Gavin Cheshire, Codemasters Studios vice president, isn't a great believer in the PSP.
"Well, speaking as a person who bought a PSP, the problem was that I always thought - because it was a better screen than iPod's - that I'd be doing more with it. But it was such a bollocking useless waste of space; just getting stuff on it was ridiculous," he told Edge magazine, issue 213.
"That was its downfall. Relatively speaking, [Codemasters] didn't do too badly on F1 PSP. But regarding the future, I think they've got - well... no.
"PSPgo's a lovely device," he added, "really smart - but our senior VP bought one the day it came out and has a great story, because he ended up on some customer support line just trying to do basic stuff. He had to re-download his software, do an immediate firmware update, and that's your user experience.
"Sony just hasn't got it right. Stuff like that will make people leave it alone."
Conversely, Cheshire thinks Apple's new iPad is "brilliant" and believes there's potential despite the App Store being swamped with content.
"The ecosystem's right," he said, "the straight-to-console nature of it."
Some people believe the PSP and iPhone are on a collision course. PopCap's John Vechey told Eurogamer earlier this year that as Apple revised iPhone hardware, graphics would eventually improve and match Sony's machine. What happens then, we'll leave you to speculate.
I agree: An unhacked PSP is next to worthless. He could have toned down the verbal assault but if it ticks the fanboys I'm all for it
Yeah the PSP has always amused me because when it's unhacked, it really is goddamn useless. There's a very small handful of actual PSP games that are good, but they've got crap loading times because of the UMD.
Once you get one hacked though, it becomes a ridiculously useful and powerful device. It's a pretty ridiculous dichotomy between the hacked/unhacked PSP, and to me it shows how much Sony is screwing it up, because obviously the hardware is there, and the system can be great when people have full access to it (i.e. homebrew) but with how Sony handles the system it ends up just being crap. Here's to hoping the PSP2 isn't so full of fail!
Consoles: Sega Master System, NES Toploader, Genesis/32X, Sega CDX, SNES, 3DO FZ-1, Sega Saturn, Nintendo 64, Sega Dreamcast, Sony PS2, Nintendo Gamecube, Xbox Halo Edition, Wii, PS3 Handhelds: Atari Lynx, Sega Nomad, Neo Geo Pocket Color, GBC (Atomic Purple, Pokemon Edition), GBA (Pink OG, Silver SP, Spongebob SP+), DS (Phat, iXL), 3DS, PSP (1000, Go)
I got mine two months or so ago and here's what I do with it 80% of the time:
1. Play Dr. Robotnic's Mean Bean Machine
2. Play Tekken Dark Resurrection
3. Listen to MP3's
If it wasn't hacked, the only thing I couldn't do with it would be the first thing on the list. I mean, it's VERY, VERY nice in its hacked state, but it wouldn't be "useless" unhacked. Does anyone agree, or am I alone here?
PSP just needs to be hacked... I use the CPS emulators, and a few ROMs. I did buy loads of games b4 I hacked it.. it's not a money thing - I don't play enough games for the price to be an issue, i'd happily pay the money, but on UMD you pay through battery life and loading times, which I find unacceptable for the sake of commercial conscience.
I agree the UMD is unwieldy for a handheld, battery powered game system. Granted I'm still kinda wowed by the graphics, but I have to agree the Gameboy and DS's carts work better.
On one hand, I feel like Sony deserves contempt for trying to repeat their proprietary "pay lots of money for our format" mistake like the Beta tapes in the 80's. The moronic nature of UMD movies highlight this fact.
On the other, though, I sorta feel sorry for them. With a hacked PSP, it's possible to "burn" a UMD image on to the PSP's memory card so you can do without the load times and battery draining disc motor. But it would be suicide for Sony to ever officially include that kind of feature into their system... I think the piracy implications go without saying.
Bottom line? I think they need to develop a handheld system that uses cards similar to the Nintendo DS that can hold as much as a DVD (4 gigabytes or so).
Or, they could get out of the handheld segment entirely. I have a feeling the PSP2 won't set the world on fire either. Are they tired of buying the DS in Japan and buying the PSP in droves out of spite?
Well I'll be the voice of dissent. I have a PSP that is quite unhacked (due to my own technical limitations more so than any moral stand point) and I feel like I get quite a bit out of it.
Gundam Vs. Gundam Next PLUS is reason enough for me to own the system, to be honest. On top of that, a lot of my favorite classic series like Megaman, Metal Gear, and Castlevania have solid entries on the system. Sure, it's not ever going to knock the Wii or PS2 out of my 'system I use all the time' category, but I feel like I get a solid return on what I paid for it.
...it would be nice if the batteries held just a wee bit more charge, though.
Maybe now Nintendo will acknowledge Metroid has a fanbase?
