Playstation handheld goes wireless. - Details inside!

[SaitoH]

Here are the specs!

PSP Specs Revealed Sony's portable is a beast! July 29, 2003 - At a press briefing held in Japan today, Sony Computer Entertainment at last revealed detailed specs for its PSP (PlayStation Portable) portable system. Although first unveiled at E3, Sony left showgoers in the dark about what form the system would actually take. Today's announcement covers most bases, from planned CPU speed and memory space all the way to networking ability. As its CPU, PSP will make use of twin MIPS R4000 32 bit processors running at max 333 Megahertz. One of these units is referred to as the Media Engine, and is to be used for sound, movies and I/O management. In addition, the system will include a so-called VFPU floating point vector unit with calculation capability of up to 2.6 Gigaflops. This latter unit is meant for assisting the CPU in 3D calculations.

Memory for the system is divided into two areas. In all, the system is expected to feature 8 Megabytes main memory with bandwidth of 2.6 Gigabytes per second along with two megabytes of sub-memory, also at 2.6 Gigabytes per second, which will be used by the Media Engine.

Outside of the CPU and main memory, the system will of course include a graphics processing unit (GPU). The GPU is made up of a Rendering Engine and a Surface Engine and has access to 2 Megabytes of VRAM with a bandwidth of 5.3 Gigabytes per second. The hardware will include support for traditional polygons as well as curved surface primitives along with such things as clipping, morphing and more, freeing up software from having to deal with these. Sony claims a theoretical polygon performance of 33 million polygons per second.

The system's UMD (Universal Media Disc) optical disk format has also been clarified a bit. A UMD is a 60 millimeter dual layered disk that can store up to 1.8 Gigabytes of data. Transfer rate for the reader unit is 11 Megabits per second, which is twice the transfer rate of a standard DVD system. Sony is also promising the highest level of copy protection for these discs using DiscID and AES encoding technology.

Multimedia support is big for the system. Sony announced MPEG4 support at E3, and now they've gotten a bit clearer, revealing that the PSP will use the AVC decoder, which has a high encoding rate. This will allow the UMD to store up to two hours of DVD quality video. Sound is also taking a high place on the system's feature list. The PSP will feature reconfigurable DSPs which can be rewritten allowing for support for the latest sound technology. Sony announced today compatibility with the ATRAC3 plus format along with AAC and mp3. In addition, the system will support playback of 3D and 7.1 channel sound.

On top of all this is Wireless LAN. The system will include as standard IEEE802.11 wireless LAN. Sony had originally intended to make this an option, but game creators were pretty adamant about its inclusion. Sony revealed no further details about the system's networking features, unfortunately.

The PSP will, of course, play games as well. Sony will be tapping into its PlayStation heritage and including the familiar triangle, circle, X, square, start, select, L1 and R1 buttons on the system. These will be digital. In addition, the system will include a single analogue thumb pad.

For a list of specs on the system, see just below this article.

If you find yourself salivating at these specs, you're not alone. Unfortunately, Sony shared nothing but words today. A prototype of the PSP will debut at E3 of next year (May of 2004) with 2004's Tokyo Game Show (September of that year) expected to bring with it the unveiling of the system's game lineup.

A worldwide simultaneous launch for the unit is expected for the fourth quarter of 2004.

[PSP SPECS]

UMD(Universal Media Disc) 60mm Laser Diode:660nm Dual Layer :1.8GB Transfer Rate:11Mbps Shock Proof Secure ROM by AES Unique Disc ID

PSP CPU CORE MIPS R4000 32bit Core 128bit Bus 1 - 333MHz @ 1.2V Main Memory :8MB(eDRAM) Bus Bandwidth :2.6GB/sec I-Cache, D-Cache FPU, VFPU (Vector Unit) @ 2.6GFlops 3D-CG Extended Instructions

PSP Media Engine MIPS R4000 32bit Core 128bit Bus 1 - 333MHz @ 1.2V Sub Memory:2MB(eDRAM) @ 2.6GB/sec I-Cache, D-Cache 90nm CMOS

PSP Graphics Core 1 3D Curved Surface + 3D Polygon Compressed Texture Hardware Clipping, Morphing, Bone( Hardware Tessellator Bezier, B-Spline(NURBS) ex 4x4, 16x16, 64x64 sub-division

PSP Graphics Core 2 'Rendering Engine' + 'Surface Engine' 256bit Bus, 1-166 MHz @ 1.2V VRAM :2MB(eDRAM) Bus Bandwidth :5.3GB/sec Pixel Fill Rate :664 M pixels/sec max 33 M polygon /sec(T&L) 24bit Full Color:RGBA

PSP Sound Core: VME Reconfigurable DSPs 128bit Bus 166MHz @1.2V

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So basically It's about 100 times more powerful then the GBA and in some ways more powerful then the PS2.

*is excited*

[Nogrick]

[Silver Adept]

Dunno. Having the analogue is a good idea for most people who play portable games, like fighters. RPG players may have to get a little adjustment going on, but it shouldn't be too bad.

This system sounds like a hoss. So does it play both Ps1 and Ps2 games on it? Because if it doesnt, well, then...

Toasty.