Posts Tagged ‘PSP’

DSi lands. News about the next PSP and iPhone abound also

Wednesday, April 8th, 2009

Undoubtedly the biggest new gadget release recently is the Nintendo DSi, which went on sale in the UK on Friday of last week. Comprising the dual screen portable gaming of the ultra successful DS-Lite that has seen it become the unchallenged king of portable gaming, the DSi packs in a few new features. Most notably it now packs in two cameras, and gone is the Gameboy Advance cartridge slot which has been replaced with an SD memory card slot.

What does this mean? Well for a start those Guitar Hero On Tour peripherals for the DS which utilised the GBA slot will no longer be compatible. The SD card slot which has replaced this is obviously necessary for the downloadable content which you will be able to download to the DSi via wifi, which is indeed the major point Nintendo are using to push the DSi at the moment. It’s not all entirely cosmetic and obvious as looking inside the DSi (as has been done here) you will see that the speed of the processor has been doubled, and four times as much RAM has been crammed in!

With the release of the DSi, and the expected announcement/release of the new iPhone which some (not myself, at least unless it changes drastically from its current incarnation) see as a new challenger in the portable gaming category, I was not entirely surprised to see also increasing amounts of speculation regarding a new PSP, which has possibly culminated today with this revelation from an ‘insider source’.

While the report sounds impressive: sliding touch screen, hidden d-pad and buttons, and dual analogue sticks. I can’t currently imagine how they would manage to engineer all of this into a device that will actually be portable? I can’t help but feel the ghost of the Sega Game Gear, and indeed the Atari Lynx – both technically superior machines to the original Gameboy, but crippled as portable game systems by their size and poor battery life.

Whatever Sony has planned it should be unveiled at E3 this year. Nintendo will also possibly unveil some of their longer term plans for the DSi, and Apple are suspected to make an announcement about the next model iPhone around June time also.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

Sony PSP To Provide Live Match Footage And Stats at Arsenal’s Emirates Stadium

Friday, January 23rd, 2009

It was reported earlier this week that after a period of testing, an English Premiership Football club(Arsenal) will be rolling out live match services utilising the wireless capabilities of the Sony PSP. After solving some rights issues, this is currently expected to be made available within the next 18 months or so.

These will basically consist of offering real-time statistics, real-time streaming of game footage, access to replays of goals or possibly contentious refereeing decisions, as well as Stadium information with even the possibility of some sort of social networking capability as well.
The question I can’t help but ask straight off is why provide a live stream, when you are already in the Stadium having paid to watch the match live? Replays are already provided on the huge HD Televisions they have installed at the stadium, but I suppose the chance to play them back repeatedly at half or full time seeing how well their players have done to con the ref could be entertaining. Finally although you can question the intelligence of football fans in general, I would like to think most of them can find their way to a toilet, or food stand on their own, and I have to say a hand held map might actually confuse them more than following signs.

The main benefit of this would be the social networking aspect which I’m certain has massive possibilities, as well as providing some better half time entertainment than what is usually put on.

Now I realise I’m being quite negative here, and it is mainly because I think this is a somewhat cynical marketing ploy. I don’t doubt that you will not be able to take in and use your own PSP to utilise these features as part of the ticket price, but would need to hire out a specially branded, and software installed Stadium owned PSP, no doubt including a lot of advertising for yet further increased revenue. The features that are stated in the article will hopefully be widened and vastly improved upon at the time of launch, or I can see the novelty wearing off quite quickly otherwise.

A similar trial was carried out in Disneyland at the beginning of last year when Nintendo and Disney trialled a scheme with the DS Lite providing portable interactive maps and park information.

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »