Home Gaming Has the 3DS killed any chance the PSP had left?

Has the 3DS killed any chance the PSP had left?

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BrokenPSP

The PSP has been on life support for quite a while now and the utterly disastrous release of the PSPGo starkly showed how little Sony understands what we as consumers are looking for in a handheld.

But as we recently posted they have now at least gotten themselves a decent advertising campaign and with promises of over 40 new PSP titles before Christmas you could be forgiven for thinking their is life in the old girl yet.

And then the 3DS explodes onto front stage. The only real benefit the PSP has had over the DS family in recent years was pure graphical power with the PSP being able to render movies, top notch ingame graphics and reasonably effective audio.

The 3DS can now render better graphics, 3D movies, it has a touchscreen and obviously the ability to play 3D games without the need for glasses.

Added to that the 3DS will be receiving the standard Nintendo powerhouse titles (Mario, Zelda) along with some top notch third party titles like Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Assassin’s Creed and Ghost Recon.

And then in all the excitement when you remember the 3DS also contains motion and gyro sensors which along with the built in camera enables the most impressive augmented reality you have ever experienced, and you start to see how far back the PSP has been pushed and how a new marketing campaign for a flagging console is just not going to be enough to save it.

I can’t see Sony coming back from this to be honest and if I were in charge of that company I would be getting in my car and heading over to Apple, to see if we can come up with an exclusive agreement to port PS titles over to there range of gaming compatible devices.

Modnation Racers or LittleBigPlanet on the iPad sounds like a winning formula to me.

What do you think?

Resident Evil Revelations ingame screenhots

1_bmp_jpgcopy 2_bmp_jpgcopy 3_bmp_jpgcopy 4_bmp_jpgcopy 5_bmp_jpgcopy 6_bmp_jpgcopy

Pre-rendered or not those are awesome graphics for a handheld.

Last Updated: June 24, 2010

13 Comments

  1. piet

    June 24, 2010 at 11:12

    Hey Gavin

    Three things:

    1) Specify from which handheld those pics are from.
    2) LEARN the difference between there and their.
    3) Proof read your articles.

    Reply

  2. Fox1

    June 24, 2010 at 11:23

    Give the dude a break. He just flew around the world.

    Reply

  3. RSA-Ace

    June 24, 2010 at 11:26

    Ouch someone had a bad day…

    I believe you are missing some punctuation after Gavin.

    Reply

  4. Q121

    June 24, 2010 at 11:34

    I wont be buying another hand held gaming toy for a while.

    I get plenty of gaming love out of my PSP, I am not really sure what sony could do to make me buy a PSP 2 anytime soon.

    Reply

  5. Gavin Mannion

    June 24, 2010 at 11:34

    1. Resident Evil Revelations is coming to the 3DS, we posted that yesterday

    2. Ask Geoff I just cannot get it 🙂

    3. Sorry jet lag and a busy schedule, consider me told :ninja:

    Apart from that, do you agree or disagree with the point of the article?

    Reply

  6. Lupus

    June 24, 2010 at 13:14

    Yeah it is amazing what 5 years of tech can do to a console :-D. Remember the PSP has been around 5 years it is a long time for a handheld.

    Reply

  7. riezo

    June 24, 2010 at 13:58

    Yes, with the 3DS on the horizon, the PSP’s days are numbered.

    Im still peeved at Capcom for nothing on a title they announced a year ago.

    The PSP launched in 04 BTW, 6 years of tech I think its time has come.

    Reply

  8. AC!D

    June 24, 2010 at 14:42

    I think there are many factors to take into account. This is just a personal opinion and im sure many others feel different but heres how i felt when 3DS was announced.

    – At first i thought wow the PSP is screwed and 3DS is awesome. The thing is though that PSP is already selling terribly in the West so outside of Japan is it really gonna dent an already dwindling PSP market share? I doubt it. Also by the time it actually releases im betting PSP2 will be announced because PSP is pretty old now. The second thing i have worries about is the same thing i hate about my current PSP and that is the lack of a second analog. With all these big 3rd party franchises like Resi, MGS and Splinter Cell coming wont they still be as big a pain in the ass to play as they are with the current PSP?

    – The second big thing that popped into my mind has nothing to do with PSP at all but about Nintendo’s own Wii. I dont know if anyone else felt the same way but i thought to myself that Nintendo’s own handheld is almost better and in some technical aspects is better graphically than the Wii. Suddenly i thought to myself why the hell should i buy games on Wii when they will look as good on 3DS in 3D? I mean for me now suddenly a game has to be extra special like Epic Mickey, Metroid or Zelda for me to even consider wasting money on last gen games for Wii. 3DS has suddenly made Wii seem even more last gen than before if that is even possible for me. Wont 3DS hamper Wii Sales especially considering Wii’s main draw card its motion controller is also now an add on for PS3 coupled with 3DS being graphically on par? What do you guys think? Will 3DS shoot Nintendo in their own ass?

    Reply

  9. piet

    June 24, 2010 at 16:03

    Agree 😉

    Reply

  10. evilpizzacandy

    June 24, 2010 at 17:21

    umhm ok i guess? not saying anything about still having to haul around a shit pocket full of ds/3ds games or about the weight difference between the psp go and 3DS,different systems for different people,i really dont care who sells the most or who “wins” i just buy what i want and play what i want

    Reply

  11. GoldenSilver

    June 24, 2010 at 19:56

    I have DS Lite and I am thinking of getting me a PSP.
    Why?
    Because the range of games for the DS in SA SUCKS!
    You have to hunt for something special and then its still R400+
    All we get are the Family and casual gamer games.
    The legend of Zelda that was a 2007 Game of the year is still going for R570.
    But in the PSP you can now get some great titles for R200 and up.
    Resistance, God of War, Little Big Planet, Loco Roco, All in the budget price range.
    If they want the 3DS to properly succeed here they should really get us better games. :angry:

    Reply

  12. Arkane

    July 6, 2010 at 13:28

    I agree with AC!D, Sony give me a 2nd analogue stick and I’ll be first in line to get the PSP2. Although I mainly play RPG and SRPGs titles on my PSP, MGS Portable Ops is a pain to control with only the 1 stick, although Metal Gear Acid 1 and 2 werent so bad as they were turn based.

    Also a huge plus for the psp and PS3 as well is region free gaming, something that the 3DS may not support. Not all titles come to SA and once certain games are sold out, its almost impossible finding them in store shelves or even at online SA retailers. Pricewise importing titles from the states is usually cheaper even with the shipping.

    Reply

  13. Little Professor

    December 1, 2010 at 22:20

    Do you know the specs of the 3DS? Well here they are:
    CPU: Duel ARM11 processors @ 266 MHz
    GPU: PICA200 GPU @ 133 MHz (that GPU type can go up to 400 MHz)
    RAM: 64 MB of DRAM
    VRAM: 4 MB of (most likely) eDRAM

    Compare that to the PSP (set at its defaults):
    CPU: Single ARM11 processor @ 222 MHz
    GPU: Embedded core @ 111 Mz
    RAM: 64 (or 32) MB of DDR SDRAM
    VRAM: 2 MB of eDRAM

    Now, just for fun, let’s compare those to the DS (and DSi):
    CPU: ARM9 processor @ 67 MHz (133 MHz for the DSi) and ARM7 co-processor @ 33 MHz
    GPU: No dedicated GPU (the ARM9 processor handles 3D rendering)
    RAM: 4 MB (16 MB for the DSi, but only 4 MB available for gameplay) of SRAM
    VRAM: About 700 KB of eDRAM

    The better unit is obviously the first.

    Reply

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