Major PSP Design Flaw

Link
Some reason that doesn't surprise me... at all.

Too bad it's not major,when only .6% of the people who bought it had the problem. Nobody cares about this stuff, son. It's just a handheld.

It's less responsive, so what? We don't know how less so only the Japanese can tell us how slow it is, there are flaws in everything and so what if there's just one flaw? One flaw is better than 500.

Meh. They'll fix it,Myu. Call me a loyal fan of Sony. But...that is a serious malfunction I agree,myu. But like I said, They'll probably fix it, myu.

If there's that many design flaws in their first handheld, then sony's gonna be in a lot of trouble. =^^=

Originally Posted by Alsenei

If there's that many design flaws in their first handheld, then sony's gonna be in a lot of trouble. =^^=

Or the exact opposite, hairlip. First handheld, one flaw overly noticeable is pretty good. Nice try, though.

But what about the disks flying out of the UMD slot?? =o_O= That would really suck if it happened to you and the disk was damaged.

Originally Posted by Alsenei

But what about the disks flying out of the UMD slot?? =o_O= That would really suck if it happened to you and the disk was damaged.

Yes, that could be a problem. This is why I'm happy it came out in Japan first, because they can fix the problems before it gets here.

SCE President Ken Kutaragi really makes me hope his piece of "perfection" fails. He basically tells the developers and gamers that it's our job to adjust, and that his creation is perfect and beautiful. What a cheeky bastard.

This is why Nintendo is such a superior company. You can throw around all the figures you want. Nintendo is clearly #1.

>>>>>Too bad it's not major,when only .6% of the people who bought it had the problem. Nobody cares about this stuff, son. It's just a handheld.


WRONG, read more carefully. .6% of PSP owners turned in their PSP to get it fixed, 100% of PSP's have this flaw. But it wasn't accidental, it was done ON PURPOSE (to save space while allowing the screen to be that big), and it WON'T be fixed.

This pic helps better illustrate the problem.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/psp/square.jpg

Originally Posted by Lengis

>>>>>Too bad it's not major,when only .6% of the people who bought it had the problem. Nobody cares about this stuff, son. It's just a handheld.


WRONG, read more carefully. .6% of PSP owners turned in their PSP to get it fixed, 100% of PSP's have this flaw. But it wasn't accidental, it was done ON PURPOSE (to save space while allowing the screen to be that big), and it WON'T be fixed.

This pic helps better illustrate the problem.

http://www.gamesarefun.com/consoles/psp/square.jpg[ommitted obnoxiously large pictures]

What flaw, exactly? They all have that design, but the design itself is not inherently flawed.

Kutaragi acknowledged that the button is less responsive than the others, in part because it's so close to the PSP's 480x272 screen. Because there isn't enough room to put the square button's detection switch directly underneath, it's off to the right, making it less responsive--and sometimes causing it to stick.

If .6% of PSP's had to be returned, then the prevalence of the "flaw" is reasonably small throughout the population of PSP's. The "flaw" is the dysfunction of the PSP.

Perhaps the design is... disagreable to you. But the design itself is not a flaw. It is just the fundamental representation of the maxim that "there are no solutions: only tradeoffs." For a minor hit in responsivity, you have a sleeker and smaller machine. Is it a tradeoff between form and function? Always. Is it a critical, system crippling trade off? Not at all. Is it major? Hardly that, either.

Any design has its tradeoffs. For instance, the design of Metroid Prime, the video game. It achieved its streaming, constant, no load (not counting elevators, and door delays) times, but was prone to crashing. I suppose "locking up" is a better term. Would a game with load screens have been superior? They would have avoided this annoyance. But the game was better overall because of it.

The PSP probably isn't impacted that much by this. The "problem" that these pics show is not a "problem" but a purposeful design. Slight loss in responsiveness, I'm not Yoda, I can't tell that. Maybe when PSP arrives in one of our hands, we'll find that it takes two hours for the button to work. But, otherwise, it matters little. Will your button stick occassionally? Yes.

It isn't a major problem. If it is a problem, it's a small one. And, evidently, Sony will let your return them. Big deal.

The only thing I got from reading your response, Bobslob, was that apparently people are flawed, not the PSP. Sony's handheld may work as "intended", but that does not excuse the fact that it still has a problem. If a person had a limp, and decides that since that was how he was intended (by genres or God, your pick), that won't make the limp go away.

Sony's arrogance in this baffles me...usually companies won't outwardly admit that it's "my way or the highway."

I would choose a slightly bigger unit or a slightly smaller screen over a bad face button any day.

A bad select or start button I can handle, but an important button like the square? What a crippling flaw...

Originally Posted by SearanoX

The only thing I got from reading your response, Bobslob, was that apparently people are flawed, not the PSP. Sony's handheld may work as "intended", but that does not excuse the fact that it still has a problem. If a person had a limp, and decides that since that was how he was intended (by genres or God, your pick), that won't make the limp go away.

Sony's arrogance in this baffles me...usually companies won't outwardly admit that it's "my way or the highway."

My point was that there is no perfect solution, unless you want to have a trade off in price. Keeping the unit sleek and small requires a small tradeoff in performance. A small tradeoff. Is there a problem? Yes. But, by all accounts, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. Sure some will break... we see that .6% did. But the vast majority will work. With what side effects? Well, a small decrease in responsiveness (which I doubted most people would notice) and the occassional stick of the button. The purpose of my post was to show that it was a minor, not a major problem. From what we know, and from what I said, would you agree that it is a minor problem? That's the conclusion I came to, feel free to come to your own conclusion.

(Note that I don't seem to see the apocalyptic problem present in the PSP due to this critical flaw that everyone else does. Perhaps I'm missing something? Would someone educate me further on this? Have I gone bonkers?)

Originally Posted by Bobslob

My point was that there is no perfect solution, unless you want to have a trade off in price. Keeping the unit sleek and small requires a small tradeoff in performance. A small tradeoff. Is there a problem? Yes. But, by all accounts, it doesn't seem to be much of a problem. Sure some will break... we see that .6% did. But the vast majority will work. With what side effects? Well, a small decrease in responsiveness (which I doubted most people would notice) and the occassional stick of the button. The purpose of my post was to show that it was a minor, not a major problem. From what we know, and from what I said, would you agree that it is a minor problem? That's the conclusion I came to, feel free to come to your own conclusion.

Sony seems to be the only one (aside from you, of course), who would prerfer to have a less functional product in exchange for a more pretty one. Unfortunately, that logic usually works most of the time. Sorry for the misinterpretation...I should have given the latter bit of your post more heed.

Originally Posted by Bobslob

(Note that I don't seem to see the apocalyptic problem present in the PSP due to this critical flaw that everyone else does. Perhaps I'm missing something? Would someone educate me further on this? Have I gone bonkers?)

Basically, it's considered major not because Sony knows about it, but is not willing to do anything to rectify the problem right now, under the assumed basis that their product is perfect because it was designed with the flaw in mind.

Originally Posted by Strain

SCE President Ken Kutaragi really makes me hope his piece of "perfection" fails. He basically tells the developers and gamers that it's our job to adjust, and that his creation is perfect and beautiful. What a cheeky bastard.

This is why Nintendo is such a superior company. You can throw around all the figures you want. Nintendo is clearly #1.

It's not you. You didn't develop anything. Don't act like this affects you. You probably buy everything from money that your parents gave you for doing nothing. Nintendo is not number one. Nobody is number one. Each company has it's pros and cons.

Your ignorant fanboyism is irritiating. Speak smart, or don't speak at all.

Originally Posted by SearanoX

Sony seems to be the only one (aside from you, of course), who would prerfer to have a less functional product in exchange for a more pretty one. Unfortunately, that logic usually works most of the time. Sorry for the misinterpretation...I should have given the latter bit of your post more heed.

But, how much less functional? It is easy to try and stigmatize Sony for making that decision, but is the end result really going to be that bad? Honestly, do me a favor and tell me how much you think this is going to impact gameplay. I don't claim I want a less functional product (I pretty much know I will never own a PSP), but it's a clever, but deceptive arguing trick to claim that I want a less functional product. If function could be graded on a scale from 1-100 (in our imagination), and the function of the "flawed" model was 92.9, and the ideal perfect model was 93, then your argument would make little sense. A negligible tradeoff in function is, well, negligible. A rounding error.

So, again, how much do you think this is going to affect gameplay? I doubt very much at all.

Basically, it's considered major not because Sony knows about it, but is not willing to do anything to rectify the problem right now, under the assumed basis that their product is perfect because it was designed with the flaw in mind.

I think that assumes that Sony needs to do something about it. As long as they're going to let you return defective models, who really cares?