One of the main reasons I was keen to get a PSP was the news that GT4 was going to be ported over to the Sony portable device. I guess ported is the wrong word, as by all accounts its going to be a tweaked version of GT4 specifically for the PSP, and is going to be called GT4-Mobile.

First touted for a Christmas 2005 release, the game was put back to April due to delays in converting the game to run well on the PSP. Well, April is drawing near, and news on GT4 being ready for release is quiet. Too quiet.

A quick trawl of the usual PSP hangouts and news forums results in little or no concrete evidence that the PSP version of GT4 exists, nevermind a game exisiting and ready for release in April. A few sites have shifted away from an April date and moved towards a Spring date, opening up the possibility of the GT4-mobile version being delayed until late May.

If anyone has any news on the PSP GT4 release, I’d love to hear from you. I’d prefer concrete facts backed up with sound evidence, but then I’m a rumour junky so anything will suffice, so long as its GT4 and PSP related.

In some ways I’m glad there isn’t a huge amount of hype around GT4, it means the developers can concentrate on creating a PSP game that is worthy of the GT4 badge, lets just hope its comes sooner rather than later, and lives up to the vision I have in my head of how it should play.

An interesting point was raised on a forum recently regarding the Sony PSP and the financial cost of purchasing one, in comparison to a second-hand laptop which has similar functionality but in a larger package.

I guess this topic arose because the PSP can be an expensive item to purchase, especially if you are looking to either surf the web at home, stream audio over wi-fi, or generally have a high number of homebrew applciations and games on your memory stick.

We can break these costs down as such (in GBP, as at Christmas 2005) :

• PSP: Giga Pack – £280 (including 1GB Memory Stick Duo)
• WiFi Router – £80
• Software Costs – None

Therefore the total to get a PSP up and running with wi-fi enabled in your own home is roughly £360. You could add to this the cost of PSP Games, at around £35 each, PSP accessories such as a protective case at £30, extra Memory Stick Duo 1GB at around £80 etc, but for arguments sake lets say that the cost of purchasing a PSP at Christmas was around £360.

We could also factor in a cost of PC hardware, software and a broadband connection to get your PSP online and filled with homebrew, but as its likely tht few PSP owners would need to go out and buy a PC for this specific purpose, we can overlook it. The only extra PC cost maybe a USB2.0 expansion card, which retail at around £20.

In comparison, a second hand laptop fetching £360 in your local paper is going to be something like a Dell Latitude C- series, with a Pentium 3-M 1.2GHZ, 256 MB Ram, 20 Gigabyte Hard Drive and a DVD-ROM. To this you need to add on the cost of the wireless router to get the laptop online, alternatively reduce that 1.2GHZ CPU to something slower, and the laptop 12 months older to bring its price in line with the PSP Giga Pack.

So, comparing the Laptop to the PSP, what do we have?

Well, the laptop wins on storage capacity, screen size and to a large extent functionality. Where you would struggle to knock out an Excel spreadsheet or Word document on your PSP, the laptop will allow you create your business plan with ease.

Want to watch a DVD, well the laptop will allow you to do that with a decent screen size and sound quality on a par with the PSP standard speakers. But you can watch DVD’s on your PSP. You may need to convert them specifically to the correct format, but I would argue that the playback quality is better on the PSP than on some of the dodgy screens laptops come with.

Where the laptop loses out over the PSP is in games, something which the PSP does incredibly well, and the PSP’s glorious portability. Ever tried to slip a laptop into your pocket?

PSP games, the official ‘comes on a UMD’ variety, all have one great thing in common, they will all work on your PSP. Games on your laptop are even less likely to run properly than games on your PC, and any hope of having them run at a normal (decent) speed with all the fancy graphics turned on should be consigned to the bin the moment you reliase the Pentium 3-M 1.2GHZ chip isn’t designed to allow you to play Medal of Honour with all the bells and whistles.

Of course the laptop will be more than sufficient for playing emulators and its games, but its not quite so easy to balance a laptop on your knees while you are on the bus as it is to pop the PSP out of your pocket and get a quick fix of Metal Slug on the NeoGeoCD emulator. Add into which even with loading the eLoader via GTA, its still quicker to be up and running a game on the PSP than it is to boot up a laptop and begin playing.

Added to which, I’d be less embarressed to use a PSP in public than a laptop, especially if all you want to do is have a quick blast of GTA. Oh, and GTA runs like a dog on my home PC, I can’t imagine trying to play it on a laptop. Of course, if you are a business user who wants to play an occasional game while being able to update your expenses spreadsheet, the laptop is probably the solution for you.

Accoding to an article on Yahoo.news, the life expectancy of the UMD format films for the PSP maybe suddenly become very short indeed.

“Disappointing sales have slowed the flow of movies on the proprietary Universal Media Disc to a mere trickle. At least two major studios have completely stopped releasing movies on UMD, while others are either toying with the idea or drastically cutting back.”

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has completely stopped producing UMD movies, according to executives who asked not to be identified by name. Said one high-ranking exec: “It’s awful. Sales are near zilch. It’s another Sony bomb — like Blu-ray.”

Of course, watching movies on the PSP is one of those ‘great idea in principle, not so good in reality’ moments. Its not that watching movies on the PSP doesn’t work, its that its hard to justify the expense of duplicating films you own on DVD in the UMD format. Especially when its easy enough to rip the DVD to MPEG-4 and play it back on your Memory Stick Duo.

A high-ranking executive (from Paramount Pictures Home Entertainment) “We are on hiatus with UMD,” he said. “Releasing titles on UMD is the exception rather
than the rule. No one’s even breaking even on them.”

It would seem that sales have been so slow of the UMD format that the major film publishers are either cutting back production or stopping completely. Perhaps it would be wiser to reduce production to only those films that suit the UMD format, or offer pre-DVD release versions to entice consumers to part with their money.

The thing I find strangest about these comments from the publishers is that the cost of production for the UMD format is not going to put a dent in the budget of any Hollywood blockbuster. By the time the publisher comes to release a film on DVD, converting it to a PSP friendly UMD format will surely have minimal costs associated with it. The publisher doesn’t even need to market the UMD format, thats covered by the DVD marketing budget.

Perhaps the real cost of the UMD format is the shelf space it takes up, space that could be usd to sell other products, such as DVD’s.

But next week, Sony Computer Entertainment executives will begin making the rounds of the Hollywood studios to discuss plans for making the PSP able to connect to TV sets.

“We’re hoping the format’s going to be reinvigorated with next-generation capability that may include living-room or normal television playback,” he said.

This last quote seems to offer some hope that the UMD format may survive, if Sony can convince the publishers that the market is there for the UMD format then they may continue to offer it some form of support.