First PSP`s released have flaws.

[RAINMAN]

Just read it at another forum. There are RUMORS that the first released PSPs were found to have a couple of problems!
1- A button would stay 'pressed' and not return to 'normal'.
2- Dead Pixels; some of the pixels don't show the color of the game, instead it's black (think a dead lightbulb amongst others that are working)
3- The Analog stick would fall!
4- The cover of the UMD where the CDs are to be put in don't close completely!


Quote:
1.UMD won't eject
http://v.isp.2ch.net/up/4f110e6a10b2.jpg (http://v.isp.2ch.net/up/4f110e6a10b2.jpg)

2.Dead Pixels (common) (http://up.haiiro.info/file/614.jpg)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sanchan/20041211#c (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/sanchan/20041211#c)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/images/diary/.../2004-12-11.png (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/images/diary/.../2004-12-11.png)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ayapu22/20041212 (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/ayapu22/20041212)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/nakashi/20041212 (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/nakashi/20041212)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/umaino/20041213 (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/umaino/20041213)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hajime_ninomae/20041212??????? (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/hajime_ninomae/20041212???????)

3.Air bubbles/ dust in the LCD
http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2658.jpg (http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2658.jpg)
http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2659.jpg (http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2659.jpg)

4.Bits falling off
http://v.isp.2ch.net/up/3c2417a24e9c.jpg (http://v.isp.2ch.net/up/3c2417a24e9c.jpg)

5.The power's on but the system's not booting
http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/ (http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/)
http://blog.livedoor.jp/od3/archives/10595825.html (http://blog.livedoor.jp/od3/archives/10595825.html)
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/fukutake/20041212 (http://d.hatena.ne.jp/fukutake/20041212)
Pictures
http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/images/oioi1.jpg (http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/images/oioi1.jpg)
http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/images/oioi2.jpg (http://amanoudume.s41.xrea.com/images/oioi2.jpg)
http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2653.jpg (http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2653.jpg)
http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2654.jpg (http://www.imgup.org/file/iup2654.jpg)
Video
http://up4.upload-ch.net/src/up2372.mpg.html (http://up4.upload-ch.net/src/up2372.mpg.html)

6.Failure to read UMD
http://www.geocities.jp/mmrinside/SN310027.JPG (http://www.geocities.jp/mmrinside/SN310027.JPG)

7.UMD flies out by itself if you twist the PSP slightly
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cf6y-oot/auto.amc (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/%7Ecf6y-oot/auto.amc)
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cf6y-oot/auto.avi (http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/%7Ecf6y-oot/auto.avi)

8.UMD slot can't be closed properly
http://up.haiiro.info/file/627.jpg (http://up.haiiro.info/file/627.jpg)

9.Bug in Ridge Racer (the music from the mini-game Rally X won't stop when you enter the main game)
http://home.megapass.co.kr/~ttf1513/a.avi (http://home.megapass.co.kr/%7Ettf1513/a.avi)
That list was taken from a thread at the DCEmulation forums.

[maximumzero]

And to think that some thought that Nintendo was the one rushing a product to market.

[Eidan]

This exactsame list has been spread over the internet since Day 2 of PSP's release, and I still have yet to hear from any news publication, gaming or otherwise, to mention widespread problems with PSPs like this list suggests.

[G1Ravage]

PSP has been released?

[Invader_Spooch]

This exactsame list has been spread over the internet since Day 2 of PSP's release, and I still have yet to hear from any news publication, gaming or otherwise, to mention widespread problems with PSPs like this list suggests.
I guessed that this type of propaganda would be spread (and by the typical people), but they don't even have the nerve to claim it as truth.

No news links, no proof.

Come back when you have some ACTUAL dirt on them, mudslingers. :shrug:

[ZorBrak]

that's sony for you

[ZeroFate]

In other news: The PS2, XBOX, and Gamecube are all defective because if you kick them, they turn off.

Seriously, in the UMD movie that person twisted the hell out of that PSP to make it fly out. I also find it funny that Gamespot & IGN each received 10 units and neither have reported any of these problems. It's BS, and it's pretty sad that someone had enough time on their hands to do this...

[Artimus Gigan]

OMG SONY WILL SCREW US ALL IN TEH ARSES AND KILL TEH TENDO!!!!11111111111111

The japasnese public are essentialy the test subjects so that the US release will go off without a hitch, heck the Japanese PS2 initial release there were some reported problems, however they were fixed.

besides that list doesn't seem official

[Lord Dalek]

Those are just minor Technical quirks, I want serious problems dammit!

[RAINMAN]

PSP has been released?

It was Release in japan a week ago.

[Invader_Spooch]

It was Release in japan a week ago.
Acutally it was released this last Sunday, December 12th.

[Andrew T. Hingson]

The DS has some of these problems as well (obviously not the UMD one). My friends little brother had to take his DS to Nintendo HQ twice. The first time for a consistantly dead pixel and the second time because the bottom screen wasn't probably set.

ZeroFate, face it... You just want the PSP to do better. We all have our biases.

[Invader_Spooch]

The DS has some of these problems as well (obviously not the UMD one). My friends little brother had to take his DS to Nintendo HQ twice. The first time for a consistantly dead pixel and the second time because the bottom screen wasn't probably set.

ZeroFate, face it... You just want the PSP to do better. We all have our biases.
I don't see how having a slight bias one way or the other should automatically debunk his arguements.

Everyone is biased. You just need to be mature enough to keep that from blinding you from the truth.

[Mynd Hed]

The japasnese public are essentialy the test subjects so that the US release will go off without a hitch, heck the Japanese PS2 initial release there were some reported problems, however they were fixed.

besides that list doesn't seem official

While I agree that this particular list of PSP problems is almost certainly bunk and probably irrelevant for North American consumers even if there's some truth to it...

...obviously not ALL the problems with the initial release of the PS2 were fixed. I'd have to have been living in a cave not to hear all the horror stories attached to the release units of the PS2, particularly the DVD player, which was a notoriously unreliable and poorly implemented feature (at least in the first production run-- I understand they've gone a long way toward improving it in subsequent units).

[Duke Psychology]

ZeroFate, face it... You just want the PSP to do better. We all have our biases.funny. i don't see you accusing others for just wanting the DS to do better. we all have our biases indeed...

[ZeroFate]

ZeroFate, face it... You just want the PSP to do better. We all have our biases. Well it's pretty much no secret I'm a huge PSP supporter, me and Invader are pretty much the only two here on the board who defend it non-stop. I have nothing against the DS, it's a good system that I'm just not interested in. I could care less if the PSP does better than the DS. As long as Sony gets a moderate piece of the handheld pie this thing should be considered a success.

[Strollymonster]

It wouldn't shock me if this was true, the early releases of ANY technology have glitches, especially Sony's...remember that both the PS1 and PS2 both had issues like this at their respective launches...

[Bryangst]

I think people need to keep in mind that with the first batch of any new unit, there will be flaws in some. As people report them, the companies look into at and do what they can to fix it. So I personally don't see the need to make such a huge deal out of it like it's starting to become.

[Lord Dalek]

Still this really doesn't do anything for my "dvd's vs. cartridges" campaign.

[Dark Soul]

I heard they lowered the price on it to under 200$.

[Invader_Spooch]

Well it's pretty much no secret I'm a huge PSP supporter, me and Invader are pretty much the only two here on the board who defend it non-stop. I have nothing against the DS, it's a good system that I'm just not interested in. I could care less if the PSP does better than the DS. As long as Sony gets a moderate piece of the handheld pie this thing should be considered a success.
Agreed. I don't harbor any particular ill will towards the DS Hell, if it had some games of interest to me I would probably think of buying one. (I'm a sucker for new tech gear). I may pick one up, however, when FFIII comes out. Well, that and the Vandal Hearts port (my favorite Strategy RPG).

I just don't find it very interesting (hardware wise; the touch screen has been done by the Game.com before, so that innovation is out the window), and think that the PSP looks more useful/promising to me. I want 3/4 of the titles announced for it (unlike the one or two DS games that sound interesting to me), and the multimedia aspect is something I've always loved about the Playstations.

It's not expected to be an immediate success, and I don't think Nintendo should be worried about it putting them out of business anytime soon, I just want a fair balanced handheld market. I think that healthy competition between two evenly matched companies is good for the industry, and good for the consumer. When you don't have that, the dominant company gets lazy, and the quality goes down.

[Chad Bonin]

the second time because the bottom screen wasn't probably set.I'm gonna assume you meant "properly". He did realize that you can calibrate the touch screen via the menu, right?

[RAINMAN]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/1...ws_6114909.html

[Bird Boy]

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/1...ws_6114909.html

Ya may wanna check your links before posting. And post a little more than just a link; perhaps what you thought of the link in question or something other than a copy and paste URL.

-BB

[RAINMAN]

It was working before I post it.:o

Here some q&a from gamespot.com

Quote:
TOKYO--With Sony's new PlayStation Portable officially on shelves, excitement about the system is at an all-time high. With that excitement comes a whole lot of questions. There has never been a handheld platform quite like the PSP, so naturally, there has been a fair amount of confusion about what the system can and can't do. Here, we've attempted to pull some of the most common questions from our message boards to give you a little more insight into what we've noticed about the system so far. Let's start with the most frequently asked question: battery life.

Q: How long does the PSP's battery last?

A: The short answer is that it depends on what you're doing. The longer answer is that Sony has stated that the battery should last around six hours. With simpler-looking games, like Lumines or Mahjong Fight Club, that definitely seems to be the case. But with more graphically intensive games, like Ridge Racers, the battery doesn't last quite as long. Based on our estimates and a few battery-draining tests, Ridge Racers seems to last somewhere between 90 minutes and three hours. Playing with the wireless networking switch flipped on will also further reduce your battery life. The system has an auto-sleep function that stops the wireless drain, but that switch is there for a reason. Turn it off when you're not using it.

Video and audio will likely drain the battery differently, depending on where the content is coming from. It's less power-intensive to read from the memory stick (http://www.the-magicbox.com/forums/memory%20stick) slot than the UMD drive, though without any audio discs and only one demo video disc full of short game and movie trailers available now, it's difficult to actually put a number on this. Considering that the screen will black out if left unattended, it seems reasonable that you should get a good amount of battery power out of the system when listening to audio.

Q: How is the system's USB port used?

A: The PSP's USB port is simply used to access the memory stick from a PC. There's a menu option on the unit labeled "USB Connection," and selecting this puts it into connection mode. Hooking it up to a PC causes the system to be recongnized as a PSP, and the memory stick becomes a drive letter, just like it would with a digital camera (http://www.the-magicbox.com/forums/digital%20camera) or other removable memory device. From here, you can drag and drop files on or off the stick, letting you add audio clips, back up (or easily transfer) your game saves, and so on. Getting your own video running on the PSP, however, is a little more difficult.

Q: How do you get the PSP to recognize video files?

A: While formatting a memory stick in the PSP creates folders for audio files, game saves, and actual games themselves, there's no clear path for placing video on the unit. The system supports a specific flavor of mpeg-4 for its video, so you'll need something capable of encoding or transcoding to that format. Sony is supposed to release a downloadable version of its video transcoding software, Image Converter 2, to handle this, but as of yet, we haven't been able to find it. A third party has developed a freely available program called 3GP Converter that will also manage this process. But getting the files into the proper MP4 format is just the beginning.

The PSP reads video files using a directory structure that isn't put on the stick when you initially format it for PSP use. So you'll need to create a root directory called "mp_root" first, then place another directory named "100mnv01" under it. You put your MP4s inside that directory, but they must be named a certain way for the PSP to recognize them. The naming convention is m4vXXXXX.mp4, where "XXXXX" is a series of numbers, such as, say, 00001. Once you've jumped through these hoops--and it's really only a hassle the first time you do it--you'll be watching your own videos on a PSP. Why is it like that, you might ask? We're guessing that it's the same file structure that Sony's video (http://www.the-magicbox.com/forums/s%20video) recording memory stick devices use.

Q: Does the PSP heat up when you use it for long periods of time?

A: No, not really. Initial reports out of the Tokyo Game Show stated that the left side of the system seemed to heat up after short periods of time, but the units on display there weren't the final hardware.

Q: Are there long loading times in every game?

A: After years of cartridge-based handhelds, it's a little difficult to accept the concept of loading times on a portable game system. Yes, PSP games need to load, just like any other disc-based system would. Those load times vary. Lumines loads up new graphics and music when you change stages, and during this load, all of the game's audio--all of which is tied to the music--stops. Ridge Racers loads for about 15 seconds up front, and from there, getting into or out of a race takes another 10 to 15 seconds. Vampire Chronicle seems to be the worst offender so far, as it has 15 to 20 second load times when you get into or out of a match. In the game's tower mode, where you only fight for one round, this becomes pretty noticeable. But for the most part, the loading times aren't that prominent. When you put a number on them, it sounds worse than it actually is. Ridge Racers doesn't feel like it takes forever to load. Vampire Chronicle can be a little frustrating, but that's about it.

Q: Does the screen smudge easily?

A: Yes. Don't play PSP games and eat french fries (http://www.the-magicbox.com/forums/french%20fries) at the same time. It's only noticeable when you catch a bit of glare from the system's usually shiny face, but, yeah, the front of the system picks up fingerprints rather easily. The slip case that comes with the PSP value pack (and is also sold separately) seems to clean off the face of the system just fine.

Q: Will the screen scratch easily?

A: We haven't exactly gone out of our way to test this out, but the screen feels pretty thick, like it might resist a scratch or two. We recommend keeping it in some kind of case. The slip case that Sony is selling seems like it'll be perfect for keeping the screen safe from keys or other sharp items in your pocket, but it might also be worth investing in a larger, more shockproof case for the system, as well as some clear film to go over the screen, which will add another layer of protection.

Q: Are dead pixels a problem with the PSP screen?

A: We've seen several PSPs since the system's Japanese release, and one system in that batch has a few dead pixels on the screen. Just as they are with any other screen, dead pixels are a real bummer. The short supply currently available in Japan means that people getting screens with dead pixels might not be able to exchange their PSPs right away. We've heard a few anecdotal reports about how widespread the PSP dead pixel problem is, and it seems like the exception rather than the norm.

Q: What's the deal with the PSP's control disc? Is it analog or not?

A: We've heard reports from the development side of things that the control disc on the PSP isn't a "true" analog device. After playing a few games that use it, it's difficult to tell the difference. The disc definitely allows for more than eight directions of motion, and works fine for, say, making slight turns in Ridge Racers. That said, the disc seems to have a fairly large dead zone, and it's difficult to get very slight movements out of it. But above all, it seems to work well for driving games at least, and it shouldn't be a problem, regardless of how, exactly, it works under the hood.

Q: Will the PSP be a region-free (http://www.the-magicbox.com/forums/region%20free) device?

A: Reports from Sony claim that games, at least, will be region-free. So in theory, you could buy a Japanese PSP and play US releases on it. Video (and probably audio) discs, however, will be region-locked. The trouble with region encoding is that you never really know how it's going to work out until the system is out in at least two territories. Reports so far give it the green light, but we can't be 100 percent sure until we see US games running on a Japanese PSP for ourselves.

Q: When will the PSP be out in my neck of the woods? How much will it cost?

A: Sony hasn't announced specifics for any region other than Japan at this time. The PSP is expected to hit North America sometime during the first quarter of the year, and signs seem to be pointing to March. Prices for hardware and software have not been announced, but it's expected that Sony will announce details about the North American launch plans in early January.

[Mog]

Wow. 90 minutes to three hours for a graphics intensive game. That's.......pitiful. I have a feeling that a better battery will be available for the US release, or at least later down the road. I was expecting 5 hours minimum. I thought Sony would do better. I guess I was wrong.

[Strollymonster]

90 MINUTES?

Good God, that won't even cover a plane trip or a train ride...

Sony has had enough technical prowess to do better, but I guess getting a system out cheap is more important to them.

Looks like the PSP will need to be charged every night for the average game player...

[Tommy Lawson]

90 MINUTES?

Good God, that won't even cover a plane trip or a train ride...

Sony has had enough technical prowess to do better, but I guess getting a system out cheap is more important to them.

Looks like the PSP will need to be charged every night for the average game player... Yes, getting a system out cheap at an enormous loss is important to them, because they know doing so may very well damage Nintendo's leadership position in the handheld world if they can establish a presence in the market. And just like there can be PS2 games with incredibly short or very, very, very long load times, it's the same way with PSP games. It depends on the quality of the programmer really. Still, I do see Sony releasing a battery that'll last longer in a year or two. I've heard about some promising technologies for handheld electronic batteries in the past months, that Sony's R&D department may be looking into right now.

Also, there is this key fact: Up until the release of the Nintendo GBA SP, AC adapters were generally sold separately from the handheld unit. Both the Game Boy line and the Game Gear line made you buy either AA or AAA batteries. There was a major change by going to rechargable batteries. People no longer need to buy batteries or an AC adapter for the things if they want to play DS or PSP games at home since AC adapters are included with the base system, and that is a huge bonus IMHO, so battery life may not be as critical as it was in the Game Gear vs. Game Boy days.

[Squall]

Up until the release of the Nintendo GBA SP, AC adapters were generally sold separately from the handheld unit. Both the Game Boy line and the Game Gear line made you buy either AA or AAA batteries. There was a major change by going to rechargable batteries. People no longer need to buy batteries or an AC adapter for the things if they want to play DS or PSP games at home since AC adapters are included with the base system, and that is a huge bonus IMHO, so battery life may not be as critical as it was in the Game Gear vs. Game Boy days.
Not to mention, AC adapters & rechargeable batteries are much more environmentally friendly than replacing AA's or AAA's on a regular basis. :)

[Mog]

I love my AC adapter as much as the next guy, but plug-ins aren't that numerous outside my house and that's the problem. Oh well. I can live with it. Just as long as they come out with a car adapter for the road trips. I don't know what I'd do without one of those.

[Artimus Gigan]

90mins-3hrs...

good thing my electronics run on the souls of the damned

however there will probably be a new battery made or a 3rd party alternitive...

however considering that many of the PSP's games arn't UBERPOLYGONFEST it will probably last quite awhile....then again the definition of graphic intensive varies on who you talk too...

strange though the Advent Children movie disc for PSP is over 90 minutes, and I'm pretty sure that's about as "graphic intensive" the PSP can get...