Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pallette and I am the tech editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me, as always is senior writer Jonathan Stricklin. What's shake and bacon? All right? Then, I think we, uh, we're gonna get into some games today. Yeah, we're gonna start off with a little listener mail. This listen, Now, I didn't I'm mean to go all Casey case in there. I don't know where that came from. This listener mail comes from Mikey, who says I'm getting the new PSP GO and I want to know more about it. Sent from my A T and T iPhone. Mikey sent this, by the way back in October, which probably means that he's had the PSP GO for a while now. So I apologize my key, but I think you're other people want to know about the PSP GO. So we thought we talked about the PSP system in general and then work our way to the go. Yes, the the PlayStation portable or PSP is a the newest venture from Sony in the I mean the line itself is newest venture from Sony in the the portable gaming market. Now, there have been many, many, many many many portable games over the over the years, dating back to the nineteen eighties electronic games, I should say, you know, I wasna say, hey, baseball is pretty portable. Yeah, I need THEE and all. But no, no, I I remember somewhat fondly the days of the Mattel electronic football with the little blinking Yes, that red light is my quarterback and it's throwing this other blinking red light to this other red light, which is my who catches the ball from the quarterback. I'm no good with sports. Uh, you can just a receiver receiver se different people might. They were all just blinking lights to me. So since that's the problem. Is that everything I know about football I learned from those really primitive handheld games. They don't look anything like that in person. Yeah. I was very disappointed when I went to my first football game and the music wasn't done in these tiny little blips and bleeps. It was actually I was I was quite scared and ended up hiding under the bleachers for most of the game. No, no two bit sounds there, No, it was. It was overwhelming and frightening. But that's ah, that's that's talking about the early early days of portable gaming. And of course for a really long time, one particular name dominated in portable gaming. Actually in a way, they're still dominating. But that name would be Nintendo. Yes. Now, they weren't the very first though, I mean, there were other people who handed you know, making being the next electronic gaming giant, but the Nintendo Game Boy managed to catch on with gamers in a way that no other portable gaming system had at that point. And one could argue since even um there have been a lot of other portable gaming systems that have been out there, some from manufacturers like Atari and UH and Sayers, Sega and UH, and some of them had stats that and specifications that were very impressive. When stacked up against the Nintendo Game Boy, it was just amazing. You you look at the difference and think, wow, uh, this is almost as dramatic a a leap as the nes was over the old Attori twenty six hundred. But it turned out that the game Boy games the library was so huge, and the games were really well designed and had a very very strict policy when it came to um uh allowing games onto the system that uh. Most of these systems, even though they were technically more uh impressive than the game Boy, just didn't catch on. So when Sony got into the game, it wasn't a short thing. I mean, it wasn't a done deal. Well yeah, I mean many many companies had taken on UH Nintendo and tried to dethrone them because they had a pretty strong hold on the market from the early nines, and UH Sony has been the only one who's been able to hold on as long as it has. Although it's still you know, running a distant second. You're at least second place, maybe not distant second, but and I'm sure there are a lot of people that owned both. And again we're talking about a system that can do a whole lot more than just play games, which when you think about that, and you think about how relatively limited the Nintendo system is in comparison, it's amazing still that that Nintendo's system is still dominant in that market. However, Sony has fared better, better than some of the predecessors and as Chris was saying, the PSP is still alive and well, and it has its share a very vocal, very passionate fans. It's a good system. I mean, it's it's really really an impressive one. The first, if you have never used a handheld gaming system, um and or or if your only experience was with like an old game Boy or even a game Boy Advance, I think you'd be really surprised to see how the PSP performs because it is essentially as powerful as the PlayStation two and you've gotten a little portable framework. That's that's pretty impressive. Yeah. As a matter of fact, um uh, it has a better resolution than the than the Nintendo DS, yeah, which of course is the the you know, the current flagship on the Nintendo portable gaming front. Yeah yeah, um and it's got a number of other specifications that really have helped it cement its place as an entertainment device because, um it's got a sixteen by nine and resolution, which is the widescreen format as opposed to the four by three. Um And of course, the the first uh few iterations of the PlayStation Portable offered the opportunity to use U M D S H universal media discs which you can watch I mean, you can watch movies on it. It's not quite as good as DVD as far as uh you know, the resolution, but it is very close, so I mean it. You can you can listen to music on it, you can watch movies on it. Of course, the the Nintendo machine has caught up in some regards, but you're still not watching you know, you're still not going to the video store and picking up a movie to watch on your DS. Well, and you can listen to music and some You could also download content uh from a computer onto a memory stick and transfer that to your PSP, which had the capable ability of having memory six. I want to point out one thing really quickly, just something that tends to bug me. So U m d S yes, stands for Universe we medias. What else do U m d s run on besides the PSP? So what is universal about them? Well, you can put all kinds of universal content. And that, my friends, is why Chris should be in the PR department for Sony, Because seriously, if you're gonna call your media format universal, it darnwell better work for more than one device. This this is just a personal bone. I have to pick with with Sony in general, Sony is known for making proprietary UM inputs and and and connectors and uh and and cartridges and everything like that, anything that could theoretically be proprietary, like a memory stick. Like a memory stick. Yes, connectors for the power adapters right. Well, but you know, the one nice thing is that their USB connector for computer is actually the mini USB, so it it is the one thing that the p SP has that standardized. Everything else is a proprietary format from Sony. Uh. Sony tends to do this a lot with its electronics. I had a Sony camera actually still have the Sony camera that I was talking about that. Uh. I lost the USB cable for that, and of course as soon as I took a look, and I'm like, oh well, I've got other USB cables, and I looked at him, Oh wait, this is a Sony one, and sure enough it has one of those specific proprietary connectors you have to have in order to plug it into the camera. UM gets really really irritating. However, Uh, that's that's really neither here nor there. I was just wanting to point that out as something that was really bizarre to me. To see something called a universal media disc and yet it only works for one particular device. Well, on the other hand, you've got uh Sony's proprietary nature also gives you an advantage in some other departments because you with the PSP, you have the ability to take UH proprietary son game franchises like you know, Grand Tarismo and Ratchet and Clank on the go with you. Um so it's you know, you're not going to find those titles available for other gaming systems and some other things. We should point out that the PSP is able to do. You can use a you can use cables to hook your PSP up to a television and actually view content from your PSP on your television, which is that's kind of interesting. Um. Not everything is going to be full screen. It all depends on the particular application you're running. Um. There are also we should mention there are multiple generations of PSPs out there. They're not all it's not just one unit that has been on sale since it debuted and I think two thousand four. Yeah, and it actually started in two thousand four in Japan and made its way to the shores of the United States in spring of two thousand five, and um, that would be the very very first model. Yeah, and uh, back back when it first debuted. Just to give you an idea, this is this is something I think is usually a mistake for a game company. Debuting any kind of game console with only a few titles, I think is a bad idea. It's always a better idea to have as many titles as you possibly can upon launch or shortly after launch. Otherwise, Uh, gamers can lose interest very quickly. And I think when it first launched there was something like six titles in Japan and it wasn't until by the time I got to the United States that there were many more. There was closer than maybe thirty or whatever, which I think is a much more healthy number. Yeah. Well, people were saying the same thing about the launch than Nintendo. We that's when it first came out, because there were I mean, there were there were more than that, but you know, it wasn't exactly overrun with two hundred titles when it started. Nervous. I think that argument holds water too, because, as we see, the one of the main complaints about the Wii is still the lack of compelling games. So that's that's been a problem that's hunted Nintendo for a while, although it's not really hurt we sales. There was that one month when PlayStation three sales overtook the Wei, but that was a combination of several things. For one, that we had been on sale forever and the p S three had just had a massive price cut. Uh. And then of course in November of two thousand nine, we sales picked up again during the holiday season, so that you know, it's just took kind of a temporary breather. Getting back to the PSP they we were talking about the different generations, so there's a they they designate these by numbers. UM. One, the PSP one thousand is the first generation, correct as far as I know, I haven't actually seen it labeled that way. Um. But the PSP two thousand came out, it was the next version, and it came out in I believe two thousand seven, right, and this was slightly slimmer and lighter, lighter, and uh. Then you have the PSP three thousand, which came out in two thousand and eight. That's got that was even slimmer. And also one of the ways they managed to make slimmer was this is this is what I thought was interesting. They managed to reduce the size of the battery, which allowed them to make the case slimmer, and it also meant the battery was less powerful. However, they also made the system itself more efficient, So even though the battery didn't have as much of a charge in it as previous batteries, because the system itself was more efficient, you still had about the same amount of battery life as you had before. Well, if one I'm reading is correct, um, I learned that there are you have options in that regard. You can opt for a thicker battery pack, which gives you more life. Of course, you know that's also going to give you back some of the weight that you gave up when you bought one of the newer PSP models. Um from what I understand too, Uh, the systems became a little speedier the PSP two thousand and then three thousand UM they improved the processor speed, although it sort of depended on what game you were playing as to how fast it would access and the um U um D is also known to be sort of a pokey format. Yeah, it does take a little longer to load up a game than it would on a say, a cartridge based or or system. Actually, that's been a problem for a lot of gaming systems, not just portable ones. Any gaming system that uses discs rather than cartridges tends to have uh more of more loading times that you have to endure. Um, the cartridges tend to be pretty much instantaneous, and the anything that's on a disc, it just takes time for the laser to find the right information to read it, and then there's a little buffering period while the processor gets up to speed. I mean, it's it's kind of unavoidable right now. Um, the technology is just not fast enough for it to be instant. And of course, we as human beings used used to living in the digital age, we want our gratification as fast as possible. Gosh darn it, that's true. I mean, nobody really wants to be sitting around waiting anyway. Um. So, well, I was gonna say, I'm sorry. One other thing about the processor speed you were mentioned, Um, I had heard this is this is something I need to verify. Actually, this is one of those things that I read once and I'd have to really research to make sure. But I had heard one reason why the later models of the PSP are faster. It's not actually necessarily an improved processor. It's that the that Sony specifically limited the speed on the processor. It was it was able to to uh go at least three thirty three mega hurts, so they had lowered that to around two hundred and twenty mega hurts on purpose and and then so essentially they then remove that limitation later on in the life of the PSP, which effectively made it a faster machine even though it was really just going at the speed it could always go. So it's sort of fuel pardon the sports analogy here, uh, sort of like a restrictor plate on NASCAR racing, where they actually, you know, do some thing to keep the engine from pushing the car forward at a faster rate. They basically put a restrictor on the processor speed of the earlier machines to keep them from hitting their actual I want to say, yes, but you're talking foreign talk to me now, all right. Well, as far as the universal media discs disks, go, um, we do have an article about how the PSP works on the website. And yes, um, who's a fine fine writer. Um he from what from what he wrote in that article, UM. Sony chose that particular format because it would hold one point eight gigs of information and UH, you know, it's able to be manufactured very quickly and for a lower cost, which was the advantage of it. Now obviously, UM if you look at the PSP GO, UH, the point that you made earlier about how UM UH flash memory can be a lot faster, actually uh they they switch. There is no um D and the PSP GO Yes, that's the latest UH model to come out of Sony, and it's it's running concurrently with the PSP three thousands. So you can still get either the PSP three thousand, which still runs on the discs the u m d s, or you can get the PSP GO which does not have a slot for U m d s. The only way you get in games on that content on that is to download it and to transfer it either by memory stick, by USB cable or wirelessly. It actually has all these PSP products, by the way, are also have wireless UM capability, so that you can play games with friends without having to hook up cables between the two. You can even use it to make Skype calls on a PSP, which is pretty darn cool now the PSP GO. Since they got rid of the U M D option, they started to run into a little bit that it's had a rocky launch, it's had a rough couple of months. The system it's off is very sleek looking. When you first look at it, you think, oh wow, they must have gone to a touch screen display because there are no controls that I can see. Yes, um, the first ones. If you haven't actually seen a PlayStation affordable. Um. When you look at it, it is sort of sort of like what they call the candy bar phones. They're very long and the screen is in the center with controls on either side of it. But the PSP GO is a departure from that form factor, right, So the controls on your regular PSP very much look like the controls on a on a PlayStation controller. You know, you've got the basic buttons, the triangle and the X and the square in the circle, and you've got the direction pad and even a little analog joystick in the lower left hand corner. Uh. Now, the PSP GO, when you first look at it, looks like there are no controls on it whatsoever. But in actuality, there is a slide out section that you can you know, you slide out from beneath the screen, and that's where all the controls are. So you know, it looks really compact and sleek when it's all when it's all closed up. Um, And I guess ideally the you would be able to just slide it in whenever you were maybe watching media, like if you're watching a movie or something that didn't need the controls, you might just you know, close it up. Otherwise I can't really under I don't really understand the design behind that. I don't know why Sony would have gone with that particular design. Um, it's it's fun, it's fun, but you know, people, you know, I think it's a there's a tactile um pleasantness about something that slides out. I suppose so because I do. I do occasionally mess with my HTCG one, which also has a slide out keyboard. Yet so I can't deny there is a satisfying click when you slide the screen all the way. Um. It just seems odd because it does make the device thicker than it would have to be because you have that I'm sorry you have that extra layer. Yeah, and another disadvantage or or let me say this another complaint that I've read and and doing research for the podcast asked, is that it seems to be made for people with smaller hands because it is a smaller device. As a matter of fact, the screen is smaller, and but although it maintains the same resolution um sou it seems to be more appropriate for people with smaller hands. People with bigger hands have trouble playing with the the PSP GO, or at least as far as I've read, and there's been some other problems. One of the problems was that when it launched again, they did not have that many games available for the PSP GO. Uh. Now, ideally, whenever you would get a system like this, you would be able to make old games available via download as quickly as possible, so you'd have access to the library of games that already exists for the PSP. Yeah, it's not like you can go to a your local used game store and buy games for it, because the umd s are not going to work with it. This is very clever on Sonny's part, by the way, because it means that they are going to get a lot more first sales and then they don't have to about people selling their games to other players. Um, but it also means that, uh. The the other thing that that the promise that that Sony PSP go owners kind of had was that when a new game came out, it was gonna come out in uh, the PSP go format as well as the regular PSP format pretty much at the same time. So ideally, if you were really anticipating a certain game, you would be able to get on your PSP Go before your buddy could get go to the store, pick it up, come back and start playing, so you could have bragging rights, oh, you know, I've been playing this for forty five minutes while you went out to go and buy the physical copy. But in several cases, Sony has released games where the PSP go version was not ready, and so the physical format came out and the PSP go version did not come out, and so then you had all the people who had the old PSP saying, I don't know why you wasted your money on that new device because my old one I can play this game and you still have to wait. So that's been kind of a black eye. Another one is that there was talk for a while of a um D exchange program where if you had a U m D for a game for your old PSP and you now have the PSP GO. You could start to turn in your old U m d s to get either credit or some other kind of game in exchange, or even the same game in exchange for the PSP GO, and the idea being that, well, if you hand over the physical media back to Sony, they should there shouldn't be an issue there. They'd be like, all right, sure, here's your game. But that hasn't happened either. Even though Sony originally said they were going to make plans for it, that's still in the oh we're making plans phase. And meanwhile, the device has been out for a couple of months, so it's uh, yeah, from what I from what I understand, there just hasn't been any real, you know, communication from Sony other than the oh, well, you know, yeah, the there there have been a lot of there's been some grumbling. Now granted, things have been getting better as time has gone on, you know, more games have come out for the Go. Um, it's still one of those systems that I think most uh most gamer reviewer types would say, let's wait a little longer before you dive in and buy one. Of these things, because, um, if you can get the same experience on a on a PSP three thousand, and it's cheaper than the PSP Go and there's no other, like clear advantage to owning a PSP Go, why would you go and buy one? You know, go ahead and stick with the other current model that is still supported. Games are still coming out for it, the same games that are coming out for the PSP Go. It's not like PSP go has a ton of exclusive content, So stick with that, and you're going to save money, and you know you're not gonna have the same kind of headaches that a lot of the PSP go early adopters have experienced. Um, I do think that it's going to continue to get better for PSP go owners. Do not despair if you went out and bought a PSP Go. It just it's just gonna take a while. I don't think Sony had all their ducks in a row when they launched the product. Unfortunately. Yeah, well it's um I'm interested to whether or not they're going to continue with the original PSP form factor now that the Go has been launched. Well, we've heard some rumors. There are rumors of a new device in the PSP line that would still use the U M D S and it would be called the PSP four thousand, keeping in with the trend UH so far, this is just in the rumor phase at the time that we're recording this podcast. There's a fairly recent rumor that came out that kind of fueled this that U a an accessory for a game Little Big Planet actually was the game for the PSPUH had on its packaging UM a little label saying that there was support for the PSP four thousand, which, as we again at the time of recording this podcast, does not officially exist. So some people were wondering if this was perhaps an a leak, an accidental leak that indicates that, yes, Sony does have a new device I planned and has told developers, but has not revealed it to the public. Since then, the manufacturer has said, no, this was a mistake. Don't draw any conclusions. UM, So we don't know right now for sure. This was just simply a type of where someone was typing in, Okay, well we support the PSP one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, Is there a four thousand? I don't know, better put it in okay, or if it was that's one thousand, two thousands, three thousand, four thousands. Oh crap. They haven't announced the four thousand yet. We're not really sure. Um. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions about this, uh I think. I mean, if there is a four thousand coming out, I don't know when Sony would announce it. I mean, normally you use things like E three, that's when they announced the PSP GO. You would use an event like that to announce a new product. But that's not until next June. So yes, and you wouldn't want to sabotage your holiday sales. But again, they're selling the PSP three thousand concurrently with the PSP GO, so they're already kind of sabotaging their own sales. Well. The other thing to consider, too, is that the while the original PSP came out in two thousand five, um, the successive versions of that have been coming out about every year for the last couple of years. So they can be a surprise to see the four thousand at E three this year. I mean, they've been making essentially incremental improvements on the original design, better video performance. I've heard that some of the things they did for the screen recently, just made it a little more jagged. Um, I don't have a PSP three thousand, so I can't really make that that statement from firsthand experience. That was just from a review I read it. Then when I see them do. Yeah, I haven't worked up the nerve to actually mug someone for one, but you know, but yeah, it's on the list. And something else we should point out, just very quickly before we wrap up. We were running out of time here, but uh, Interestingly, one of the maybe one of the reasons why the PSP GO came out, actually, Sonny has a new a new competitor, not just Nintendo, there's a new competitor on the scene, and that would be Apple. Yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch have become legitimate gaming platforms, and these these little games that are coming out for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch that are going for you know, maybe just a few dollars a pop, are posing a legitimate threat to other handheld gaming devices, which you know, traditionally their games are in the twenty dollar range. Yes, and with the UH the additional application source, with the Apple App Store model, other UH providers are starting to get on board with that too, uh, And I have the feeling that smartphones in general from all kinds of providers are going to be competition for the dedicated UM gaming devices, and Nintendo probably being the one in the most jeopardy because it does it is more geared specifically towards gaming. The PSP is more flexible, which gives you an opportunity to uh, to enjoy that. But the thing is, Um, you're right because a lot of the games that I've seen running thirty and forty dollars for the dedicated gaming platforms are ten dollars and less in the Apple App Store, right, So that might be a reason for the PSP go as well as a way for Sony to kind of develop a a gaming system that will have its own exclusive games that you won't find on the PSP three thousand or on um D format. But they're just gonna go for for a lower price and be more competitive with the iPhone and iPod touch games. And then of course there's the as we talked about with the Zoom, Microsoft not giving phone features to the Zoom. It's possible, I mean, Sony has the partnership with Ericsson, but I don't know that you'll see the two converge. Well, I think, I think the problem with that is you would, especially when you look at the form factor. You know what happens when you put an actual phone in the PSB you get the engage and that thing was awful. Well, you know, Nokia also had is a its own app store working up. So yeah, all right, Well, so that that's kind of our our take on the PSP. It's a a nefty gaming system. I mean it really it's it packs a big wallop in a small package. And h I've been really impressed by the games that I've played on it. Um I think, uh, I think, I think it's a really decent system. I I would not hesitate to go out and buy one myself if I didn't have a wife who would slap me upside the head if I went and bought another gaming system. Well, you know, it is not Now that they have the PS three slim, that's not that much less. I've been trying to I've been trying to convince her that the PlayStation three is actually a Blu Ray player and that that's why we should get one. So far, she ain't buying because, unfortunately for me, I'm married a very smart woman. All right, Well, that wraps that up. So why don't we, uh, why don't we finish this podcast with a little more listener mail listless for mail comes from Brian, and Brian says, Hey, guys, I've been a long time listener and I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the Electronics Theory podcast. I really got a lot out of it. Keep them coming. I hope your head healed quickly, Jonathan, Well, thanks, Brian. Yes, my head did heal quickly. The scar is almost completely gone. Uh. I appreciate the concern. Yeah. I shave my head and occasionally I take a chunk out of it. Um. Yeah, it's just a self loathing thing. I'm working through it. I'm seeing someone about it. Uh. Anyway, I think he was actually talking about how you said your head was going to explode at the end of that podcast. Oh did it? Yes? Today? Oh? Well that Unfortunately, I'm still recovering from. Um. Yes, some some wounds never heal, Brian, some wounds never heal. So with that, let's wrap up another episode of tech Stuff. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. We do have a great article as Chris said on the site written by Ed Garbanowski about how the PSPT works, I recommend you go and check that out. We have lots of other articles about other video game systems, so head on over to how stuff works dot com take a look at those. Remember, Chris and I do a live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can find out about that at the tech stuff blog. Just go to the website and you look see the blog links on the right hand side, or you can go to blogs dot how stuff works dot com if you want to take the direct route. And remember, if you want to send us any email for suggestions, questions, anything like that, our address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com. Chris and I will talk to you again really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics. Does it how stuff works dot com and be sure to check out the new tech stuff blog now on the house stuff Works homepage. Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you

Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera. It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With tech Stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hello everyone, and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Pallette and I am the tech editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting across from me, as always is senior writer Jonathan Stricklin. What's shake and bacon? All right? Then, I think we, uh, we're gonna get into some games today. Yeah, we're gonna start off with a little listener mail. This listen, Now, I didn't I'm mean to go all Casey case in there. I don't know where that came from. This listener mail comes from Mikey, who says I'm getting the new PSP GO and I want to know more about it. Sent from my A T and T iPhone. Mikey sent this, by the way back in October, which probably means that he's had the PSP GO for a while now. So I apologize my key, but I think you're other people want to know about the PSP GO. So we thought we talked about the PSP system in general and then work our way to the go. Yes, the the PlayStation portable or PSP is a the newest venture from Sony in the I mean the line itself is newest venture from Sony in the the portable gaming market. Now, there have been many, many, many many many portable games over the over the years, dating back to the nineteen eighties electronic games, I should say, you know, I wasna say, hey, baseball is pretty portable. Yeah, I need THEE and all. But no, no, I I remember somewhat fondly the days of the Mattel electronic football with the little blinking Yes, that red light is my quarterback and it's throwing this other blinking red light to this other red light, which is my who catches the ball from the quarterback. I'm no good with sports. Uh, you can just a receiver receiver se different people might. They were all just blinking lights to me. So since that's the problem. Is that everything I know about football I learned from those really primitive handheld games. They don't look anything like that in person. Yeah. I was very disappointed when I went to my first football game and the music wasn't done in these tiny little blips and bleeps. It was actually I was I was quite scared and ended up hiding under the bleachers for most of the game. No, no two bit sounds there, No, it was. It was overwhelming and frightening. But that's ah, that's that's talking about the early early days of portable gaming. And of course for a really long time, one particular name dominated in portable gaming. Actually in a way, they're still dominating. But that name would be Nintendo. Yes. Now, they weren't the very first though, I mean, there were other people who handed you know, making being the next electronic gaming giant, but the Nintendo Game Boy managed to catch on with gamers in a way that no other portable gaming system had at that point. And one could argue since even um there have been a lot of other portable gaming systems that have been out there, some from manufacturers like Atari and UH and Sayers, Sega and UH, and some of them had stats that and specifications that were very impressive. When stacked up against the Nintendo Game Boy, it was just amazing. You you look at the difference and think, wow, uh, this is almost as dramatic a a leap as the nes was over the old Attori twenty six hundred. But it turned out that the game Boy games the library was so huge, and the games were really well designed and had a very very strict policy when it came to um uh allowing games onto the system that uh. Most of these systems, even though they were technically more uh impressive than the game Boy, just didn't catch on. So when Sony got into the game, it wasn't a short thing. I mean, it wasn't a done deal. Well yeah, I mean many many companies had taken on UH Nintendo and tried to dethrone them because they had a pretty strong hold on the market from the early nines, and UH Sony has been the only one who's been able to hold on as long as it has. Although it's still you know, running a distant second. You're at least second place, maybe not distant second, but and I'm sure there are a lot of people that owned both. And again we're talking about a system that can do a whole lot more than just play games, which when you think about that, and you think about how relatively limited the Nintendo system is in comparison, it's amazing still that that Nintendo's system is still dominant in that market. However, Sony has fared better, better than some of the predecessors and as Chris was saying, the PSP is still alive and well, and it has its share a very vocal, very passionate fans. It's a good system. I mean, it's it's really really an impressive one. The first, if you have never used a handheld gaming system, um and or or if your only experience was with like an old game Boy or even a game Boy Advance, I think you'd be really surprised to see how the PSP performs because it is essentially as powerful as the PlayStation two and you've gotten a little portable framework. That's that's pretty impressive. Yeah. As a matter of fact, um uh, it has a better resolution than the than the Nintendo DS, yeah, which of course is the the you know, the current flagship on the Nintendo portable gaming front. Yeah yeah, um and it's got a number of other specifications that really have helped it cement its place as an entertainment device because, um it's got a sixteen by nine and resolution, which is the widescreen format as opposed to the four by three. Um And of course, the the first uh few iterations of the PlayStation Portable offered the opportunity to use U M D S H universal media discs which you can watch I mean, you can watch movies on it. It's not quite as good as DVD as far as uh you know, the resolution, but it is very close, so I mean it. You can you can listen to music on it, you can watch movies on it. Of course, the the Nintendo machine has caught up in some regards, but you're still not watching you know, you're still not going to the video store and picking up a movie to watch on your DS. Well, and you can listen to music and some You could also download content uh from a computer onto a memory stick and transfer that to your PSP, which had the capable ability of having memory six. I want to point out one thing really quickly, just something that tends to bug me. So U m d S yes, stands for Universe we medias. What else do U m d s run on besides the PSP? So what is universal about them? Well, you can put all kinds of universal content. And that, my friends, is why Chris should be in the PR department for Sony, Because seriously, if you're gonna call your media format universal, it darnwell better work for more than one device. This this is just a personal bone. I have to pick with with Sony in general, Sony is known for making proprietary UM inputs and and and connectors and uh and and cartridges and everything like that, anything that could theoretically be proprietary, like a memory stick. Like a memory stick. Yes, connectors for the power adapters right. Well, but you know, the one nice thing is that their USB connector for computer is actually the mini USB, so it it is the one thing that the p SP has that standardized. Everything else is a proprietary format from Sony. Uh. Sony tends to do this a lot with its electronics. I had a Sony camera actually still have the Sony camera that I was talking about that. Uh. I lost the USB cable for that, and of course as soon as I took a look, and I'm like, oh well, I've got other USB cables, and I looked at him, Oh wait, this is a Sony one, and sure enough it has one of those specific proprietary connectors you have to have in order to plug it into the camera. UM gets really really irritating. However, Uh, that's that's really neither here nor there. I was just wanting to point that out as something that was really bizarre to me. To see something called a universal media disc and yet it only works for one particular device. Well, on the other hand, you've got uh Sony's proprietary nature also gives you an advantage in some other departments because you with the PSP, you have the ability to take UH proprietary son game franchises like you know, Grand Tarismo and Ratchet and Clank on the go with you. Um so it's you know, you're not going to find those titles available for other gaming systems and some other things. We should point out that the PSP is able to do. You can use a you can use cables to hook your PSP up to a television and actually view content from your PSP on your television, which is that's kind of interesting. Um. Not everything is going to be full screen. It all depends on the particular application you're running. Um. There are also we should mention there are multiple generations of PSPs out there. They're not all it's not just one unit that has been on sale since it debuted and I think two thousand four. Yeah, and it actually started in two thousand four in Japan and made its way to the shores of the United States in spring of two thousand five, and um, that would be the very very first model. Yeah, and uh, back back when it first debuted. Just to give you an idea, this is this is something I think is usually a mistake for a game company. Debuting any kind of game console with only a few titles, I think is a bad idea. It's always a better idea to have as many titles as you possibly can upon launch or shortly after launch. Otherwise, Uh, gamers can lose interest very quickly. And I think when it first launched there was something like six titles in Japan and it wasn't until by the time I got to the United States that there were many more. There was closer than maybe thirty or whatever, which I think is a much more healthy number. Yeah. Well, people were saying the same thing about the launch than Nintendo. We that's when it first came out, because there were I mean, there were there were more than that, but you know, it wasn't exactly overrun with two hundred titles when it started. Nervous. I think that argument holds water too, because, as we see, the one of the main complaints about the Wii is still the lack of compelling games. So that's that's been a problem that's hunted Nintendo for a while, although it's not really hurt we sales. There was that one month when PlayStation three sales overtook the Wei, but that was a combination of several things. For one, that we had been on sale forever and the p S three had just had a massive price cut. Uh. And then of course in November of two thousand nine, we sales picked up again during the holiday season, so that you know, it's just took kind of a temporary breather. Getting back to the PSP they we were talking about the different generations, so there's a they they designate these by numbers. UM. One, the PSP one thousand is the first generation, correct as far as I know, I haven't actually seen it labeled that way. Um. But the PSP two thousand came out, it was the next version, and it came out in I believe two thousand seven, right, and this was slightly slimmer and lighter, lighter, and uh. Then you have the PSP three thousand, which came out in two thousand and eight. That's got that was even slimmer. And also one of the ways they managed to make slimmer was this is this is what I thought was interesting. They managed to reduce the size of the battery, which allowed them to make the case slimmer, and it also meant the battery was less powerful. However, they also made the system itself more efficient, So even though the battery didn't have as much of a charge in it as previous batteries, because the system itself was more efficient, you still had about the same amount of battery life as you had before. Well, if one I'm reading is correct, um, I learned that there are you have options in that regard. You can opt for a thicker battery pack, which gives you more life. Of course, you know that's also going to give you back some of the weight that you gave up when you bought one of the newer PSP models. Um from what I understand too, Uh, the systems became a little speedier the PSP two thousand and then three thousand UM they improved the processor speed, although it sort of depended on what game you were playing as to how fast it would access and the um U um D is also known to be sort of a pokey format. Yeah, it does take a little longer to load up a game than it would on a say, a cartridge based or or system. Actually, that's been a problem for a lot of gaming systems, not just portable ones. Any gaming system that uses discs rather than cartridges tends to have uh more of more loading times that you have to endure. Um, the cartridges tend to be pretty much instantaneous, and the anything that's on a disc, it just takes time for the laser to find the right information to read it, and then there's a little buffering period while the processor gets up to speed. I mean, it's it's kind of unavoidable right now. Um, the technology is just not fast enough for it to be instant. And of course, we as human beings used used to living in the digital age, we want our gratification as fast as possible. Gosh darn it, that's true. I mean, nobody really wants to be sitting around waiting anyway. Um. So, well, I was gonna say, I'm sorry. One other thing about the processor speed you were mentioned, Um, I had heard this is this is something I need to verify. Actually, this is one of those things that I read once and I'd have to really research to make sure. But I had heard one reason why the later models of the PSP are faster. It's not actually necessarily an improved processor. It's that the that Sony specifically limited the speed on the processor. It was it was able to to uh go at least three thirty three mega hurts, so they had lowered that to around two hundred and twenty mega hurts on purpose and and then so essentially they then remove that limitation later on in the life of the PSP, which effectively made it a faster machine even though it was really just going at the speed it could always go. So it's sort of fuel pardon the sports analogy here, uh, sort of like a restrictor plate on NASCAR racing, where they actually, you know, do some thing to keep the engine from pushing the car forward at a faster rate. They basically put a restrictor on the processor speed of the earlier machines to keep them from hitting their actual I want to say, yes, but you're talking foreign talk to me now, all right. Well, as far as the universal media discs disks, go, um, we do have an article about how the PSP works on the website. And yes, um, who's a fine fine writer. Um he from what from what he wrote in that article, UM. Sony chose that particular format because it would hold one point eight gigs of information and UH, you know, it's able to be manufactured very quickly and for a lower cost, which was the advantage of it. Now obviously, UM if you look at the PSP GO, UH, the point that you made earlier about how UM UH flash memory can be a lot faster, actually uh they they switch. There is no um D and the PSP GO Yes, that's the latest UH model to come out of Sony, and it's it's running concurrently with the PSP three thousands. So you can still get either the PSP three thousand, which still runs on the discs the u m d s, or you can get the PSP GO which does not have a slot for U m d s. The only way you get in games on that content on that is to download it and to transfer it either by memory stick, by USB cable or wirelessly. It actually has all these PSP products, by the way, are also have wireless UM capability, so that you can play games with friends without having to hook up cables between the two. You can even use it to make Skype calls on a PSP, which is pretty darn cool now the PSP GO. Since they got rid of the U M D option, they started to run into a little bit that it's had a rocky launch, it's had a rough couple of months. The system it's off is very sleek looking. When you first look at it, you think, oh wow, they must have gone to a touch screen display because there are no controls that I can see. Yes, um, the first ones. If you haven't actually seen a PlayStation affordable. Um. When you look at it, it is sort of sort of like what they call the candy bar phones. They're very long and the screen is in the center with controls on either side of it. But the PSP GO is a departure from that form factor, right, So the controls on your regular PSP very much look like the controls on a on a PlayStation controller. You know, you've got the basic buttons, the triangle and the X and the square in the circle, and you've got the direction pad and even a little analog joystick in the lower left hand corner. Uh. Now, the PSP GO, when you first look at it, looks like there are no controls on it whatsoever. But in actuality, there is a slide out section that you can you know, you slide out from beneath the screen, and that's where all the controls are. So you know, it looks really compact and sleek when it's all when it's all closed up. Um, And I guess ideally the you would be able to just slide it in whenever you were maybe watching media, like if you're watching a movie or something that didn't need the controls, you might just you know, close it up. Otherwise I can't really under I don't really understand the design behind that. I don't know why Sony would have gone with that particular design. Um, it's it's fun, it's fun, but you know, people, you know, I think it's a there's a tactile um pleasantness about something that slides out. I suppose so because I do. I do occasionally mess with my HTCG one, which also has a slide out keyboard. Yet so I can't deny there is a satisfying click when you slide the screen all the way. Um. It just seems odd because it does make the device thicker than it would have to be because you have that I'm sorry you have that extra layer. Yeah, and another disadvantage or or let me say this another complaint that I've read and and doing research for the podcast asked, is that it seems to be made for people with smaller hands because it is a smaller device. As a matter of fact, the screen is smaller, and but although it maintains the same resolution um sou it seems to be more appropriate for people with smaller hands. People with bigger hands have trouble playing with the the PSP GO, or at least as far as I've read, and there's been some other problems. One of the problems was that when it launched again, they did not have that many games available for the PSP GO. Uh. Now, ideally, whenever you would get a system like this, you would be able to make old games available via download as quickly as possible, so you'd have access to the library of games that already exists for the PSP. Yeah, it's not like you can go to a your local used game store and buy games for it, because the umd s are not going to work with it. This is very clever on Sonny's part, by the way, because it means that they are going to get a lot more first sales and then they don't have to about people selling their games to other players. Um, but it also means that, uh. The the other thing that that the promise that that Sony PSP go owners kind of had was that when a new game came out, it was gonna come out in uh, the PSP go format as well as the regular PSP format pretty much at the same time. So ideally, if you were really anticipating a certain game, you would be able to get on your PSP Go before your buddy could get go to the store, pick it up, come back and start playing, so you could have bragging rights, oh, you know, I've been playing this for forty five minutes while you went out to go and buy the physical copy. But in several cases, Sony has released games where the PSP go version was not ready, and so the physical format came out and the PSP go version did not come out, and so then you had all the people who had the old PSP saying, I don't know why you wasted your money on that new device because my old one I can play this game and you still have to wait. So that's been kind of a black eye. Another one is that there was talk for a while of a um D exchange program where if you had a U m D for a game for your old PSP and you now have the PSP GO. You could start to turn in your old U m d s to get either credit or some other kind of game in exchange, or even the same game in exchange for the PSP GO, and the idea being that, well, if you hand over the physical media back to Sony, they should there shouldn't be an issue there. They'd be like, all right, sure, here's your game. But that hasn't happened either. Even though Sony originally said they were going to make plans for it, that's still in the oh we're making plans phase. And meanwhile, the device has been out for a couple of months, so it's uh, yeah, from what I from what I understand, there just hasn't been any real, you know, communication from Sony other than the oh, well, you know, yeah, the there there have been a lot of there's been some grumbling. Now granted, things have been getting better as time has gone on, you know, more games have come out for the Go. Um, it's still one of those systems that I think most uh most gamer reviewer types would say, let's wait a little longer before you dive in and buy one. Of these things, because, um, if you can get the same experience on a on a PSP three thousand, and it's cheaper than the PSP Go and there's no other, like clear advantage to owning a PSP Go, why would you go and buy one? You know, go ahead and stick with the other current model that is still supported. Games are still coming out for it, the same games that are coming out for the PSP Go. It's not like PSP go has a ton of exclusive content, So stick with that, and you're going to save money, and you know you're not gonna have the same kind of headaches that a lot of the PSP go early adopters have experienced. Um, I do think that it's going to continue to get better for PSP go owners. Do not despair if you went out and bought a PSP Go. It just it's just gonna take a while. I don't think Sony had all their ducks in a row when they launched the product. Unfortunately. Yeah, well it's um I'm interested to whether or not they're going to continue with the original PSP form factor now that the Go has been launched. Well, we've heard some rumors. There are rumors of a new device in the PSP line that would still use the U M D S and it would be called the PSP four thousand, keeping in with the trend UH so far, this is just in the rumor phase at the time that we're recording this podcast. There's a fairly recent rumor that came out that kind of fueled this that U a an accessory for a game Little Big Planet actually was the game for the PSPUH had on its packaging UM a little label saying that there was support for the PSP four thousand, which, as we again at the time of recording this podcast, does not officially exist. So some people were wondering if this was perhaps an a leak, an accidental leak that indicates that, yes, Sony does have a new device I planned and has told developers, but has not revealed it to the public. Since then, the manufacturer has said, no, this was a mistake. Don't draw any conclusions. UM, So we don't know right now for sure. This was just simply a type of where someone was typing in, Okay, well we support the PSP one thousand, two thousand, three thousand, Is there a four thousand? I don't know, better put it in okay, or if it was that's one thousand, two thousands, three thousand, four thousands. Oh crap. They haven't announced the four thousand yet. We're not really sure. Um. I wouldn't draw too many conclusions about this, uh I think. I mean, if there is a four thousand coming out, I don't know when Sony would announce it. I mean, normally you use things like E three, that's when they announced the PSP GO. You would use an event like that to announce a new product. But that's not until next June. So yes, and you wouldn't want to sabotage your holiday sales. But again, they're selling the PSP three thousand concurrently with the PSP GO, so they're already kind of sabotaging their own sales. Well. The other thing to consider, too, is that the while the original PSP came out in two thousand five, um, the successive versions of that have been coming out about every year for the last couple of years. So they can be a surprise to see the four thousand at E three this year. I mean, they've been making essentially incremental improvements on the original design, better video performance. I've heard that some of the things they did for the screen recently, just made it a little more jagged. Um, I don't have a PSP three thousand, so I can't really make that that statement from firsthand experience. That was just from a review I read it. Then when I see them do. Yeah, I haven't worked up the nerve to actually mug someone for one, but you know, but yeah, it's on the list. And something else we should point out, just very quickly before we wrap up. We were running out of time here, but uh, Interestingly, one of the maybe one of the reasons why the PSP GO came out, actually, Sonny has a new a new competitor, not just Nintendo, there's a new competitor on the scene, and that would be Apple. Yes, the iPhone and iPod Touch have become legitimate gaming platforms, and these these little games that are coming out for both the iPhone and the iPod Touch that are going for you know, maybe just a few dollars a pop, are posing a legitimate threat to other handheld gaming devices, which you know, traditionally their games are in the twenty dollar range. Yes, and with the UH the additional application source, with the Apple App Store model, other UH providers are starting to get on board with that too, uh, And I have the feeling that smartphones in general from all kinds of providers are going to be competition for the dedicated UM gaming devices, and Nintendo probably being the one in the most jeopardy because it does it is more geared specifically towards gaming. The PSP is more flexible, which gives you an opportunity to uh, to enjoy that. But the thing is, Um, you're right because a lot of the games that I've seen running thirty and forty dollars for the dedicated gaming platforms are ten dollars and less in the Apple App Store, right, So that might be a reason for the PSP go as well as a way for Sony to kind of develop a a gaming system that will have its own exclusive games that you won't find on the PSP three thousand or on um D format. But they're just gonna go for for a lower price and be more competitive with the iPhone and iPod touch games. And then of course there's the as we talked about with the Zoom, Microsoft not giving phone features to the Zoom. It's possible, I mean, Sony has the partnership with Ericsson, but I don't know that you'll see the two converge. Well, I think, I think the problem with that is you would, especially when you look at the form factor. You know what happens when you put an actual phone in the PSB you get the engage and that thing was awful. Well, you know, Nokia also had is a its own app store working up. So yeah, all right, Well, so that that's kind of our our take on the PSP. It's a a nefty gaming system. I mean it really it's it packs a big wallop in a small package. And h I've been really impressed by the games that I've played on it. Um I think, uh, I think, I think it's a really decent system. I I would not hesitate to go out and buy one myself if I didn't have a wife who would slap me upside the head if I went and bought another gaming system. Well, you know, it is not Now that they have the PS three slim, that's not that much less. I've been trying to I've been trying to convince her that the PlayStation three is actually a Blu Ray player and that that's why we should get one. So far, she ain't buying because, unfortunately for me, I'm married a very smart woman. All right, Well, that wraps that up. So why don't we, uh, why don't we finish this podcast with a little more listener mail listless for mail comes from Brian, and Brian says, Hey, guys, I've been a long time listener and I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed the Electronics Theory podcast. I really got a lot out of it. Keep them coming. I hope your head healed quickly, Jonathan, Well, thanks, Brian. Yes, my head did heal quickly. The scar is almost completely gone. Uh. I appreciate the concern. Yeah. I shave my head and occasionally I take a chunk out of it. Um. Yeah, it's just a self loathing thing. I'm working through it. I'm seeing someone about it. Uh. Anyway, I think he was actually talking about how you said your head was going to explode at the end of that podcast. Oh did it? Yes? Today? Oh? Well that Unfortunately, I'm still recovering from. Um. Yes, some some wounds never heal, Brian, some wounds never heal. So with that, let's wrap up another episode of tech Stuff. I hope you've enjoyed the episode. We do have a great article as Chris said on the site written by Ed Garbanowski about how the PSPT works, I recommend you go and check that out. We have lots of other articles about other video game systems, so head on over to how stuff works dot com take a look at those. Remember, Chris and I do a live show every Tuesday one pm Eastern. You can find out about that at the tech stuff blog. 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