Originally posted by joshd2012
And yes, that is an analog stick. Not a speaker.

Originally posted by Get Me Coffee
What's so sad is that you can't compare or have alittle fun talking about each pro's and con's against each unit. I'll pass talking about PSP here. With that...I just hit my 3K post

Originally posted by cheapskate
[BANNED]



Yeah... what happened to the other thread? Must have gotten uncivil...

I'm really looking forward to this... but like others have said, the style of the handheld unit just doesn't seem quite right. It's very similar to the "concept" pictures we saw a while back, which I thought were a little too "futurisitic" looking... and not exactly something you would feel comfortable carrying around with you. It looks so... fragile. Hope they can protect that screen somehow.

But the demo video just looks so incredible... especially Wipeout and GT4. I don't even like racing games! But wow...!

Originally posted by joshd2012
And yes, that is an analog stick. Not a speaker.

Originally posted by The Franchise
Sorry, have to disagree with you. Look at this high res pic and you can see the dimples in the top of the device are not open so they can't house a speaker. The little nub under the D-pad would be un-useable as an analog pad. I may be wrong but I don't see an analog stick.

May 12, 2004 - After Sony's "Let's watch a movie on our cool new gaming handheld!" conference, we were a little worried about the state of development of the PSP. The portable platform was a showcase of the conference, and many game videos were displayed, but nothing too interactive was running yesterday.

And then, bam -- it's here, it's pretty much playable, and it's already well on its way to making its impact on the handheld market.
With two rolling interactive demos and a PSP gameplay demo, Sony unveiled the PSP the way we've been waiting for. Not much gameplay was there to be seen at the PSP arena, set off to the front corner of the show, but what was there was actual in-game material (unless the show floor walls that the PSP was bolted into contained dev kit servers throwing out simple video feed, but to be honest, the state of the PSP demos led us to believe that a dev kit would be on a different level with the unoptimized early code), and it gave us a feel for how things will work.









First things first -- no more glossing over details or going off of best word from the press sheet ... that little nub in the lower left corner of the system is an analog controller. It is not a trackpoint-type pointer, as some had guessed (OK, I had guessed), but an actual analog switch. It's got a good deal of give and, although it looks awkwardly placed, the heavy ergonomics of the system may end up having you hold the system in a way that this is actually comfortable. In our hands-on, with a unit bolted into the booth, we were not able to wrap our hands fully around the unit, but we were able to get enough of a feel to say that Sony wasn't crazy when they put one of the most vital inputs for the handheld in an odd spot in the corner. It actually felt right.

Second, lay your fears regarding the directional pad to rest for now -- it feels very, very nice. The rounded corners, recessed center, and separate-but-connected button feel of this pad is actually quite a bit friendlier than the current DualShock. It moved smooth, it was tough to slip off the edges, it felt friendly to fighters (a very good thing, since Capcom has already announced one of its 2D fighter franchises with Darkstalkers Chronicle.) Even the playable game demo was not one to make much use of the analog features (the analog stick was not active), so we weren't able to tell whether the buttons had any extra sensitivity like the DualShock2 (and since Sony's press release makes no mention of such a feature, we'll say now that it doesn't.) Button placement for the Triangle-Circle-Cross-Square buttons was also comfortable. This should make for a nice game pad.

What we're not so sure of so far is the placement and feel of the top triggers. As with the GBA and GBA SP, a solution for triggers isn't as obvious as it seems since you need to hold a portable and support the screen at a different angle than a typical game controller. Without being able to get a full feel for the weight and angle of play, we'll just say that it looks to be that the buttons will be about as awkward and tiring as the GBA series -- not terribly so, but certain hand sizes will have trouble with it, and cramping may be a problem any way you face it with games heavily dependent on these buttons. Also, the triggers look to be the only place Sony caved in to form over function -- the buttons are made out of a clear, hard plastic, raised at a somewhat sharp plastic. It could well be that these were just preliminary button plastics, but this is meant to be the actual unit we'll be playing later in the year (...if you're an import gamer -- otherwise, think 2005 unless something drastic changes.)

The TFT screen that composes the bulk of the unit is crisp and beautiful -- evenly lit across the handhold platform. On the video-out, you could see some of the artifacts of the image (although a good deal of that is rendered by the scanline duping of the video output from the PSP model), but on the machine, games looked well-rendered and clean. Gameplay quality will again depend, just like on PS2, on the engine and the type of game being played -- lush outdoor detail and smooth surfaces tend to come across a lot better than harsh, contrasted images, and before the crybabies complain that nobody told them games would be like this, we'll say it now: some times, you will see aliasing on PSP. However, the small screen and accurate detail make for a much cleaner image, so even the edging seen on some straight corners and lines is so small, you'll actually have to be looking for it to see it. The shimmering on the grass texture in Hot Shots Gold, for example, was more smooth than the jaggy PS2 version.

Now that we've gotten our grubby hands on the system, everything looks to be smooth sailing for the handheld unit. A quick fix of the triggers is hopefully in order, but otherwise, this was a fun little unit to hold. Look for more impressions soon.