Thursday 8 September 2005

Pic of the day: It is already possible, and almost practical, to surf the Net from the PSP. If only it had a keyboard so you spent less than half a minute to type in a web address...

PSP (vs DS?)

I rarely disagree with TequilaKitten on matters of games, but when it comes to the "PSP vs DS war" I do. The way I see it, the two are simply too different to compete outright. Also, sadly for the PlayStation Portable, I believe it is in the wrong market segment. It is NOT a handheld game console. It is more of a ultra-portable PC, a competitor to the next generation of small notebook PC and Macs. And as such, it has serious design flaws. Most notably, and the only really fatal flaw, it lacks a keyboard.

The Nintendo DS is an evolution of the handheld games whose murky origin is the small flaky ladder games a human generation ago. You may have seen them: Very small, very primitive, very repetitive gameplay, flaky. Then we got the Gameboy which could play a wide range of different such games by simply inserting a small cartridge. The Gameboy went through two more iterations: Gameboy Color and Gameboy Advance. With the DS, Nintendo dropped the Gameboy name, which by then was seen as primitive and slightly condescending. But the DS is exactly that, the next evolution of the Gameboy, and its correct name would be Gameboy Dual-Screen. Of course, it can play more advanced games than ever before, but it can also run the GBA games right out of the box.

In fact, the wealth of games is the strong point of the Nintendo DS. The lack of games is the weak point of the Sony PSP. In fact, given how long it has been available, the lack of software is suspicious and an ill omen. The likely explanation is that Sony has been too greedy or too tightly controlling, but I honestly would not know. What I know is that the games available in English are few and not all of them are worthy of such a machine.

***

Where the Nintendo DS is the brilliant scion of a family that has worked its way up from rags to riches, the PSP is a foreign prince, splendid but without land. The PSP is a marvel to behold: Its screen is leaps beyond what you find on other personal entertainment systems, including portable PC. You can comfortably watch movies on it, you simply have to hold it closer. But even then it is larger than a handheld console game, and heavier as well. (While not problematic for a grown man, I can see children finding it unwieldy. But then again, PSP is not really a children's machine.) The processing power of the PSP is also in the PC and Mac range, and it comes with built-in wireless network receiver. On the first day, I could surf the Net using my home WLAN. (Some scrolling required, depending on the coding of the sites. My ChaosNode.net displays quite nicely.) For some reason LiveJournal blocked it, but perhaps this will change over time. The biggest problem however was the lack of keyboard.

It is such a small thing. The Internet is not TV, it is interactive. You may get a long way by clicking links, but only someone unfamiliar with the Net would think that is enough. Even entering a URL or a search phrase means typing. And on the PSP, that is a horrible experience. The screen is not touch sensitive, so you have to maneuver using the direction keys, then click with the action button. For good measure, the keyboard is not a typewriter keyboard but a mobile phone keyboard, meaning that when you get to the right key, you have to click repeatedly on the action button to select the right letter among the many that are assigned to each on-screen key. It is nearly as confounding as it looks in print.

Listen Sony, the thing needs a keyboard urgently. A cell phone keyboard would probably be enough, kids these days can type inhumanly fast on those things. But a cell phone keyboard on the screen, without even a touch screen? No, that is not good enough. It is too far. Either a touch screen keyboard (like the Pocket PC has had since the turn of the century at least) or a separate keyboard, one of these would be acceptable. Unless this is added urgently, the PSP will never be able to fulfill its true calling, as the ultimate portable computer.

(At least one third-party keyboard was announced to be released this past spring, but I fail to see it actually for sale anywhere. It is now scheduled for September 30, but I'm not holding my breath for a product that surfs on deadlines. Besides, it may require a separate text processing program rather than interacting with the native text entry system, which would render it useless for most purposes. The fact that it is not supported by Sony makes its future very uncertain. Sony has been deliberating USB based peripherals but to my knowledge nothing has come of it.)

***

The people over at Sony are clearly not aware of the position the personal computer has recently reached here in the west. It is not just for invoicing anymore. People use it to watch movies, play games, surf the Net, chat, make phone calls, even read books. The PSP could do all that in a more compact format, but it fails to deliver on its possibilities. Mostly it lacks a keyboard: An external keyboard (preferably wireless) operated with one hand would fit right in with its style. It would also make it possible to play massive multiplayer games like Sony's own EverQuest and possibly even EQ2, games that are almost unplayable if you have to spend half a minute typing a simple message. I can easily see family members playing online games together in a building with wireless LAN, which is more and more common these days. In fact, WLAN is so cheap now that a wireless router and a PSP would be a good alternative to a second computer if you want to let the kid play online games together with you. But online games require some typing to organize things. You only get so far with emotes.

In short, the PSP is not really a DS killer, for it lacks suitable games and is frankly overkill for that market segment. (This is also reflected in its price.) It could have been an ultra portable computer, but the lack of a good input method makes it fail miserably. It is not beyond rescue, but the real competitors can't be many months away by now. Once a viable mini tablet PC becomes available, PSP is likely to head for the dustbin of history. If they get a keyboard or a touch screen on it before that, it may well spell the end of the Wintel era of personal computing at home.

So much potential, so little usefulness. The PSP and I have a lot in common.