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Microsoft hurts the PSP's feelings, gives format a kick in the crotch

5:22 AM on 06.13.2008, Jim Sterling 44 comments

Microsoft hurts the PSP's feelings, gives format a kick in the crotch photo
     PSP

Microsoft has taken a swipe at Sony's PSP, giving the platform a dressing down for having plenty of the right tools, but using none of them well.

"The PSP is a reasonably successful product at the profit-and-loss level. But as a product concept, there are cautionary tales to learn from it," stated MS' hardware chief, Robbie Bach. 

"While it is good at producing audio, it's not a good music player because it doesn't have local storage (except for flash memory slots). You can't keep your music there. It has a beautiful screen, but you can only get the video under the Universal Media Disc format. That format hasn't been successful. On a game level, it has done well. But even there, it is mostly PlayStation 2 ports. There isn't much original content. When you do these devices, they can't be pretty good at a lot of things. They need to be great at what they do."

You can't say Bach didn't skimp on the brutality there. A fairly dire assessment of the PSP, but he's not saying anything wrong about the system, unfortunately (and this is coming from a PSP fan). The PSP tried to be a jack of all trades and mastered nothing, when most people would have liked to just have a quality game player. Sony's plans for a "walkman for the 21st century" came unstuck when the PSP failed to excel at any of its services. Oh well, I still like the little bugger.


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lowercaseluke's Avatar
lowercaseluke at 06/13/2008 05:42
Japan seems to rike it.
ajaxender's Avatar
ajaxender at 06/13/2008 05:57
Hes right, unfortunately. To really use your psp for everything, you need a large memory stick too. And then on the games front, not a whole lot of effort has been put in to make anything super special.
He also missed out the potential of homebrew - sony put the capabilities there, and have done nothing but stop others using it. Imagine an xbla or wii ware type thing. Could have been great... instead we all get custom firmware and do whatever we want.
Having said all that though... its still nice to have a half decent music player that can also play games and videos if i get bored.
Anus Mcphanus's Avatar
Anus Mcphanus at 06/13/2008 06:30
Harsh but fair
johanster's Avatar
johanster at 06/13/2008 06:32
Yes, we all know Zune was infinity more successful as a media player, and that device surely had no crippling media formats.
Timmeh's Avatar
Timmeh at 06/13/2008 06:37
I find this criticism of the PSP by someone responsible for MS tech to be entirely amusing and ironic, hailing from a company renowned for cutting corners on hardware costs to the detriment of quality and trying to push their own failed proprietary formats.
Netrat33's Avatar
Netrat33 at 06/13/2008 06:48
Arguments about the psp (negative and positive) always seem to correct. It's a balanced system but it just needs that "something" to make it stick out more. I do really like mine though. Neet little gadget that can do a lot of things.
Jetsetlemming's Avatar
Jetsetlemming at 06/13/2008 06:57
Mentioning the Zune in response is the perfect way to react to this.

Those are pretty fair complaints, though I still want a PSP, and for PS1 ports actually.
Y0j1mb0's Avatar
Y0j1mb0 at 06/13/2008 07:26
Microsoft don't like the PSP RAWR RAWR RAWR..lol.

Who cares what Microsoft thinks.
c0dek's Avatar
c0dek at 06/13/2008 07:33
Why isn't this on CNN? I am shocked...SHOCKED that MS (or any other company, for that matter) has something negative to say about a competitor's product.

at least it affords the opportunity to make the ultimate satirical fanboy/games media comment:

This just proves that Robbie Bach is obviously biased in favor of Microsoft.
entropyman's Avatar
entropyman at 06/13/2008 07:51
custom firmware makes the console waaay more fun- for one thing, I only use the umd to dump games so that I can play them off the stick- it is tons faster to play off of the stick than the umd- for another- I use it as a book reader- emulators work awesome on it- etc. etc.
I think that MS should put it's own handheld out if it wants to gripe... and I will prolly get it
linuxguy's Avatar
linuxguy at 06/13/2008 08:15
hey microsoft if you don't like the psp show us what you are capable of and build a handheld(without RROD please)
jpitner's Avatar
jpitner at 06/13/2008 08:25
lol PS2 ports for the PSP. You mean the PS2 has PSP ports, mayhaps? Regardless, I don't blame the big S for porting successful PSP games to the PS2
Alessar's Avatar
Alessar at 06/13/2008 08:34
I really can't agree with the points Microsoft makes at all about the PSP. I use mine as an mp3 player all the time. So what that you have to stick a memory card in, it means you don't have a hard drive to fail and you can swap out whole rosters in a moment by switching cards. My previous mp3 player used SMC cards with 128 meg capacity. My PSP uses memory duo with 4 gig capacity. I'm well satisfied, and I can run it with a visualizer if I want to watch something.

Media may not be sold on anything but the UMD, but Sony's always sold a small media converter program (and there are freeware ones as well) to format any other video you may have to something playable on the system. There's also that nifty feature where you stream video off your PS3 or TiVO to it. One of the forthcoming Blu-ray features will allow you to download a PSP version of a Blu-ray movie from a PS3, and the UMD format has been re-launched at a better price point. Just last week GameStop had a big sale on UMDs with many titles available for $5. MTV has recently released AeonFlux and Jackass for $10.

In addition to countering those criticisms, I've been surprised by how much I use the wireless connection on mine, even just to stream music off my PS3 in the next room, sometimes to check email from in bed.
Salty Soil's Avatar
Salty Soil at 06/13/2008 08:52
All in one devices are usually crap anyways. But who seriously bought a PSP as a music player or for any of it's other features other than playing games?
SoopaFly TNT's Avatar
SoopaFly TNT at 06/13/2008 09:08
I never bought my PSP as a music player. I bought it for games and the connectivity to the PS3. MS way off base on this one. Did he say the Zune????? lol
Misanthrope's Avatar
Misanthrope at 06/13/2008 09:50
This means microsoft will try to make a DS only with a tiny hard drive and halo on it? Hey MS, you know whats great about the handhelds in general? So far THEY FUCKING WORK! I don't even want to imagine how problematic an MS handheld would be if they can't even create decent hardware for a full size console.
Qraze's Avatar
Qraze at 06/13/2008 09:51
zune? what is a zune? is that a new motherboard ms are gonna be using in a 360? or is a msx type handheld console? i live under a rock. a metal gear rock
Velt's Avatar
Velt at 06/13/2008 09:56
Wow, is all ok with the criticism, but Microsoft cant say nothing about other companies gaming products, they lost that advantage with the xbox360 rrod fiasco.
daCuk's Avatar
daCuk at 06/13/2008 09:57
@lowercaseluke

Japan seems to like Monster Hunter, that is
Yuphrum's Avatar
Yuphrum at 06/13/2008 10:02
That damn PSP is getting in the way of the BEWBS!!!!!!!!
king3vbo's Avatar
king3vbo at 06/13/2008 10:15
Because the Zune is so fucking awesome
Rigor Mortis's Avatar
Rigor Mortis at 06/13/2008 10:24
I bought a huge ass memory stick for music, only to find out the PSP has no equalizer or bass boost and the playback quality sucks accordingly. And I converted videos only to never be able to find what combination of filename and directory names the damn thing needed to recognize them.

Jack off all trades, master of none indeed.
Rigor Mortis's Avatar
Rigor Mortis at 06/13/2008 10:24
Ok, just wanna say - the typo in the last line of my previous post is the best one I've ever mad
Crunshii's Avatar
Crunshii at 06/13/2008 10:52
this comes from the people that make a failed system.

Touche~
BlackDove's Avatar
BlackDove at 06/13/2008 11:09
How's that Zune working out for ya Bach?

Mouth closed until you clean your own mess.
brainderailment's Avatar
brainderailment at 06/13/2008 12:27
"you can only get the video under the Universal Media Disc format"

This man didn't do his homework, why would anything else he say hold water? The zune? *cough* yeah, the zune.
PaperBowser0's Avatar
PaperBowser0 at 06/13/2008 13:59
Yeah seriously, they're talking crap when they released a piece of shit called a Zune.
guermogamer's Avatar
guermogamer at 06/13/2008 14:07
@ Rigor Mortis

Dude, download the latest PSP Video 9 from red kawa.
Choose the "new" video format option and the rest is a no brainer. Convert away!

Although you may have issues if the original content is not 100% intact. JSYK
mistic's Avatar
mistic at 06/13/2008 14:32
[i]I bought a huge ass memory stick for music, only to find out the PSP has no equalizer or bass boost and the playback quality sucks accordingly. And I converted videos only to never be able to find what combination of filename and directory names the damn thing needed to recognize them.

Jack off all trades, master of none indeed.[/i]
yeah i had a similar experience...

I really like the PSP-idea, but it was done in a bad bad way...
Ender0910's Avatar
Ender0910 at 06/13/2008 14:55
wait. why is everyone bashing the zune here? It's not a game device. Plus, you can load non-DRM mp3s on a zune and guess what, pull it right back off as non-DRM mp3s.
mix's Avatar
mix at 06/13/2008 15:16
"local storage (except for flash memory slots). You can't keep your music there"

What?
You CAN keep your music on the mem card and you can copy movies you "own" and convert them to play off your PSP mem card. 8 gig card FTW.

www.pspvideo9.com use it

MS fails
loki d20's Avatar
loki d20 at 06/13/2008 16:23
I don't think Robbie was at all being brutal there, it's just hard not to notice the flaws in marketing and utilizing the PSP. I don't own one yet, but was tempted to pick up the GoW Limited Edition the other night... Got Age of Conan instead though and not regretting the decision.
rabidkeebler's Avatar
rabidkeebler at 06/13/2008 16:29
I'm afraid I have to agree with MS on this one. Though i have found new uses for the PSP with video from my DVDs converted to a format it could use, I haven't played a game on it in over 2 years, I hadn't touched for over a year and a half until I wanted a video player.
Capn Birdseye's Avatar
Capn Birdseye at 06/13/2008 17:44
I have a PSP and I agree with MS on this one too. Although, buy yourself a 4gb memory stick duo and you have plenty of storage for mp3s and videos, without even homebrewing it.

As for the Zune, I think its a great bit of kit, unfortunately MS are trying to foist another middleware app like iTunes between Windows Explorer and the device. If it detected as a removable drive and I could add files through windows explorer, I would buy one.
Phyraks's Avatar
Phyraks at 06/13/2008 20:36
Those assessments may have been true 2-3 years ago when the thing first came out but they are just not true today. That rep obviously has never used one with anything from a 2-8 gig mem stick in it. It can be an excellent portable media powerhouse. Not to mention the selection of games out there now is great. Sure some games are ports but it's not that bad anymore. They're just upset cuz they couldn't make one just as good or better.
Vitamin Awesome's Avatar
Vitamin Awesome at 06/14/2008 02:59
Wow. Just wow.

Bashing an MP3 player to get back at someone who's merely stating that something isn't perfect.

I want a PSP, despite the beef that I have with sony over their decision to use an entirely different proprietary format over one that was established and would've been a better decision overall. Yeah, I'm about to rant about the Minidisc format. Quick-as-hell seek and read times, coupled with phenomenal battery efficiency (I could get a single AA battery to play 25 hours from a hi-MD on random), and the potential for moar capacity (I think I heard somewhere to up to 4 gigs on a hi-MD disc could be achieved?) would have taken care of a good Bajillion percent of the Gripes many people have about the PSP today. Music? Bam. right on a rewritable disc. Movies? Bam. Disc. Pirating games? Not so much seeing as how you could've easily made write-protected MDs that couldn't be written over. Yes Sonicstage was a bitch to work with, but it was still better than itunes. If the PSP would've used the established MD format, not only would you have the Audiophiles that stood by their beloved ATRAC format flocking to get one so they could dust off their Minidisc collection, but it would've been cheaper to produce, and therefore even cheaper to buy. God damn, I'm a lonely, lonely man being up at this late ranting about this...
BlackSunEmpire's Avatar
BlackSunEmpire at 06/14/2008 04:13
I spend far more time on my nds. I also find that I'd rather use my ipod for video or music. The PSP is just too bulky to comfortably haul around with me, it goes in a backpack alright, but I hardly ever have one.

It's my at home handheld.

Also, possibly this is Bach's comments leading up to microsoft announcing their own handheld, pointing out that they know what sony did wrong, and maybe improving on it.
Sharpless's Avatar
Sharpless at 06/14/2008 18:46
I came in here to make a nice, reasonable, balanced comment on this story, but a few fanboy-fag responses have knocked the wind out of those sails. Fuck Microsoft and fuck your goddamn PSP.
Conanfan's Avatar
Conanfan at 06/15/2008 05:04
He's right. I wish my PSP were more useful, but the games aren't good, it sucks as an mp3 player, getting movies on it is a hassle, and the internet browser is way too slow (though it gets the job done when you're using it for pornographic content).
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