I know I'm alittle late to the party as far as knowing about this most recent rumour or fact. But the announcement that PSP2 will be as powerful as PS3 scares the shit out of me. Now anyone on this forum who knows me knows I'm not the biggest Sony fan, however as a gamer I do own both PSP and PS3 and wanna get the new PSPhone and PSP2.

However this recent announcement has me re-thinking my purchase of PSP2. Now many of you see this kind of power as a good thing, its awsome that a hand held could pump out this kind of power. But their are many negatives to this kind of power that have me doubting I will pick it up if these rumours are true.

First big one is price. The 3DS is launching at 250-300$ we can be sure of that. I already think 300$ is pushing it for a handheld but the idea of glasses free 3D is more then enough to justify such a strong price. But a handheld PS3? the current PS3 is what 300$ now condencing that into a handheld making it smaller without sacraficing graphics will cost a fortune. Not to mention the other features rumoured to be included like the touch pad on the back etc...etc... This is looking like a 500-600$ machine. Now if Sony launches it at 300$ to compete with Nintendo they will be loosing a fortune on every unit sold, if they do that I will probubly buy one. However I don't think after PS3's launch that Sony is eger to loose millions upon millions again for the sake of market share. So I'm betting the device will carry a hefty price tag.

Second big one, battery life. The 3DS is supposed to have 3-5 hour battery life which is fairly bad considering the origional DS had up to 8-10 hours. However 3D will suck up alot of juice. I can only imagine how much power a handheld PS3 will go through. What will it have a 1-3 hour battery life? Now Sony hasn't commented on battery life but I can't see their being a long lasting battery with this kind of processing power.

Third , software pricing. Now yes its been rumoured and confirmed that 3DS games will cost anywhere from 39.99$ like traditional DS games to 49.99$ like a traditionally Wii game. But what about a PSP2 game? That kind of graphical technology will cost game development. I'd expect 59.99$-69.99$ price tags. Since the media format will probubly also cost considerably more I can't see prices dropping to affordable levels like they did this gen. Now I do buy portable games often but don't like spending more then 50$ on a title I will only play on the go.

Three big disadvantages to this super power rumour. What do you think are these legit concerns? Or will Sony deck this thing out with the latest most powerful battery and take a financial hit on every unit sold as well as another hit to keep software prices down?

Sounds like Sony is expecting the console market to dry up here like it did in Japan.

You need to remember that it can be "as powerful as a ps3" without actually needing the brute power. The screen will at best be 480p so the amount of power that will actually be needed to pull of ps3 graphics will be considerably less. Hopefully reducing the cost lol. if it was realy as powerful as an actual ps3 from a hardware point of veiw. games would be practically real on screen that size O.o

As long as its not priced outrageous yes it'll sell very good.

If its over $300 though Sony may shoot themselves in the foot on yet another hardware launch.  Pricing will be everything.

As Chibi says, the "as powerful" as the PS3 is just marketing/PR speech to say it will be really power full. but with smaller screen ans smaller resolution, it will need less power to have the same looking as PS3 games.

By the way, will they think of added an active cooling to cool this little monster as a pocket nuclear plant to have more than 30 minutes battery life if the device is this powerful?

From some rumors I've read, the PSP2 will use a halved version of the Cell chip, which going by memory, the Cell runs at about 3.2 ghz, so a 1.6 ghz would be nice, it would out do the PSPhone which should carry a 1ghz chip. The Chinese website that dissected the PSPhone has said the chip inside the PSPhone is pretty fast and might be over-clocked above the 1 ghz range. 

Considering the PS3 with a Cell chip can be had for 500 bucks here in Australia, halving the Cell chip should save costs, plus with everything already built, like touch screens, gyro senors and stuff like that, Sony don't have to invest money into those things and instead just buy the components in bulk. 

My best guess is that the PSPhone will be a high quality end product thus producing a very high price. Now if the software isn't priced to Apple's itunes prices, then there will be trouble. I want to play Space Miner Bust and Blast with the new d-pad controls, I guess it will be 'another price to pay' for convenience.

Maybe they mean that it will be as powerful as three Pocket Stations?

it depends on what games comne out to and battery life

with that amount of power they are gonna need some big battery or something in a handheld, but im sure if it has some decent games it will sell to the current psp crowd, at the very least

While PSP has sold well it doesn't really have the best reputation, which is going to hurt its successor.

I remember when the Turbo Express was released to fight Nintendo's Gameboy.  The Gameboy had simple 8-Bit graphics with green and yellow as the only colors and no lighting on the screen whatsoever.  The Turbo Express played the exact same games as the Turbo Grafx-16, had full backlighting, and could even double as a portable TV.  For all of that horsepower, the TE failed miserably because of its horrendous battery life and price.

Time and again, different companies have tried to overpower Nintendo's portables but they forget the fundamentals--good games, portable experiences (different from consoles), battery life, and price.  For all of the big name PSP titles I own (MGS, Resistance, Syphon Filter), I still spend most of my time playing Peggle, Tetris, and various JRPG's.  Is history going to repeat itself?