31st May 2009, 11:18 PM
Yeah the slide design never sat well with me. Yes it's a space saver, and that's always good, but a folding design has the massive advantage of screen protection. The slide design isn't really more durable (and if what I've been hearing is accurate, it may be less durable) so the only real reason to go with it would be "look at this sliding action" sort of thing.
They removed the UMD drive it seems as it was deemed a failure. Loading directly from memory is faster and will allow the system to have a lot longer battery life. I agree that removing the drive completely removes compatibility though, and since the only real update is more internal memory which can now be used to store media and not just the firmware, I don't see myself bothering with this remodel.
It won't do anything to prevent piracy. The moment the firmware on this thing is hacked, people will be uploading the store games left and right and will be able to play them just fine without any keys needed. Sad really, considering that in the case of a downloaded purchase there's no legitimate excuse. The only real excuse would be someone buying this model who decides to rip their old UMD based games and transfer them for play into this system's memory.
16GB is a good starting amount though. The UMDs max out at 1.2 GB, and the majority of games I have don't even use that, many in the 500MB range. That's a good number of games there. Plus, Sony's got the new 16GB memory sticks out which are about $80 for their's and the 3rd party liscensed ones are about $50. Once the 32GB sticks come out (the max that the design can support before new connectors need to be designed) that'll be plenty of memory for PSP use. I still routinely convert my PS1 games to PSP executables so there's another source of space use, but even a 4 disk game will only use about 2 gigs of space.
Sony has been hinting at getting rid of the UMD for some time, and this seems to be their move. It doesn't surprise me really. The only annoying thing is it may mean they ditch selling the UMD format of the games entirely, forcing my hand in upgrading my memory stick.
They removed the UMD drive it seems as it was deemed a failure. Loading directly from memory is faster and will allow the system to have a lot longer battery life. I agree that removing the drive completely removes compatibility though, and since the only real update is more internal memory which can now be used to store media and not just the firmware, I don't see myself bothering with this remodel.
It won't do anything to prevent piracy. The moment the firmware on this thing is hacked, people will be uploading the store games left and right and will be able to play them just fine without any keys needed. Sad really, considering that in the case of a downloaded purchase there's no legitimate excuse. The only real excuse would be someone buying this model who decides to rip their old UMD based games and transfer them for play into this system's memory.
16GB is a good starting amount though. The UMDs max out at 1.2 GB, and the majority of games I have don't even use that, many in the 500MB range. That's a good number of games there. Plus, Sony's got the new 16GB memory sticks out which are about $80 for their's and the 3rd party liscensed ones are about $50. Once the 32GB sticks come out (the max that the design can support before new connectors need to be designed) that'll be plenty of memory for PSP use. I still routinely convert my PS1 games to PSP executables so there's another source of space use, but even a 4 disk game will only use about 2 gigs of space.
Sony has been hinting at getting rid of the UMD for some time, and this seems to be their move. It doesn't surprise me really. The only annoying thing is it may mean they ditch selling the UMD format of the games entirely, forcing my hand in upgrading my memory stick.
"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)