Word from the Sony Rep

[brandver3]

Heres the news from the Sony rep, Amanda met her earlier today.

The PSP is coming out in 2004

The PS3 is getting pushed back to the end of 2005, or early 2006 so they can devote moire attention to the PSP

The PSX will cost $700 to $800

And the PSP mini discs will also be the same medium that the PS3 will use (!)

So after 400 some posts, I finally have a good reason to say...

Discuss!

[tssk]

So no backwards compatibility then >

[kevincure]

I believe Sony has already said there will be backwards compadibility - much of their whole plan is based on the system playing DVD for instance. So they'll either use two disc drives (which wouldn't be expensive) or let one drive read two sizes of disc (like any CD player can do - they all play the smaller discs and the normal CD's - take a look at the inside groove of your CDROM).

[tssk]

Backwards compatibility with both PSOne and PS2?

Woohoo!

[digdug]

The question is will it last longer then most PS2's?? As far as durability??
I doubt it.

And the PSP if that has any problems remotely close to there other systems then watch their market share plummet fast.

Dig Dug

[zmeston]

Heres the news from the Sony rep, Amanda met her earlier today.

The PSP is coming out in 2004

The PS3 is getting pushed back to the end of 2005, or early 2006 so they can devote moire attention to the PSP

The PSX will cost $700 to $800

And the PSP mini discs will also be the same medium that the PS3 will use (!)

So after 400 some posts, I finally have a good reason to say...

Discuss!

PSP in '04 was announced at E3 -- no news there. The PS3 isn't being "pushed back," since Sony never announced a specific release date for it, but everyone already knew it was 2005 (in keeping with the five-year trend of PS1 in '95 and PS2 in '00) -- no news there. The PSX was already announced by Sony as a high-end, high-priced system -- no news there.

The UMD format working with the PS3 is very cool news, though, and leads to the fascinating possibility of playing PSP games on the PS3 with no additional hardware.

-- Z.

[Anonymous]

This adds more fuel to the fire that Sony is betting on UMD as the new universal format. I don't have too much of a problem with it per se, since the idea of using one format for many different types of media is a good one, but what still concerns me is that Sony is going to try to license the technology instead of making it a free format, which will lead to a war similar to the Betamax/VHS conflict, which left many people stuck with the superior (beta) format losing to the inferior (vhs) format. Besides, I'm not too keen on entrusting everything I own to one company, even if it is Sony.

[EnemyZero]

Accually the PSX isnt suppose to be a "system" at least not one meant just for gaming. Sony Computer Entertainment isnt suppose to be making it, another part of sony that does home entertainment centers and whatnot is. The PSX is suppose to be a powerful home theater system that can play playstation 2 games on it and have a few other capabilities.

[brandver3]

I think the disc/cartradge thing is a bad idea. If they are trying to make a new universal format then things can go very very wrong for them. The average public is still catching up to DVD (alot more people still have VHS then you may think). Switching to a new format so soon could be a very bad idea. It would be the next beta/laserdisc/mini-disc.