PSP Redesign Rumours: Sleeker, Folding Screen, Soon

I don't know where the 'soon' idea comes from. That sort of technology is quite a way off yet.

If people don't want a PSP the way it is looking now, i don't see them wanting it when it looks any other way. I also don't see them investing new technology like that on a device that is hardly bringing in cash as it is.

Maybe new devices in the future?

"But is it even needed?"

That sums up my sentiments exactly, really. The PSP looks pretty desirable as it is. I can't see how they could potentially do a "GBA SP" on it and maintain its sexiness.

Should a redesign occur, the only thing I think would be worth the trouble would be a rethink of the button placement. When playing action games that require a lot of movement with your left thumb on the D-pad or analogue nub, you start to get a little bit of cramp after about 10-20 minutes of constant play. A handheld shouldn't be that awkward to use, surely.

Probably why my favourite PSP game at the moment is my Japanese copy of Puyo Puyo Fever.

It is just a patent. Folding e-paper's been touted about on various patents for years now.

I'd wait at least 2-3 years before it gets implemented.

WTF? No matter how many times you repeat it, it will still not be true.

The PSP is doing fine. With 11% (since the DS Lite launch, 16% before) of the market in Japan, it is the second most successfull platform.

true enough. but for those of us (i'm not ashamed to admit it) who harbor, albeit some what unwaranted, grudges against sony it always seems like a defeat when they aren't winning. Every non victory is a defeat. When the dominant conole maker for the past ten years comes in second place it makes the fans of the runners up all glib and snoty. especially when the company beeting them has been living in third place for a while.
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But Sony has never been the dominant manufacturer in the hand-held market.

True, but the ps1 kicked nintendos ass soundly when it came out and then the ps2 absolutle cremed all competition in this generation. After the NES and SNES no one thought nintendo would fall as hard as they did... they where the dominant console and they got their asses beat. I recal a lot of peopel where figureing sony would waltz into hand helps and smack them around as thuroughly as they had in the console sector, so seeing the DS do as well as it is gives all us anti-sonyites a semi ;)
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Hardware sales are largely irrelevent. Hardware exists to sell software, and software is what Sony and Nintendo make money on. And PSP software sales are lukewarm, to put it mildly. PSP games hardly ever reach the top 10, we haven't heard of any PSP game reaching the kind of success MarioKart DS, Brain Training, Nintendogs, New Mario Bros or Metroid Hunters for a reason. PSP's biggest selling game is Liberty City Stories, and compared to other GTA games LCS grossly underperformed. If GTA can't save PSP then what the hell can?

It's also worth noting that PSP hasn't reached the amount of systems sold that GameGear got up to.

WTF? For someone who works for a gaming site you don't seem to know too much about the subject. PSP HARDWARE is doing "ok". But remember, Sony is LOSING money on the hardware. The UMD movies have flopped like no medium has flopped before, and games are hardly being sold, and BY FAR not enough to make the PSP a financial success. What's the average amount of software sold per PSP? 2 games?

So i don't really need to repeat it for it to be true, because it is, no matter how many times you "WTF?" deny it.

It might be worth having some numbers to support that. On an issue of fair comment, I thought I might also point out that the Game Gear was a pretty successful console and sold quite well during 1991-1994. The PSP has been on sale for only half that time, even in Japan.

But yeah, agreed with everything else you said. I mean, Liberty City Stories is being ported to PS2 even. I think Sony hasn't realised in this part that it takes a very different game to make an appealing handheld title. Shrinking a console game for portable use just doesn't work. I highly doubt brain training would be nearly as successful in Japan if it was on a console. Nor Tetris.

But at least I know something!



Do you KNOW that? I know they were at launch, but a year and a half later, I doubt that they still are...



UMD Movies were never an important part of Sony's revenue plan. They were an extra "nice to have" feature.



OK. So that makes the Xbox 360 a *complete* failure then. Because PSP is outselling it by value and by volume of sales.



OK, ignore the facts, and substitute them with your own rhetoric.

It WOULD be worth noting, if it were true.

But Gamegear sold around 8,650,000 units, in around 10 years on sale.

PSP has shipped over twice that many with over 12,000,000 of these sold, in under two years.

First off, to everyone saying psp's are doing bad, its completly untrue, and after the ps3 comes out and downloadable content becomes official and easy to come by, im sure it will get much bigger, but i think the design is going to stay about the same, but the possibilities will be great for a PSP2. just imagine one that they could make shrink or go fluid enough to mold to a smaller space.

The Gamegear did as successful as my carribean death metal band, Steel Drum Carcass. Which basically means, it sucked ass. The Gameboy danced all over it like Fred Astaire on swing night. Come on now. The PSP is the third or fourth most successful system behind the Gameboy, GBA, and maybe the DS. And that's all Nintendo. Which means they're the SECOND best handheld manufacturer. Which means that the TurboGrafx Portable, the Gamegear, the Nomad, that s**tty black and white one with Duke Nukem on it, the N-Gage, the Gizmondo, etc. all sucked. It is difficult to get an edge in the portable market and I think Sony is proving that they are doing very competent for themselves. Just wait to big name titles like Tekken and VF come out. So far, Lumines, Wipeout, GTA, Mercury, Street Fighter Alpha 3, etc. are keeping the system alive. So don't tell me the DS has the edge.