17th August 2011, 1:20 AM
Considering this is a cost saving measure, it's not like people are going to have much of a choice soon enough, unless this is only for Europe. Thing is, there's a new E-1000 model of PSP that removes wi-fi. Odd choice...
What gets me isn't removing the ports. That I understand in terms of the eternal "trimming" that every single console ever has had in their remodels (the NES remodel stripped off the A/V for example, also the lockout chip :D). What gets me is that those ports aren't where the backwards compatibility lurks. It's not like this is the PS3, where the entire architecture is changed so backwards compatibility had to be done by adding in the old PS2 chips. In the Wii, it's basically an enhanced Gamecube. There's no reason it can't play Gamecube games anyway. Just set the system up to treat a Wii classic controller as a Gamecube controller and allow the creation of "virtual" internal memory Gamecube memory cards which are passed through to the Gamecube portion as though they are the real thing. That would only add the cost of software development, not any additional components, and it would cover it aside from add on peripherals. Heck that could be, and should be, added to the original Wii models anyway.
What gets me isn't removing the ports. That I understand in terms of the eternal "trimming" that every single console ever has had in their remodels (the NES remodel stripped off the A/V for example, also the lockout chip :D). What gets me is that those ports aren't where the backwards compatibility lurks. It's not like this is the PS3, where the entire architecture is changed so backwards compatibility had to be done by adding in the old PS2 chips. In the Wii, it's basically an enhanced Gamecube. There's no reason it can't play Gamecube games anyway. Just set the system up to treat a Wii classic controller as a Gamecube controller and allow the creation of "virtual" internal memory Gamecube memory cards which are passed through to the Gamecube portion as though they are the real thing. That would only add the cost of software development, not any additional components, and it would cover it aside from add on peripherals. Heck that could be, and should be, added to the original Wii models anyway.
"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)