The battery life is not going to be three hours. And previous handhelds died because of more than just battery problems. The Game Gear's problem was that you had to spend a fortune on AA batteries. The PSP's battery is rechargeable. Big difference. But we've been over this a million times already. Just wait a year and you'll see how wrong you were. I'll be ready to gloat.
3-5 hours is not very good at all for a handheld, of course since the batteries are rechargable it won't be as big a deal as with other handhelds but still...
Oh I am happy to know you are a mind reader who knows they will be $20...
And anyway I bet it's a big hassle to change them... I wouldn't expect it to be easy to remove (like the GBA-SP) since it isn't really supposed to be removed...
And anyway you'd need like three or four of those to get the battery life of a GBA (without light on), which is a lot of money on top of that possible $300-plus for the system. And as I said not exactly hot-swappable...
You must be a mind reader if you know how difficult it'll be to change batteries.
I imagine it'll be like a portable DVD player or camcorder, which is very easy to do unles you're a monkey (like you, perhaps?). A spare GBA SP battery pack will cost you around $15, and most camcorder battery packs are around $15-30.
You don't really need an extra battery pack for the GBA SP. And Nintendo made it difficult to replace the battery because they made the system with five-year olds in mind. I seriously doubt Sony will do the same with the PSP.
Or maybe the fact that the GBA gets good battery life is a factor there... :) Oh, what do you mean about five year olds? They certainly weren't the market for the SP...
Sony might make it easier but its still a hassle (how much of one we don't know) and a sizable expense. And even with two the GBA has better battery life.
Nintendo made it difficult to take out the SP battery because they didn't want little kids (the GBA SP's MAIN target) to lose the battery. I'm sure Sony will make it very easy to switch battery packs. All of your ideas are based off of assumptions that Sony will do things the Nintendo way, which they have never done. It'll be as easy as switching batteries on a digital camera.
Little kids are the SP's main target? Then why has Nintendo been using it as a major tool to increase older people buying GB's? And why was it marketed as a more 'adult' GB? And why are all the added features more things that adults would ask for than kids?
Combined with the game lineup? I think the SP is definitely not for 5 year olds. They probably would have normal GBAs, which are still being sold and probably would be the more likely purchase for a parent since they are similar products and the original is cheaper...
I go on long trips that don't give me access to power plugs often enough to know that rechargeble won't make a single bit of difference and it'll be pretty much like the Game Gear's battery life. In other words, lasting long enough to get me there, but while I AM there, the thing's dead the whole time. So, replacements. Well, I could get a bunch of AAs easily enough to switch out on my GG (and so I did, plus we had one of those alkaline recharger devices they had back in the early 90's, but for some reason never really sold that well, but then again it was sold via telephone number instead of in stores...), but getting a PSP battery? That's tough. Can't just find other people around and ask for a stray battery. I could just buy one beforehand, but why? To make up for the lackluster battery life? I'm paying for the device's shortcoming? No thank you, I'd rather not. Battery life, remember OB1, is only an issue when on those very long trips, and on those very same very long trips, one won't have access to a place to plug it in. I mean, if I had access to a power slot on that trip, I could just plug in my GG's AC adapter and not have a problem.
But we'll see. If anyone can get themselves into a nice rivalry against the GB, it's Sony. At best though, it'll be just enough market share to keep Sony alive in that market and keep Nintendo innovating to stay on top. I just can't see Sony succeeding with this system where lots of worthy systems before had failed. Coolness factor was in the bag with Sega and Nokia, so that won't be enough, and remember that in Japan, Sony isn't even marketting themselves as the "cool kid's" thing, as the cute puppet-like animals ALL OVER their web page and a lot of their PS products will tell you *looks at box that imported PocketStation came in and says "aaaww"*, so they don't have that either.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)
I hear what you're saying, but unless you plan on playing for 10 straight hours then it won't be that big of an issue. Getting a spare battery pack is something you'll have to do, just as you would if you have a camcorder or digital camera. People get used to it. It's a drawback, like all Sony systems have, but you'll do it because you'll want to play the great games.
Yeah, for the GBA too, trips are the biggest issue. I know that for at home the SP is cheaper and better because electricity is cheaper than batteries, but what about on a trip? Unless you buy a lighter adaptor, you're in trouble... you can't exactly stop at a gas station and buy three hours of charging time like you can some AAs... and if the thing died in 3-5 hours instead of 15? It'd be a MAJOR problem. And said trips are one of the biggest usage of portable gaming devices in an actual portable situation...
So I'll say what I did before -- you'd need three battery packs at least to match the life of a GBA. And as we said, its not like you can recharge them... when they die they die. No just buying (or asking for, since as DJ said people often will give them to you) batteries, when it's out it's out... and as for length it depends on the length of the trip. If its a long one, what then? Partway through you're just stuck.
Its stuff like that, as well as price, that got me to get a GBA and not an SP...
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