Home of the Global Geek News Podcast
Posts tagged PSP
Global Geek News Podcast #44
Nov 10th
Here are the shownotes for episode #44 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!
Stories:
- nVidia denies x86 chip rumors, pushes Fermi back to 2010
- Got friends? Now you can thank Facebook
- Myspace traffic drop costs News Corp. $100 million
- Sony’s PSPgo sells 28,000 units in Japan on launch day, physical media points and laughs
- Inventor of cell phones say they have become too complicated
- Apple’s hypocrisy continues, approves Mein Kampf for the App Store
- Why you should think twice before dating an iPhone user
- Comcast’s new throttling plan uses triggers to throttle bandwidth
- Secret anti-piracy treaty turns ISPs into cops or pirates
- Anti-piracy group throws in the towel, pirates walk free
Tip of the week: 100 Open Technology Courses
Fan Global Geek News on Facebook and follow it on Twitter!
Host: Jeremy Bray & Wesley Faulkner
For more news, check out the Global Geek News Blog
Sony sets the PSP Go up for failure
Sep 28th
Greetings Readers!
As many of you know, I am a longtime fan of Sony’s PSP and I was initially looking forward to its sequel which turned out to be the PSP Go, but unfortunately it appears that Sony has set the portable gaming device up for failure. There are three primary ways that Sony is setting the PSP Go up for failure which are the focus of this post.
First, the biggest problem facing the PSP Go is the price. Considering the PSP Go plays the same content as the original PSP, there is no reason that Sony should be selling it at $250 when the original PSP which will continue to be sold, sells for under $170. While the original PSP was $250 when it shipped, those were very different economic times than what we are in now and the general rule I go by is that if a portable gaming device is more expensive than the most popular gaming console, it is overpriced. While it is great not having to deal with UMD disks that are constantly breaking, I don’t think that justifies the cost when you realize that the screen is also smaller and and despite your expectations that the battery life would be better since there is no disk drive, they are actually about the same as the normal PSP. Oh, and the battery is not removable which is another strike against the Go.
Of course the price point of the system is only one big factor in the overall price of the device. The fact that you will need all new accessories is going to be another major expense tied to the device. If that wasn’t bad enough, it looks like the games will cost more to download than they do in UMD format for the original PSP. Are you kidding me? I am going to have to pay more for downloadable games than for games with considerable production costs? I should be saving money because I am not in need of boxes, instructions, disks and whatever else, not spending more to get less! I am tired of paying more and getting less. Speaking of paying more and getting less…
Did you think I was finished talking about how much more you are going to have to pay to own the PSP Go? If you thought so, you would be wrong. In the ultimate slap in the face to everybody who already has the original PSP, the UMD conversion plan that Sony had once announced has been cancled for “legal and technical reasons.” PSP owners, myself included, had thought that the price to migrate would be fairly cheap since we could convert all of our PSP game collection to digital versions for the PSP Go. Instead, the greedy fools at Sony now expect us to pay for our games all over again. I guess they figured that if people bought all of their music again when they migrated from cassette to CD that we would be willing to do it when we “upgraded” from a PSP to a PSP Go. They would be wrong in that assumption.
I had a lot of hope for the PSP Go when it first was announced but I think that hope is pretty much gone. With the launch of the PSP Go later this week (Oct. 1st), Sony has set the system up to fail miserably. It certainly isn’t any competition for the lower priced DSi or even the iPhone. I had planned on getting the PSP Go on launch day just as I did with the PSP, but considering the overall cost of the device, games and accessories, I now have no plans on purchasing the device. If you can’t sell you system to somebody like me that collects game systems regardless of whether I play them or not, you have real problems. Get ready for all of the PSP Go is a complete flop stories.
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
Follow Global Geek News on Twitter!
Global Geek News Podcast #28
Jun 23rd
Here are the shownotes for episode #28 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!
Stories:
- Pixar grants girl’s dying wish to see Up.
- Poll finds physical media is dying, HDDVD is as popular Blu-ray
- Gamestop betting digital distribution is far, far away
- Kindle DRM surfaces to deny user the books he paid for
- Android users more dedicated to their apps than iPhone users
- Biggest game publisher threatens to stop making PS3/PSP games
- In round 2, Jammie Thomas jury awards $1.92 million to the RIAA
- FTC to crack down on undisclosed “sponsored” blogging
- Bill looks to ban ISP caps in the US
- Comcast to be first ISP to roll out IPv6 in 2010
Hosts: Jeremy Bray and Wesley Faulkner
E3, the best Electronics Entertainment Expo in years, mostly
Jun 10th
Greetings Readers!
As promised, I am here to share my thoughts on this year’s E3. I’m not going to address every game that was talked about, but more of my thoughts from the main press events, so here we go.
Lets start off with Microsoft. This event was mind blowing! I found myself sitting in my chair several hours after the event still saying “holy crap!” The past couple of years have been a rather big disappointment from all of the major companies but this even alone makes up for all of it. Before I address Project Natal, which was the main “holy crap!” moment from the event, lets talk games and Xbox functionality. There were a ton of great titles that were announced at this years Microsoft press event, including Forza Motorsport 3, Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2, Crackdown 2, Metal Gear Solid Rising and even a Beatles version of Rock Band. These were great announcements as many of the major titles including Halo Reach, Left 4 Dead 2 and Metal Gear Solid Rising were completely unexpected. In terms of games, it looks to be a very bright year for the Xbox 360. They also announced some great new additions to Xbox Live including Last.fm, Facebook and even Twitter integration. This will do wonders for making the 360 become apart of your social network life. They also announced better quality video streaming which is awesome too. Finally, the biggest announcement was Project Natal. This is Microsoft’s one-up on the Wii motion controller. When this is released, you will be able to interact with your 360 and games with no controller at all, just by moving your body. If that wasn’t cool enough, it can react to voice commands. I cant say enough about this, so head here to check out the demo of it.
Nintendo was the second person to present at this years E3 and it made for a great opportunity to take a nap. After the stellar event from Microsoft, Nintendo could have put just about anybody to sleep. The major problem with Nintendo’s press event was that it was largely old news and not the announcements that people were hoping for. They spent a fair bit of time talking about the Wii Motion Plus which they announced and showed at length last year but doesn’t come out until this week. Nothing spectacular was shown with this, just another demo of Wii Sports Resort which was also announced last year. The Wii Fit was also talked about at length and they announced a new expansion for the Wii Fit with some new exercises and stuff for those that still use the Wii Fit, all 2 of you. Other than those disappointments, this year was the year of Mario. A number of new Mario titles were announced including a new Super Mario Bros which allows up to 4 people to play at once and Mario Galaxy 2. Other than Mario which didn’t seem to overly excite many people, the only other major announcement was a new Metroid game. While it looks interesting, I am not a Metroid fan so I can’t say it had my jumping up and down and it didn’t seem to get that big of reaction from the crowd. There was no news about a Zelda game or anything that people were expecting other than after the event, one of the Nintendo people said one was in the works. Generally, it was a complete snooze although a 4 player Mario does look interesting.
Finally, the last to present was Sony. Unlike Nintendo, this one was pretty exciting too although just slightly below the Microsoft event. They demo’d a bunch of major new games that nearly all look amazing including Assassins Creed 2, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and even my personal favorite, God of War 3. There were a ton of great looking games announced but they took a back seat to the two major announcements, the PSP Go which I have already blogged about here and here, as well as their own version of motion control that looks like the Wiimote’s uglier, more powerful cousin. While it kicks the butt of the Wii motion control, its not quite as impressive as Project Natal. Overall, they put on a great event.
Between Microsoft and Sony, this was an amazing year at E3 which Nintendo gave everybody a great nap opportunity. This certainly looks to be an exciting time for gamers over the next year and I can’t wait to play the many games that are coming out. What did you think of everything that happened at E3 this year?
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
Is the PSP Go's digital direction the right direction?
Jun 9th
Greetings Readers!
Yesterday, I talked a bit about the PSP Go and the fact that you will have to buy your accessories all over again. Today, I want to address Sony’s new digital direction with the PSP Go.
Like I stated yesterday, I have two PSP-1000 units and love them greatly. While I love them and am often attached to the hip with them thanks to my carry case with a belt loop, the curse of them is the UMD disks. Honestly, I don’t care the least bit about how much weight or size that the drive adds to the PSP. I don’t even care how much more battery it uses by running compared to a digital version of a game, but what I do care about are having working disks. If you have had a PSP for any length of time, you are probably well aware of the UMD breaking issues. For those that don’t know, the clear plastic on the front of the disk has the tendancy to partially break causing the disk to be out of place and only play a small percentage of the time. This is extremely annoying when you spend $40 or whatever on a new game. The fact that this has happened to nearly my entire UMD collection is the sole reason that I only pirate games on the system now (I freely admit to being cheap but it has no relevance here as I have always enjoyed paying for games compared to other forms of entertainment).
I am not alone in this as many people have taken to the haven of piracy to be able to play their games when they want. This is obvious when you look at the PSP piracy numbers. Luckily, I think that Sony has partially solved this problem with the PSP Go and its lack of a UMD drive. Personally, it takes away my reason for pirating games because the UMD problem will no longer exist except on my old PSPs which I will continue to play thanks to the wonders of homebrew. Sony’s decision to go digital only is a great way of combatting the UMD issue and piracy at the same time. Of course when it comes to piracy and hacking, this will likely mean very little. If you have followed the hacking and homebrew scene as much as I have since the first days of the PSP, you will know that often within days, if not hours of a new firmware release on the PSP, the hackers have not only bypassed the new security measures, but they are adding the new features into their own custom firmware. While I expect it to take a while for the hackers to break the PSP Go, I have complete faith in them that they will be running thier own code on the device within a month (this is my official prediction).
Unfortunately, the move to digital presents a new problem, storage. UMD disks are capable of storing 1.7GB worth of information. While not all games use that much space, when you consider the fact that the PSP Go has a 16GB internal drive, you are going to run out of space very quickly. With Sony’s announcement that you will also be able to download movies and tv shows to the PSP, that internal drive is looking even smaller. I believe this is going to be the main problem point for the PSP. Sure, you will still have the Memory Stick Pro Duos that you can put in the device, but any pirate will tell you that having your content on them is a major pain. Speaking for experience, having to put games on Memory Sticks will end up with you having a small pile of memory sticks with little knowledge of what content is on which stick. If this wasn’t bad enough, the sticks still aren’t that cheap for larger capacities. I will admit that they have come down considerably since the time of the PSP launch when you were lucky if you could get a 1GB stick off of ebay for $150 (same when the 2GB came out and so on), but it still adds a large chunch to the overall cost of the device. If you only have a few games, this isn’t really an issue, but if you want to use the device for gaming like it is intended, this could be a real hassle.
Ultimately, I think this is a good strategy despite its flaws if for no other reason than it fixes the UMD issue. While I will admit that details are still a little scarce, I think this is the direction that they must head but if they don’t do it right, it will screw the customer severely as well as themselves. Here is to hoping that they do what is best for the consumer instead of their bottom line!
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
The pain of the PSP Go, the necessity of new accessories
Jun 8th
Greetings Readers!
Over the years, I have managed to collect more gaming platforms than I can keep track of. With only a couple of exceptions, I have owned or still own every major gaming platform to be released. Some of them, I have multiple of, especially Gameboys which I seem to collect for some strange reason. With the thousands of dollars that I have spent over the years on new consoles and handhelds, there is one thing I always dread the most, having to buy new accessories. In this case, I want to talk specifically about the PSP and the PSP Go. This applies to pretty much every system with a few exceptions but I am going to focus on these two for now.
Like every year, I pay extremely close attention to the E3 coverage. I have even been known to take most of a week off of work just so I can sit and watch the wall to wall coverage that all of the major gaming sites have of the annual event. While I didn’t take any time off of work this year, I still watched nearly all of my usual coverage thanks to being alone at work. I will write another post or two about my complete thoughts from the event but right now I want to focus on the PSP Go. Much has been discussed about the PSP Go going completely digital with its content, something I will discuss further in another blog post and on the next podcast, but it seems that the main thing people are talking about is the price. People seem to be complaining that $250 is too much, but clearly they need a little history lesson, so here it is.
The PSP launched on March 24, 2005. When it launched, it was priced at $250, the same is what the PSP Go is going to sell for. Despite this price point that people now claim is too high, that morning it still had people lined up at early openings of stores. I know this because I stood in line and was the second person in town to get my hands on one. Not long after, I purchased a second one slightly used although not noticeable for a number of reasons, but price was never a huge factor for me. If it was over $300, I would have complained, but for what you got at the time, it was a decent price point and it still is. The reason it is still a great price is because of all of the new features and the power of the device compared to the Nintendo DS or DSi. From a technical aspect, the PSP can run circles around the DS. Between being able to play better looking games to being able to play movies, music and even stream audio over the web, it not only justifies the price difference but it laughs at the DS while doing so. The PSP Go vs the DSi is no different. I will admit the DSi has some nice new features including the cameras, but it still can’t compete in terms of value with what you get in the PSP Go. The PSP Go is not only as capable as its predecessor but it now it has 16GB of internal storage and bluetooth in a device a fraction of the size and weight of the original PSP. While the DSi added some nice features like the cameras, the technical specs weren’t boosted to allow it to compete with the PSP. For some reason, Nintendo doesn’t seem to mind inferior hardware as proven with the Wii and GameCube and if you really want to go back, we can put many of the Gameboy systems in that category as well considering the Sega GameGear was superior in nearly every aspect but size and battery life. Anyway, it should be clear that I think it is worth every penny of the $250, especially when you compare it to the handhelds that Nintendo offers.
The most annoying thing about it for me is the fact that you are going to need all new accessories for your PSP Go since the ones from your PSP won’t work with it. While I certainly understand the need of new cases since the Go is considerably smaller, I don’t understand while the miniUSB that was used in the original was taken out of the Go in favor of some kind of multi-use port. The new port will still plug into your computers USB port, from the pictures I have seen, it looks identical to the plug in the Zune. I don’t see any reason to change it other than to make people buy all new accessories which really pisses me off. I am a loyal enough customer to purchase a bunch of accessories over the years in the first place, I should not be punished by having to buy all of them again just because you want more money so you change the hardware to force me to buy something new. Accessories aren’t that cheap and if you already have people complaining about the price, just how mad do you think they will be when you make them purchase all of their accessories all over again? If you want to catch up to the DS which has outsold the PSP 2:1, this is not the way to do it.
All manufactures need to heed this message. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. If it is not a necessary change, don’t make it for the sake of making money. Either use it to add value make no change so that the barrier of entry for a new device is as small as possible to increase the adoption of your device. Anyway, enough of my rant. Tomorrow, I will talk about the PSP Go’s digital download move followed by my thoughts on E3 with a few other posts splattered in between.
Check out the latest Global Geek News Podcast!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
Global Geek News Podcast #21
Apr 24th
Here are the shownotes for episode #21 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!
Stories:
- 83% of businesses won’t deploy Windows 7 next year
- Twitter worm attacks continue
- Skype founders looking to buy Skype back from Ebay
- CompUSA comes back from the dead with 30 new stores
- Systemax buys Circuit City’s brand and domain name
- Sony in talks to offer free, full-length movies on YouTube
- France slaps down proposed anti-piracy bill
- Court: Your Myspace page isn’t private
- Barnes & Noble may jump into the e-reader market
- 72% of guys prefer gaming to their girlfriend
Hosts: Jeremy Bray and Wesley Faulkner
Global Geek News #12
Jan 3rd
Here are the shownotes for episode #12 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Help support us with a $5/mo subscription!
Stories:
- Best Buy puts vending machines in airports
- IE below 69% market share, Firefox over 21%
- Microsoft’s pay-as-you-go patent application rejected
- Did Microsoft intentionally leak the Windows 7 beta?
- The Israeli Army video blogs the fighting, gets censored by YouTube.
- Game consoles using over $1 billion in energy a year
- Sony tries to balance free speech and hate speech in PlayStation Home
- PSP piracy is on the rise, despite Sony’s claims
- Man gets death threats on Xbox Live, has to pay to change is gamertag
- Facebook nudity angers nursing mothers
Hosts: Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray & Wesley Faulkner
Music: Walt Ribeiro‘s Rush
Global Geek News #10
Oct 21st
Here are the shownotes for episode #10 for the Global Geek News Podcast.
Global Geek News #10
Podcast Feed: 
- P2P traffic to grow by 400% in 5 years
- P2P compliance: Schools seeing red as they shell out the green
- Global Anti-Piracy Day
- Sony says all your actions are belong to us
- Google releases Android source code
- E3 goes back to the big show, opens up to the public
- iList debuts social classifieds
- Kentucky judge upholds state’s gambling domain grab
- New PSP units suffer from major interlacing problem
- Microsoft proposes phones that tap and rub to get your attention
Host: Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray – Follow me on Twitter!
The PlayStation Network Terms of Service: Revisited!
Oct 21st
Greetings Readers!
After the huge response I have received from my post yesterday about Sony’s updated Terms of Service/User Agreement for the PlayStation Network, I have decided that I should write a follow-up post addressing some of the points that have been brought up. I was trying to get in contact with somebody at Sony who could respond, but like Gamespot, I have not had any luck. Before I get into this post, I would like to thank everybody that shared the link for yesterday’s post as it is now the third most viewed post on the Global Geek News Blog behind the Twitter Etiquette and Twitter Etiquette 2 posts. OK, here we go.
Probably the biggest comment I have received so far is in regards to the protection of children from online predators. This is certainly a valid point, which lead to Sony adding the following statement to the new Terms of Service.
You may not provide anyone with your name or any other personally identifying information other than your own Online ID, or the name, password or personally identifying information of any other person or business through any means, including messaging, chat or any other form of PSN communication.
While I agree with the purpose behind this statement, I think it goes a bit too far. I think giving this information should be up to the users and their own personal judgment or that of their guardians. I have met countless people online, and if I was restricted by this rule, I would not have many of the great friends I have today. I also play online with friends, and I don’t to risk banning because I refer to somebody by their actual name rather than their Online ID. Protecting the children is a honorable goal, but restricting everybody to protect a few is going too far.
Another popular opinion that I have seen is that this Terms of Service is no worse than most of them that are out there. When I am bored, I am known to read Terms of Service type documents, so I know this is not the case. While I will agree that many Terms of Service are overly restrictive and often rarely enforced, to say this is no worse than others is just plain wrong. When Google did something very similar when they launched Chrome, trying to say that everything created through their browser was essentially theirs, they were immediately called out on it and they backed off. That is what needs to happen here. It is time that Terms of Service are not so one sided, and many such documents are beginning to reflect that as technology becomes more open. I know that my legal section for this site is nowhere near as ugly as this terms of service. In the interest of fairness and to show that I am not out to destroy Sony, I will be reviewing the ToS of the other consoles and writing about them later this week.
Another hot button topic seems to be the giving of information to third parties. From what I have read, many people seem to be against it, especially when they realize that it is personal information that is being given. Personally, I generally don’t much care if companies gather anonymous usage statistics on things I do. As long as no personally identifying information about me is not sent, especially in an insecure manner, I don’t mind contributing to make a product better by allowing companies to see how I am using a product for future improvements or what bugs I am running into that need fixed. When my personal information is sent, especially to third parties who can also distribute it to whomever they choose, that is when I have a problem. It is even worse when there is no way to opt out of such a policy. With the way it stands now, if I don’t agree, I don’t get to use my PS3 or PSP, and that is that. Giving personal information out in such a manner is a huge security and privacy problem. The more people that have your information, the higher your chances of identity theft. Also, such information transfer is illegal in some places.
The last major point that has been made that I want to talk about is that these are just meant to cover Sony’s butt if somebody decides they want to sue them. While I will agree with that, I believe they went much farther than that, especially when they refuse to do anything about lost data purchased from the PlayStation Store, even when they are the one to have caused the problem. As I stated before, protecting children and stupid people in general is certainly an admirable goal, but there are better ways to go about it than doing something like this. Courts have thrown out Terms of Service in the past because they are overly restrictive and just plain bad that no reasonable person would accept them, something that could very easily happen in this case. A balance must be struck between Sony protecting its hardware, network, and contracts and the consumer and allowing them to use their system in the way that they choose.
Don’t forget to check back later this week as I will talk bout the Terms of Service that come with the other consoles and the possibility of comment from Sony on this issue! I am also likely to talk about this on the next Global Geek News Podcast, so keep an eye on that! Like always, follow me on Twitter or Friendfeed if you want to be notified of when new posts go up. Until next time, don’t forget to comment (And be a constructive commenter)!
-Jeremy “pcnerd37″ Bray
Loading ...