The PSP looses a pinch of its Uber
 

Well, seems Nintendo and another company are doing something to hit the PSPs big markets again. Now they've created a way for the GBA:SP and the DS, both, to play Movies and MP3s....both.

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/573/573438p1.html

The skinny basically is you have a normal GBA cart. On the side is a space for Flash media (the same media type used for DS games). On the flash cards (heh) you can put up to 256 MB of either video files (supported file types pending) or MP3s up to 320 kbps.

Also, supposedly in test the GBA:SP can run a total of 4 continuous hours with the movie feature going. The DS was not reported but I assume since it has a larger battery and it is doing the same function through the GBA port, it should last longer than the SP.

While this isn't OMG WOW AMAZING, it is going to impact one of the areas Sony was trying to make the PSP seem unique. They already have the GameBoy video thing that is selling moderately to the younger GBA crowd. The fact that this new way of playing video and music on the SP/DS is avaliable with Flash Memory (up to 256 MB cards) just means now they're trying to get the older audiance into it. The same audiance who is going to be buying the PSP for those features.

Anyway, just thought it was interesting. If I don't decide to get a PSP, I'm pretty sure I'm going to get this thing. A device the cost of a mid-priced GBA game allowing me to play MP3s off my DS on the go....I'm there. And the video feature, while not a buy so much for me, is certainly a great extra!

yeah, I'm definitely with the ds over the psp, this just adds another reason to my list

And I thought watching movies on a PSP's relatively large screen would cause eyestrain. Trying to watch them on a GBA or DS screen would make them fall right out of my head.

i think watching movies on eather isnt that smart, unless it is a movie made for it (game cut sceans and such) they are both small screen, cause well they are portable and pocket sized, so i think it wouldnt really be that great. so leave the movies to moble dvd players and the such and just play games on it.

now the music part sounds more interesting, but it dosnt matter since i was already getting a ds and i own a GBA (same hardware as an sp, just diffrent shape, i was to cheap to upgrade) and i have never planned to get a psp, so this dosnt really matter that much to me

Well, at least Nintendo no longer has an excuse to keep their home console systems devoid of movie/music features. I want DVDs on my 'cube!

:: me hugs his imported & moded Q ::

I personally thought you were going to be talking about this.

http://games.slashdot.org/games/04/1...id=207&tid=212

Loses a little more of the uber, but if you don't be an idiot and twist it, it should be fine.

yeah, I had been hearing that, and the pstwo units that were shipped are also quite buggy from what I hear.

Though the DS itself is quite fragile, and can break from just dropping it a few feet, adn by few I mean 4-5.

I heard of only one report of a broken DS so far. I have actually dropped my DS already on accident and there's no damage to it. Open face too.

The problems with the DS were the same ones have with PDAs... nothing major, or even notable, honestly.

As to this, I don't consider the multimedia to be a reason to buy a system anyway, so this won't affect me... yet... although it does mean that finally Nintendo decided to get wrapped up in the Multimedia fritz... which in my opinion is a mistake on the console makers parts, but with 2 systems coming from companies with much, much more then a game development center, I suppose I could expect no less.