Sony Designing Mobile Phone/PSP Hybrid to Better Compete Against iPhone?

[MacCheetah3]

Hi

I think that will only matter to hardcore gamers, and I'm sure there are hardware controller addons that work through the dock port in development. I would guess the only unknown is whether they will reach critical mass with hardcore gamers so that big development houses make their games compatible with them.

[Just a general snide remark] "Hardcore gamer" = a 300lbs or more / unhealthy thin person with BO and crumbs / opened food packaging decorating the seated area, located in a dark apartment or basement, where he spends 12 hours or more a day playing titles like WoW while feeding on nothing but convenient store food / beverages, and fears exposure to sunlight.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Hi

If they do come up with something, you can bet it will have a completely different storage method than anything else currently available And, it will probably contain moving parts Hopefully they will fit a minidisc player so I can play all those old discs, currently collecting dust next to my cassettes!

In all fairness. Sony knew it was a gamble to try and trump Nintendo and even Microsoft. However, Sony did put a lot of thought into the PS3 that will likely gain them a ton more money. That is... Their Blu-ray triumph. Licensing rights are what's going to put coin I their pockets. They realized that from the beginning and knew THAT would be worth the risk. Even MS and Apple will need to throw them some $$$ now.

 

[Nym]

... What are you talking about?

There is definitely a MacRumors culture to hate everything non-Apple so I'm not even gonna comment on the topic.

However, I can tell you this about their "cheap hardware":

I bought a PS2 in 2002, still working.
I bought a PSP in 2006 (first version), still working, never had a XMB crash or a game crash.
I bought a PS3 in 2008 and I had 0 problems so far, even with the free online play.

I've actually had quite a good experiences with Sony's various gaming platforms and, although my iPhone is certainly enough for some quick gaming sessions, it's an exaggeration to say that "SONY SUCKS" IMO.

 

[organerito]

Don't bother Sony... Apple is clearly winning.

Microsoft is winning clearly in market share of OS and browsers? Should Apple give up?

 

[MacCheetah3]

Hi

The "phone" part of iPhone has been poor from day one. Lack of MMS, dropped calls, no standardised ringtone support, poor voice quality, horribly positioned microphone etc.

I don't have experience with the original iPhone but no one has had trouble hearing me or vice-versa with the 3G or my 3GS. MMS is a fairly silly delay. Apple hinted at that as well by throwing AT&T 'under the bus' during the WWDC keynote. Ringtones are just as tedious as my Samsung.

Professional video game developers are jumping on iPhone because it is extremely cheap and easy to develop for in comparison to other platforms. But this leads to poor quality software, because they aren't willing to dedicate the same resources to the development.

I'm yet to find a game on the App Store which comes anywhere close to being comparable to a PSP game.

Best example that I can think of off hand is EA Mobile. They've invested quite a but now into the iPhone / iPod touch.

 

[dan3L]

Sany?!?

There is definitely a MacRumors culture to hate everything non-Apple so I'm not even gonna comment on the topic.

However, I can tell you this about their "cheap hardware":

I bought a PS2 in 2002, still working.
I bought a PSP in 2006 (first version), still working, never had a XMB crash or a game crash.
I bought a PS3 in 2008 and I had 0 problems so far, even with the free online play.

I've actually had quite a good experiences with Sony's various gaming platforms and, although my iPhone is certainly enough for some quick gaming sessions, it's an exaggeration to say that "SONY SUCKS" IMO.

Congratulations on being a responsible person taking good care of your stuff. Actually, my issues with Sony have little to do with their products which by the way, have dropped in quality in a general sense. Aren't these the guys that were putting root kits on our computers? The their settlement in that case was to offer free downloads of a group of songs no one would want. Hardly a company looking out for their customers/stockholders.

I wouldn't buy Sony if for no other reason that simple principal.

 

[Rocketman]

I said what I meant and meant what I said.
Better never than late. At this point.
Apple is now de facto dominant in media, apps, device take-up rate, and solvency.

Based on the chart posted, the only thing missing from iPhone is Domino and Blackberry support which can be addressed by approved software applications. For a two year old device, the hardware, software, and cloud ecosystem, breadth and depth is amazing.

 

[MacCheetah3]

Hi

Aren't these the guys that were putting root kits on our computers? The their settlement in that case was to offer free downloads of a group of songs no one would want. Hardly a company looking out for their customers/stockholders.

I'll be honest that I haven't heard of that but I'l tell you from experience that a lot of Sony computers have an extremely strange ( and IMHO dumb ) HDD partition setup. I don't remember the exacts off hand but something like the first 25% is the C: Drive and than there's this seemingly empty D: drive taking up the rest. So... People fill up their primary partition almost immediately causing a lot of problems. So... I usually turned it into one partition for them. Never did understand why Sony did it but maybe it is part of this rootkit dealy you speak of. Or just to get people to upgrade to 1TB drives so they have 250GB to use.

 

[irnchriz]

Im still wondering why people think a phone and a game console are in competition. Any serious gamer knows that the iPhone is not a very good unit to game on, yet the media keeps thinking it can compete with the psp.

Funny, the Wii is not a very good console to game on (as far as gamers are concerned) but Nintendo sells millions of them every month.

 

[andy721]

... What are you talking about?

I knew someone would ask this ok listen sheep, SONY puts crappy hardware inside ALL of their products.

Now you understand?

 

[emulator]

Ah, good old SONY, always a day too late for the party. Another botched waste of potential coming up. I swear, nothing SONY has done since the PlayStation 2 has even scraped the same neighbouring universe of its success. At this rate of failiure the PSOne, PS2 and Walkman are at the danger of actually being seriously considered coincidental successes, and abysmal failiure being the norm.

sure the black trinitron was coincidental, right? they invented much more in the consumer electronic field, etc.

the problem is with their corp heads (just like m$), not the technical knowledge of the engineers.

 

[TeeJayEm]

I Like it!

I'm all for it! When there's competition, the consumer wins.

 

[Daniel0418]

Ah, good old SONY, always a day too late for the party. Another botched waste of potential coming up. I swear, nothing SONY has done since the PlayStation 2 has even scraped the same neighbouring universe of its success. At this rate of failiure the PSOne, PS2 and Walkman are at the danger of actually being seriously considered coincidental successes, and abysmal failiure being the norm.

This is true to an extent. But if you look at the numbers there is a different story to be told. For example ps2 just sold its 50,000,000 unit. He price started at 299 and made its way down to 99. Ps3 has sold 28,000,000 units at 399.99 and 499.99... Pretty good. If ps3 drops price to 199 it will become very successful.

 

[organerito]

This is true to an extent. But if you look at the numbers there is a different story to be told. For example ps2 just sold its 50,000,000 unit. He price started at 299 and made its way down to 99. Ps3 has sold 28,000,000 units at 399.99 and 499.99... Pretty good. If ps3 drops price to 199 it will become very successful.

If I buy a Blue Ray player it is going to be the PS3. As I already have a Xbox 360, I am just waiting for the price to drop.

 

[0098386]

Examples?

I can only speak for games but-
Sony was to build a CD drive for the SNES called the Playstation. Sony turned it into their own console using the SNES controller as a template.
Nothing much (hardware wise) changes until the PS3 where Nintendo announced motion controllers, needless to say so did Sony.

They don't seem to copy Nintendo as a whole, but rather their controls.

There is definitely a MacRumors culture to hate everything non-Apple so I'm not even gonna comment on the topic.

However, I can tell you this about their "cheap hardware":

I bought a PS2 in 2002, still working.
I bought a PSP in 2006 (first version), still working, never had a XMB crash or a game crash.
I bought a PS3 in 2008 and I had 0 problems so far, even with the free online play.

Congrats. I take care of my hardware too (not a scratch on my 2 year old iPod 5.5G ). Sony hardware was the most faulty stuff I purchased, though that seems to have changed recently.

PS1 broke, needed laser replacing.
PS2 for the same reason (there was a class action lawsuit for this very reason).
My cousin needed a replacement PS3 - IIRC there was a power issue but because the power brick is internal the whole console had to be sent back.
PSP's dead pixel problem anyone? Breaking analogue sticks and UMD drives are rarer problems.
A Sony amp fried, one of the tweeters on my Sony speakers went. My Minidisc recorder had QC issues. Even my PSP-2000 has a single dead pixel and ghost problems with the display...

All that said my low end Sony MDR headphones are years old now and working perfectly.

Funny, the Wii is not a very good console to game on (as far as gamers are concerned) but Nintendo sells millions of them every month.

I disagree. I'm a hardcore gamer (bleh) and I rely on the Wii for providing an experience that the other consoles cant do. Also: Brawl and Mario Galaxy. 2 of the best console games I've ever played... People buy the Wii because it's cheap, fun and a good system to play games on. From the sounds of it it just doesn't match what you consider a good game.

 

[Feng Shui]

They'll probably lack app support like the other phones that tried to compete with the iPhone.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

Ah, good old SONY, always a day too late for the party. Another botched waste of potential coming up. I swear, nothing SONY has done since the PlayStation 2 has even scraped the same neighbouring universe of its success. At this rate of failiure the PSOne, PS2 and Walkman are at the danger of actually being seriously considered coincidental successes, and abysmal failiure being the norm.

they said the same thing about nintendo during n64 and gamecube days. now look at them laughing all the way to the bank with the ds and wii platform. every company have their moments. apple sure as hell isn't always on a constant win.

you are one to be ignored.

 

[RAGING DEMON]

Hmmm

Okay...

Apple has taken:

The Walkman business away from Sony with the iPod
The PSP business away with the iPhone/Touch

Could there be more, what's left?

TV (but I don't think so) but hows about Console Gaming?

****WELL*****

What do we have that could jump right into that market...

Apple TV

Sure it wouldn't work in its current incarnation but with Apple slowly but surely building its relationships with game developers... Would it be that much of a stretch for Apple to drop in a real GPU and throw in a controller with the Apple TV? (with a blueray player please)

Now you'd have your first game console where you can buy the games you want to play without leaving the tv.... Apple would simply sell AppleTV games using the same type/style storefront that they are using for the iPhone/Touch.

Everyone always shoots down the idea of an Apple console, including me for a long time. Now, I'm starting to think they might very well be in a position to pull it off.

Dave

YOUR FORGETTING, COLUMBIA PICTURES, MGM, AND WHAT NOT, EVEN IF SONY ARE NOT COMPETING WITH THE IPOD/IPHONE, THEY AT LEAST HAVE A BIGGER INCOME THAN APPLE!

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

I knew someone would ask this ok listen sheep, SONY puts crappy hardware inside ALL of their products.

Now you understand?

there goes the neighborhood with this guys blatant ignorance. what cheap hardware are you speaking of? my walkman from the 90s still runs like a champ. my ps1, ps2, ps3 never any problems. my psp when it first came out -no problems.

macs aren't special if you are talking about the hardware involved...they contain the same guts as the "other guys". the only thing that often differs them from the rest is the chasis body and os.

 

[pdjudd]

If ps3 drops price to 199 it will become very successful.

Thats a rather big if. Lots of people have called on Sony to lower the PS3 price and many have predicted it will happen (it has been believed that Sony was going to announce said price cuts at least twice) but it never did. Sony in fact has not given any indication that it will happen any time in the near future. We have rumors, but no facts. We also have to consider that if it goes down in price - it will be nowhere near @199. Even at it's cheapest price of 399, its more than likely going to go down 10 maybe 349 or at most 299. and its already been on the market for 3 years. It's not going to be anywhere near 200 for quite a long time if at all. Sony is already selling the systems at a loss.

Yes, you can sell a lot of anything if you sell it cheaply enough. Its kind of pointless to do it if you never make any money off of it.

 

[str1f3]

There is definitely a MacRumors culture to hate everything non-Apple so I'm not even gonna comment on the topic.

However, I can tell you this about their "cheap hardware":

I bought a PS2 in 2002, still working.
I bought a PSP in 2006 (first version), still working, never had a XMB crash or a game crash.
I bought a PS3 in 2008 and I had 0 problems so far, even with the free online play.

I've actually had quite a good experiences with Sony's various gaming platforms and, although my iPhone is certainly enough for some quick gaming sessions, it's an exaggeration to say that "SONY SUCKS" IMO.

I can't speak for the PSP & PS3 but the PS1 & 2 were horribly built. Especially the former. I had to replace the PS1 twice and the PS2 once. The PS1 was notorious for having to turn it upside down after a year or two of use. It usually is the case with gaming consoles in that they are poorly built (see red ring of death) though I hear good things about the PS3.

 

[RiCEADDiCTBOY]

Hi

[Just a general snide remark] "Hardcore gamer" = a 300lbs or more / unhealthy thin person with BO and crumbs / opened food packaging decorating the seated area, located in a dark apartment or basement, where he spends 12 hours or more a day playing titles like WoW while feeding on nothing but convenient store food / beverages, and fears exposure to sunlight.

i play games and was sponsored by my korean guild in warcraft 3 for 3 1/2 yrs by AMD. i graduated high school at 16 and went to yonsei university. i worked as a graphic artist and photography for rice addict magazine. i have a degree in psychology and working on a strategic leadership in business degree. i was the top tank and pvp player in my WoW guild and i own a nes, super nes, gamegear, dreamcast (the best in imo), psp, ds, dsi, wii, gamecube, psx, ps2, ps3, n64, xbox and xbox 360.

i eat quite healthy (sometimes i'll have a coke). my major vice is cigs. i surf and workout mon, wed, friday, and sundays.

most of the gamers and friends i know never fall into that lame stereotypical category smartasses such as yourself try to play.

and if you were joking - this is in response to all the other times i've read similar remarks in the past.

 

[irnchriz]

I disagree. I'm a hardcore gamer (bleh) and I rely on the Wii for providing an experience that the other consoles cant do. Also: Brawl and Mario Galaxy. 2 of the best console games I've ever played... People buy the Wii because it's cheap, fun and a good system to play games on. From the sounds of it it just doesn't match what you consider a good game.

each to their own but the VAST majority of wii owners have their for the sports games. I would also like to point out that the wii is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. £179 for the console. If you use it for family games and need another 3 sets of controllers that's an additional £135 then if you want wii fit that's another £70 and now if you want motion plus that's an additional £20 per player.

Best thing about the wii is that after 2 years you can sell it and get ALL of your money back. It pretty much Is depreciation proof at the mo.

 

[NoSmokingBandit]

I can only speak for games but-
Sony was to build a CD drive for the SNES called the Playstation. Sony turned it into their own console using the SNES controller as a template.
Nothing much (hardware wise) changes until the PS3 where Nintendo announced motion controllers, needless to say so did Sony.

They don't seem to copy Nintendo as a whole, but rather their controls.

Why wouldnt Sony use the SNES controller as a basis for the DualShock? Its not that Sony copied Nintendo there, they just used what worked. Just because Nintendo had it first doesnt mean Sony was reverse-engineering everything they did just to copy it.
Nintendo officially announced the wiimote in april 2006, and sony announced the sixaxis in october 2006. The sixaxis was known about long before that though. Do you really think that Sony heard nintendo's announcement and scrambled to redesign and manufacture new controllers in those 6 months? Im not saying they didnt, but it seems very unlikely.

 

[madmax_2069]

The PSP is more of a toy for teenage gamers then a professional business device like the iPhone.

It is build only to play games.

I'd LOL to see a business person using a PSP as a communication device.

The PSP wasn't made to only play games, that's why its called a multimedia device (hince movies, music, limited web surfing and other things like GPS and camera, (when modded) emulation and so many other things the PSP can do.

the go only lacks the UMD drive, added bluetooth in a smaller redesigned slide case with smaller screen (i smell fail with the PSP Go) the only thing i see the GO has going for it is the addition of bluetooth.

when the PSP go launches every game will be able to be bought as a digital download (mainly for the PSP go) or on UMD for the older PSPs.

but yeah business people would look funny carrying around a PSP instead of a Phone.