PSP2 analog sticks are actually sticks!

So, PSP2 was just revealed (Sony's calling it the NGP for now, but who are they kidding?), and evidently someone at Sony had sense and made sure it had dual analog sticks. More importantly, the sticks are actually sticks rather than slide pads.



Also, MGS4 was ported rather easily (although I don't know how they'll do 50GB on a portable), meaning current PS3 fighters should be easy ports. MvC3 and SSFIV should be pretty fun.

Hopefully the stick quality is as good as on the original NGP!

I like the twin analogs, obviously, but the d-pad still looks shit for fighters. This one looks maybe even worse than the current one, if such a thing is possible. I'm sure it's great for just about any other kind of game, though.

Is that a real picture, or is it some photoshop concept mock-up thing?

Wouldn't you play fighters with the sticks anyway?

Looks like a mockup, but that's actually what it looks like. There are lower quality pics of it out there, and they look exactly the same, except not as glossy.

Damn, this thing is powerful. And it looks like Sony learned from their mistake of making development a bitch with the PS3. All the devs were saying they ported these demos of PS3 games in one or two weeks. Hopefully they'll change the name, though. And WTF no price?

I'd imagine development is still a bitch, just that it's the same kind of bitch, so devs who have already done the work don't have to re-do everything. If it's just as easy to develop for as iOS though, I'll be very impressed, and quite pleased. Even moreso if they put OtherOS in to allow installation of MeeGo or Android.

I'm sure it'll be called the PSP2 in the end. Sony isn't creative with names.

Price... I'm expecting $399.

Add in a phone and I'm sold.

If it's 299 that is.

It'll be a $400 handheld with a poor UI, terrible battery life, and a scant selection of $50 games.

OLED screen,, man thats gonna be nice.



JS

I like my controller and screen separate for fighters. The addition of the dual analogue is great, though. I’m not sure I’d know what to think if I saw MGS4 running, in all it’s glory, on something the size of my palm.

migo said:

Wouldn't you play fighters with the sticks anyway?

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With an analog stick?! Are you high? Who does that?

And you do understand that the NeoGeo Pocket stick wasn't analog, right? This is going to be nothing like that.

Rade said:

Add in a phone and I'm sold.

If it's 299 that is.

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It has 3G, so I'm pretty sure a BT headset is feasible, and I wouldn't be surprised to see some carriers offering it subsidised.

brentsg said:

It'll be a $400 handheld with a poor UI, terrible battery life, and a scant selection of $50 games.

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$400 is probably realistic, I don't see where you think the UI will be bad - XMB is one of the better UIs, admittedly they're changing it but I doubt they'd do it without good reason. Battery life is rumored at 4-6 hours, which is on par with everything else this generation. Easy porting of PS3 games means it'll have a pretty impressive selection of games, no clue if they'll be smart enough to drop the average price down to $30 or something like that though.

jsiucho said:

OLED screen,, man thats gonna be nice.



JS

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Yeah, if they get a good one, it'll be great having a device with good sunlight visibility (another area the real NGP is quite good in),

Sixth said:

I like my controller and screen separate for fighters. The addition of the dual analogue is great, though. I’m not sure I’d know what to think if I saw MGS4 running, in all it’s glory, on something the size of my palm.

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Kinda hard to have it separate in a handheld. There's always going to be a compromise. At home I always stick to a trackball for FPS games, but on a handheld I'm willing to compromise with something not quite as good.

SouthtownKid said:

With an analog stick?! Are you high? Who does that?

And you do understand that the NeoGeo Pocket stick wasn't analog, right? This is going to be nothing like that.

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I'd rather use the analog stick than the D-Pad. Analog and Digital are different, sure, but aside from the lack of tactile feedback it can work the same way.

migo said:

$400 is probably realistic, I don't see where you think the UI will be bad - XMB is one of the better UIs, admittedly they're changing it but I doubt they'd do it without good reason. Battery life is rumored at 4-6 hours, which is on par with everything else this generation. Easy porting of PS3 games means it'll have a pretty impressive selection of games, no clue if they'll be smart enough to drop the average price down to $30 or something like that though.

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I'd be happy with 4-6 hours but I bet it ends up in the 3-4 hour range. I never have liked the UI on the PSP, Sony TVs, or the PS3. If the 3DS games are going to be $40-50 then I bet the decent PSP2 titles are $50.

I just hope they don't just shovel PS3 titles over with little work.

I think that the PSP2 portable needs to have either Blu-ray mini DVD's or thin cartridge cards the size of UMD cover cases. Sony should remove those bottom sides so that both headphones and power supply adaptors can be plugged in like how the original PSP model does or maybe like the 2000/3000 slim models do. Good to know that it looks like the current PSP model and I will grab a PSP2 when it launches. Also make cables for it to play games and movies on tv.

I hope that we will have PS3 ports of,

Arcana Heart 3
Heavenly Sword
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
Siren: New Translation
Star Ocean: Last Hope International
Super Street Fighter IV
Tekken 6
Vanquish
Virtura Fighter 5

And many other PS3 ports too. PSP2 should make it alot easier to play PS3 games on it. Imagine a PS3 controller pad shaped like a PSP2 but only a little fatter to have four shoulder buttons.

brentsg said:

I'd be happy with 4-6 hours but I bet it ends up in the 3-4 hour range. I never have liked the UI on the PSP, Sony TVs, or the PS3. If the 3DS games are going to be $40-50 then I bet the decent PSP2 titles are $50.

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Or, Sony might decide to undercut them. It could happen.

I just hope they don't just shovel PS3 titles over with little work.

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Given it has all the controls the PS3 does, there's hardly any reason to put a great deal of work in. It's easy to do so it lets them start off with a large number of A-list titles.

Shawn Carr2o said:

I think that the PSP2 portable needs to have either Blu-ray mini DVD's or thin cartridge cards the size of UMD cover cases.

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mini-BR won't be happening. Thin cartridge cards might, although I hope they just go for CF rather than creating their own new proprietary format.

Sony should remove those bottom sides so that both headphones and power supply adaptors can be plugged in like how the original PSP model does or maybe like the 2000/3000 slim models do. Good to know that it looks like the current PSP model and I will grab a PSP2 when it launches. Also make cables for it to play games and movies on tv.

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I agree, when I drew a mockup of what I figured the PSP2 should look like, it was pretty much this. Since it has the back touch panel, the headphone adapters have to be close to the centre.

I hope that we will have PS3 ports of,

Arcana Heart 3
Heavenly Sword
Resident Evil 5: Gold Edition
Siren: New Translation
Star Ocean: Last Hope International
Super Street Fighter IV
Tekken 6
Vanquish
Virtura Fighter 5

And many other PS3 ports too. PSP2 should make it alot easier to play PS3 games on it. Imagine a PS3 controller pad shaped like a PSP2 but only a little fatter to have four shoulder buttons.

Click to expand...

I'm sure they'll use the back touch panel for L2 and R2, but yeah, it'd be neat using a PSP2 as the controller for a game, with character stats on the PSP2 rather like using the GBA on FFCC.

Quite a few PS3 games I'd be looking forward to as well. Little Big Planet 2 with level creation on the device would be absolute killer. Universal titles like what Apple has with iOS would also be pretty sweet. 960x544 res for PSP2, 1280x720 res for PS3, one single download to either device that can be copied to the other, and transferrable save files.

Given the PSP2 is like a home console in your pocket, if Sony really supports the idea of taking your home game with you, it could be a big hit, and would also justify a $50 price tag for the games. Since they've also apparently done everything right so far, this isn't quite as much wishful thinking as it may have once been.

That might be the reason why Nintendo is keeping their price point for 3DS titles a secret. They don't want Sony to undercut them.

Using an analogue stick or slide-pad for fighters is seriously nothing but a self-imposed handicap. A D-pad I can deal with, and a stick in a perfect world. But an analogue stick? Fuck it; I’d rather not even play.
My thing with handheld fighters is in the fact that even if you’re quite tight with your movements, using continuous input commands, dashing, etc. is always going to cause some degree of tremor in the system itself. You find yourself trying to enjoy a nice round or two of whatever fighting game you’re into but you end up looking like Michael J. Fox sending a text message. I’d rather just play games with more demanding input via a tethered or wireless control.

My problem on fighters on the current psp is that when doing complicated quick inputs on the d-pad, my thumb will often brush the analog nub and fuck shit up. It's like fucking come on, why put the analog nub right there? If you have to do real quick in the heat of battle, good luck not brushing that fucking analog nub. Shit.

I wish the analog sticks were more offset on the psp2. It looks like they tried to move them slightly out of the way, but I still see the same thing happening with them. Or I wish they could have put the analog stick ABOVE the d-pad instead of below (like the 3DS. Good move, Nintendo). That would have solved it. But I guess they couldn't put the stick above the buttons on the right side, so whatever.

Eh, it's an okay design. I'll live.

Good software could just be designed to ignore analog stick input. I prefer the analog sticks lower for comfort purposes.

I don't see why analog sticks couldn't adequately emulate a digital one. I've got the KoF homebrew on the Wii, and definitely didn't enjoy playing it with the Wiimote D-pad (either the official one or the intec Wave+ one). I can see D-pad usage with games like Dragonball Z Burst Limit that are intended for console use initially, but arcade style ones I don't see the D-pad as being all that viable. I hated playing SFII on the SNES, SFIV on iOS plays much better.

migo said:

Good software could just be designed to ignore analog stick input.

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I agree, but none of the fighting games I've bought are set up to give me that option.

migo said:

I don't see why analog sticks couldn't adequately emulate a digital one.

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Because they don't move right at all. Trust us. They can't do it.

Also, if you prefer the control of iOS touch screen SF4 over SNES d-pad SF2, it means you don't really play fighters, so there's the explanation why you don't understand the analog complaint thing.

No, it just means I haven't been conditioned to accept the D-Pad as a viable replacement. If I've got access to an arcade stick I'll play that instead. D-Pad isn't a good solution, so I don't get why everyone seems to think it's the holy grail for portable fighters.

migo said:

No, it just means I haven't been conditioned to accept the D-Pad as a viable replacement. If I've got access to an arcade stick I'll play that instead. D-Pad isn't a good solution, so I don't get why everyone seems to think it's the holy grail for portable fighters.

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No, sorry. I don't mean to offend you, but if you think a touch screen IS a viable replacement, you clearly don't play fighters at all. I love SF4 on iPhone. It's a fun little time-waster. But that's all it is. The most complicated thing you are ever going to be able to do on that is jump in kick, crouch punch, buffer into shoryuken or fireball or whatever. That is IT. You are never in a million years going to pull off crouch LK, crouch LP, crouch MP -> +LK, +LP -> focus attack dash cancel +HP. The touch screen interface isn't even set up to handle such a thing. And you pretending anyone can do something like that on an iPhone touch screen just makes you sound ridiculous. But people can and do pull off stuff like that on pads ALL THE TIME. The d-pad isn't a good solution? Yeah, sorry, but the past 17 years multiplied by millions of players disagrees with you. It's not as ideal a solution as a joystick, but it's plenty viable.

Trying to hit combos with the SNES d-pad was an exercise in futility. All the diagonal angles were impossible to hit consistently. At least with the touch screen you can hit diagonals as well as horizongal and vertical.

I can pull off combos and special moves in SFIV without SP move assist turned on, so it's not as if it's impossible to do. I could really be saying the same thing about you not playing fighters simply because you can't pull it off with a touch screen.

Being able to hit all directions equally well beats out being only able to hit 4 of them well for a game that's designed to make use of 8.

migo said:

Trying to hit combos with the SNES d-pad was an exercise in futility. All the diagonal angles were impossible to hit consistently. At least with the touch screen you can hit diagonals as well as horizongal and vertical.

I can pull off combos and special moves in SFIV without SP move assist turned on, so it's not as if it's impossible to do. I could really be saying the same thing about you not playing fighters simply because you can't pull it off with a touch screen.

Being able to hit all directions equally well beats out being only able to hit 4 of them well for a game that's designed to make use of 8.

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You are really making a lavish display of your ignorance. You don't even know enough to understand how little you know about what you are trying to discuss.

And if you can't hit corners on a d-pad 10 times out of 10, see a fucking doctor.

SouthtownKid said:

With an analog stick?! Are you high? Who does that?

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Younger generation of gamers...that didn't grow up playing Neo Geo