!" Is it, now? "Incredible" means "unbelievable," and I've become quite capable of believing that I own a PSP. (It's sitting on a shelf; I think the battery is dead.)
Click to expand...

Dynasty Warriors, though...Koei's marketing people are miracle-workers. They've somehow managed to convince Japanese consumers, on near-molecular levels, that Dynasty Warriors games are moving, epic pieces of work with multiple characters, deep emotions, historical backdrops, luscious graphics, and beautiful cut-scenes.

Then they buy the damned thing and they're an invincible man with a spear, killing hundreds of faceless men in a foggy stage preceded by a "PRESS THE CIRCLE BUTTON TO CONTINUE" text introduction.
Click to expand...

Fifth is Brain Training -- the PSP edition, crafted by the same scientists who made the runaway smash hit Nintendo DS Brain Training, was released by Sega, which was kind of amusing. Eventually, it didn't fare nearly as well as the DS version. Probably because it lacks the handwriting recognition.

Sixth is Winning Eleven, which only sold 220,000 copies on account of it not being perfect. That the dismal Ape Escape Academy and the throwaway Mahjongg Fight Club show up in ninth and eighth, respectively, highlight the chilling realization that PSP, really, hasn't had any good games yet. Yet here's this Famitsu article about how "incredible" it is.
Click to expand...

The thing about the PSP is that a lot of people who bought one in the beginning are getting tired of it. This is why Sony is so fierce to upgrade the firmware every time someone finds out how to do something, you know, actually fun with the system. They want the owners to keep buying games. It'd be really nice if they made, you know, some new games, though.
Click to expand...

The article explains Sony's four goals for "the future" with PSP. The top one is a killer lineup of games. That's good -- would have been better a year ago, though it's still appreciated now.
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Other games coming to PSP in March 2006 include SCE's "big three" puzzle series. These are Bomberman Bakufuu Sentai Bombermen (a . . . Bomberman game with hideous, spandex-clad superhero character designs), I.Q Mania (a block-pusher), and XI Colosseum (aka Devil Dice 2), which are all ports of PSOne games.

Each game contains a demo of the other. If you have XI, for example, and you want to play the demo of IQ against a person owns the full version of IQ, you can do that. However, you can't play IQ multiplayer with someone who only has the demo. Tricky! Furthermore, each of these games contains a bowling minigame and a fully-fledged mahjongg game, which you can send to another PSP owner with game sharing. Allow me to step out of line and call that . . . tacky. I mean, it's really tacky. It's like, "maybe there's not enough in this game, so let's put mahjongg in there, maybe?" I don't know, man. I don't know.

The second strategy for PSP in 2006 is . . . "more traditional online games that use the infrastructure mode" What the heck? I just now noticed that there . . . well, aren't any of these, really, at this point. Winning Eleven 9 Ubiquitous Evolution used it to an extent, though let's face it -- until we have game systems will little cellular modems in them, people just aren't going to be ABLE to play these games. If I'm going to play an MMORPG on a PSP and I have to stay within ten meters of my PC -- hell, I'd rather play Final Fantasy XI than do that...
Click to expand...

Last strategy is "More entertainment functions." This leads us to our main reason why the PSP is selling at all in Japan: brand. It is Sony. It is pretty. It doesn't matter what it says or does. It's just here. I mean, it's certainly nice, and it has a lot of talents. It just doesn't apply itself. It's going to be applying itself soon with an online service for downloading game demos, movie clips, and/or music videos via Infrastructure Mode, and sure, it'll sell to people who absolutely must have that power in their pocket. I personally just don't see it as all it could be.

Famitsu concludes their article with "The PSP is the spirit of possibility." I guess; it has a nice enough processor, and the screen looks good. They could fit some cracking games on there. It's just that at this point, with Sony not convinced they have to beat the DS (actually, they don't have to -- the two can coexist happily), none of those possibilities are looking more exciting than "starting next month, you can download Sony Music artists' videos onto your PSP!"
Click to expand...

Now, if only Sony were, really, trying to beat Nintendo (even though I just established that they don't have to). I'm sure they could do something great. At this point, competing with the DS on a blow-by-blow basis should be a no-brainer, like the PSP was a no-brainer Gameboy-killer (at least on paper) at the start. The games currently on PSP are made by people who found themselves suddenly confronted with the question: Can we, possibly, make a game that people would enjoy playing on the train? No one has been successful at this yet, except Capcom with Monster Hunter P and Taito with Exit. All of the other companies, compelled by Sony's powerful handheld, made essentially the same games they'd been making for home systems, not thinking that they had to try a slightly different nuance.

Well, we'll see, anyway.
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ziran, I'd like to thank you for summarizing Next-Gen's coverage of this. They're 3 page article about it was horrible - I can't believe I read through that expecting to glean any other info...you summarize what they reported from Famitsu perfectly.

BojTrek said:
If I bought a PSP now... brand-new... could I still play movies and emulation off a memory card?
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Brand-new you'll probably end up with a 2.5 or 2.6 PSP. You've always been able to play movies off memory card, just limited to MPEG4 formats Sony supports on the PSP. Homebrew apps they let you run other video formats don't work on 2.5/2.6 PSPs. Emulation is also very limited on 2.0+ PSPs - I think only an SNES emulator runs on them right now. Emulation really requires a 1.0/1.5 PSP.
 
To be fair, I haven't read an IGN article is a long, long time, but that is one of the most poorly written articles I've ever read. I couldn't get past the first page.

..I take it back. Excellent job, Tim Rogers.
 
Brand-new you'll probably end up with a 2.5 or 2.6 PSP. You've always been able to play movies off memory card, just limited to MPEG4 formats Sony supports on the PSP. Homebrew apps they let you run other video formats don't work on 2.5/2.6 PSPs. Emulation is also very limited on 2.0+ PSPs - I think only an SNES emulator runs on them right now. Emulation really requires a 1.0/1.5 PSP.
Click to expand...

I bought my PSP a few days ago and it wasn't 2.5 or 2.6, since SFA3 and MM:MHX forced me to update it. I think the newest ones are still 2.0 or below.
 
kaching said:
Brand-new you'll probably end up with a 2.5 or 2.6 PSP. You've always been able to play movies off memory card, just limited to MPEG4 formats.
Click to expand...

So I could transfer/convert a DVD movie on my PC to MPEG4 and that will work? If so, doesn't that make it as good as iPod since I don't like tons of music?

Thanks in advance...
 
Amir0x said:
God damn, Sony must have paid Famitsu Shinjuku's weight in gold.
Click to expand...

Beat me to it. I guess that article is akin to throwing a dog a bone or giving a guy on death row his last meal because the executioner cometh!
 
That Next Gen article was... weird. It's like the guy said, "Famitsu is excited for the PSP in 2006, let's prove them wrong lest people actually think about buying one."

I mean, he complained about totally irrelevant things like the PSP's menu system being clunky (what?), about the buttons being too slick (wtf), and then says the drive takes too long to spin up. It's an optical drive just like every other optical drive in the universe, it's not a cartrid-- Oh. I get it now. Is this guy a notorious Nintendo fanboy or something?
 
I am kind of torn on what I want from my PSP.

I mean overall, at first I enjoyed the while console games on a portable idea. But then I started to see more of my favorite franchises being ruined. I just have problems with that nub for some reason. It just doesn't seem like you can really get 100% of the sytem in that way.

I guess I want to see more novel kind of stuff. Something that will blow me away as far as style and have nice easy to pick up style of gaming. Something like Rez pops into my head. I am not saying port Rez, but just something that is simple like that, but addictive as hell. Exit seems to be a nice move in this direction, but I still haven't bought it yet. I also like what they did with the MGA series, despite the complaints.

And really, no more PS1 ports. I mean, I will probably buy a couple of them...but dammit that is not what this system is for. It just ruins it's image. It is supposed to be this powerhouse but we keep getting remakes or ports of PS1 games.
 
The PSP line up has been getting better. It's really hard to determine what's going to sell on the PSP (in Japan) and what wont. No one could have predicted that Monster Hunter would be so popular while games like Metal Gear and Mega Man line the bottom of sales charts.
 
kenta said:
That Next Gen article was... weird. It's like the guy said, "Famitsu is excited for the PSP in 2006, let's prove them wrong lest people actually think about buying one."

I mean, he complained about totally irrelevant things like the PSP's menu system being clunky (what?), about the buttons being too slick (wtf), and then says the drive takes too long to spin up. It's an optical drive just like every other optical drive in the universe, it's not a cartrid-- Oh. I get it now. Is this guy a notorious Nintendo fanboy or something?
Click to expand...
It really is a lot like what we get here on GAF. Somebody creates a PSP thread and the Hive goes into attack mode. It's sad.
 
parathod said:
The PSP line up has been getting better. It's really hard to determine what's going to sell on the PSP (in Japan) and what wont. No one could have predicted that Monster Hunter would be so popular while games like Metal Gear and Mega Man line the bottom of sales charts.
Click to expand...

I actually thought that Monster Hunter was a really big hit in Japan in the first place. I mean it seemed like a no brainer when I saw the lines for the games at TGS.

<shrug> Maybe that is one I should pick up....
 
BojTrek said:
So I could transfer/convert a DVD movie on my PC to MPEG4 and that will work? If so, doesn't that make it as good as iPod since I don't like tons of music?

Thanks in advance...
Click to expand...
Yeah, easiest way to go about it....
1)Create VOB file using DVD decrypter
2)Convert VOB file to MP4 using PSPVideo9
3)fap
 
Laguna X said:
Yeah, easiest way to go about it....
1)Create VOB file using DVD decrypter
2)Convert VOB file to MP4 using PSPVideo9
3)fap
Click to expand...

Intervideo's iVideoToGo does integrated DVD -> MPEG4/H.264(PSP or iPod) conversion
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
Simly not true. Most of the emu's run on 2.0+ PSPs.

Uninformed FTL.
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Really? I thought emulation support on 2.5/2.6 PSPs was still very limited. Well, sorry, Bojtrek.
 
I don't see the PSP going anywhere in a while... by the end of this portable "generation", the PSP will most certainly have proven its weight in gold, if it hasn't already (for some people). I'm personally pretty disappointed with the RPG lineup... most, if not all, of them are ports - I'd be really excited for a brand new title made specifically for PSP.
 
djtiesto said:
I don't see the PSP going anywhere in a while... by the end of this portable "generation", the PSP will most certainly have proven its weight in gold, if it hasn't already (for some people). I'm personally pretty disappointed with the RPG lineup... most, if not all, of them are ports - I'd be really excited for a brand new title made specifically for PSP.
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Looking at the release schedule for the PSP, it really should start picking up speed soon. This tends to happen to almost every console, a slow first year with maybe only a couple must have games but picks up soon after that. The way some people talk, they make it seem that a certain portable always had kickass games or another will never have any good games and is doomed to fail.
 
My main problem with the PSP right now is that EVERYTHING feels emulated. Most of the games feel as though someone took a PS2 game and reverse-engineered it to work on the PSP. The control interface just never feels as spot-on as it should.

It's one thing to play Super Metroid on the PSP and have it feel slightly off- that makes sense as it was designed for another system. But when a game developed natively for the system still requires me to adjust (slowly) to the controls, it's very trying. Even GTA (although I only played a short bit of it) felt weird, and that's certainly not a series known for its precision of controls.

I'm really looking for Daxter, of all things, to change this around. Here's a developer with a great history on Sony machines, with games that generally have a very good 'feel' to them- and this game will need that to be everything it should be. If they can prove to me that a PSP game can have tight, responsive controls in a 3d environment, I'll be much more optimistic about the future. Here's hoping.
 
Fifth is Brain Training -- the PSP edition, crafted by the same scientists who made the runaway smash hit Nintendo DS Brain Training, was released by Sega, which was kind of amusing. Eventually, it didn't fare nearly as well as the DS version. Probably because it lacks the handwriting recognition.
Click to expand...

I dont suppose he did any fact checking.
 
dyls said:
My main problem with the PSP right now is that EVERYTHING feels emulated. Most of the games feel as though someone took a PS2 game and reverse-engineered it to work on the PSP. The control interface just never feels as spot-on as it should.

It's one thing to play Super Metroid on the PSP and have it feel slightly off- that makes sense as it was designed for another system. But when a game developed natively for the system still requires me to adjust (slowly) to the controls, it's very trying. Even GTA (although I only played a short bit of it) felt weird, and that's certainly not a series known for its precision of controls.

I'm really looking for Daxter, of all things, to change this around. Here's a developer with a great history on Sony machines, with games that generally have a very good 'feel' to them- and this game will need that to be everything it should be. If they can prove to me that a PSP game can have tight, responsive controls in a 3d environment, I'll be much more optimistic about the future. Here's hoping.
Click to expand...

You need more practice. After playing through GTA on the psp a couple times, the analog slider is no longer an issue for me. It's like getting used to playing first person shooters with dual analog sticks. Back when the first FPS came out on the ps2 it just felt wrong, but now I don't even think about it.
 
You need more practice. After playing through GTA on the psp a couple times, the analog slider is no longer an issue for me. It's like getting used to playing first person shooters with dual analog sticks. Back when the first FPS came out on the ps2 it just felt wrong, but now I don't even think about it.
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Hell, now that i've gotten some practice with the analog, even my control complaints with SFA3 are mostly gone. Don't really need the topper I've been so desperately been trying to reattach; I can control the game and perform all moves perfectly with the nub, now. Darkstalkers is still unplayable, though :( :(
 
sp0rsk said:
I dont suppose he did any fact checking.
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Also evidenced by the fact that he says Ape Escape 3 was picked up for the US by Atlus.

However, I can't disagree with:

That the dismal Ape Escape Academy and the throwaway Mahjongg Fight Club show up in ninth and eighth, respectively, highlight the chilling realization that PSP, really, hasn't had any good games yet. Yet here's this Famitsu article about how "incredible" it is.
Click to expand...

Well, actually, excuse me -- the PSP has had some good games. But the fact that Famitsu just painted such a rosy picture of the assbeating the PSP is taking in Japan smells more like "sponsored editorial" than "constructive discussion."

"Constructive discussion" on PSP-in-Japan has to start with an analysis of how bad Sony fucked up and how they can fix it, not delusions of success based off a highly suspect Famitsu puff piece.
 
dyls said:
I'm really looking for Daxter, of all things, to change this around. Here's a developer with a great history on Sony machines, with games that generally have a very good 'feel' to them- and this game will need that to be everything it should be..
Click to expand...
The developer in question actually has no history on Sony machines, unless you count specific members of their staff. The developer is Ready at Dawn, not Naughty Dog who originally developed the Jak and Crash series.

If they can prove to me that a PSP game can have tight, responsive controls in a 3d environment, I'll be much more optimistic about the future. Here's hoping
Click to expand...
Several games *have* had tight, responsive controls. Try Gripshift for one - you should be able to find it new for $20.
 
It sounds kinda like Sony wrote this themselves and payed to have it printed. I totally expect this type of thing from format specific mags, but from a multi-format mag it kinda reeks a bit.
 
Kobun Heat said:
Actually, last I heard Tim works for Sony.
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I would be willing to bet money against that, actually. Especially after that one dude got fired for speaking ill of the PS3, for Mr Rogers to write and publish an article like this would be career suicide.
 
Pimpbaa said:
You need more practice. After playing through GTA on the psp a couple times, the analog slider is no longer an issue for me. It's like getting used to playing first person shooters with dual analog sticks. Back when the first FPS came out on the ps2 it just felt wrong, but now I don't even think about it.
Click to expand...

Probably true, as I said I didn't spend a whole lot of time with it. I just remember the driving, which is what I enjoyed most on the PS2 versions, seemd like a chore. More time playing would probably make me more comfortable.

I just wish I didn't constantly have to adjust to every new game. I just want one that instantly feels 'right', and so far I haven't gotten that (excepting Lumines.)
 
Mmmkay said:
Intervideo's iVideoToGo does integrated DVD -> MPEG4/H.264(PSP or iPod) conversion
Click to expand...

I'm trying the trial version now. It seems really slow compared to psp video 9 (converting a 15 minute mpeg2 file ripped from a dvd).
 
dyls said:
I just wish I didn't constantly have to adjust to every new game. I just want one that instantly feels 'right', and so far I haven't gotten that (excepting Lumines.)
Click to expand...

funny thing, but the psp actually sends control inputs to itself over wi-fi. so lag is built into the hardware, and your issues totally aren't imaginary. damn you sony.
 
drohne said:
funny thing, but the psp actually sends control inputs to itself over wi-fi. so lag is built into the hardware, and your issues totally aren't imaginary. damn you sony.
Click to expand...

Man, WHAT?!
 
kenta said:
I would be willing to bet money against that, actually. Especially after that one dude got fired for speaking ill of the PS3, for Mr Rogers to write and publish an article like this would be career suicide.
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Eh, what he says is true and Sony know it. They need better games in Japan. They need games suited to a handheld. The PSP does have potential to be doing much better.

The next few months is interesting because the PSP lineup is considerable.

back down before Kobun rapes you of your money
 
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