Sony to adopt NAND flash in PSP 2

[wraggster]

According to market sources, Sony plans to release a version of its PSP (PlayStation Portable) using NAND flash from Samsung Electronics in the second half of this year.

The PSP will feature 8GB of NAND flash, the sources stated.

Although recent reports stated that Sony would opt not to use NAND flash in the next version of its PSP, and would instead use a microdrive, the sources indicated that Sony was stalling to negotiate better pricing from Samsung.

When rumors circulated on February 16 that negotiations had broken down between Sony and Samsung, spot prices for 1Gbit and 2Gbit NAND flash dropped 5.3% and 3% in one day, according to the Chinese-language Economic Daily News (EDN).

Deutsche Bank was also cited by the report as commenting that the failure of Samsung and Sony to reach a supply agreement will suppress NAND flash prices further and push oversupply to 10% this year.

According to data from DRAMeXchange, 8Gbit spot prices have fallen from US$39 to US$34 since Chinese New Year, while prices for 4Gbit parts have fallen from US$23.36 to US$16.60

via Digitimes

[cloud_952]

Is it launching with 8GB/yets or 8Gb/its? Considering that only one place listed it as "GB" and not only would Sony have to redo parts of the firmware, I'm suspecting that it's going to be a PSP with 8Gbits of storage on board, which strikes me as nearly useless and not worth buying.

^_^ For those who don't know, there are 8 bits to a byte. Therefore, 8 gigaBITS is actually only 1GB, as you know it. That kinda pricing also makes more sense, with the listing of $39-$34. I may be wrong, but I didn't think we were even near the 8GBytes of flash memory anyway.

[michael jackson]

*cough* datel 4gb hdd *cough*

i had the rare opportunity to tinker with my hdd (oddly the first hdd was missing the sticker on it with the "void if removed" and info/serial) be4 i returned it because of my faulty battery

inside the actuall minidrive is about the size of 2 saltines stacked, so putting them in a psp isnt much of a prob, its the price... tho i think a psp with dual 8gig or 10gig hdds and no memory card but 2 battery packs (think gamegear) would be sweet

[Mysteryman]

I'd only buy it if it had some hardware improvements. Some built in memory isn't enough for me to buy another.

[urherenow]

Heh... I had a faulty battery also. The damn HDD is so useful though that I didn't want to send it back.

Tried to open up the battery to spot the problem... had a small light show and a lot of smoke

[grieverxiii]

I doubt Sony would put an actual hard drive into the next PSP - who would buy the expensive memory sticks?

And yes, apparently it is only 8 GigaBITS/1 GigaBYTE. Which makes sense because some people will still want to buy the extra memory stick for more than 1GB of storage while others will have less complaints about how expensive the sticks are. Either way Sony looks a little smarter (though not that smart - they should have done this in the first place...)

For those of us who already have 1GB+ memory in our PSPs...if the only change they're making is the inclusion of the on-board storage, this is a pretty useless development indeed =|

[Nige]

For those of us who already have 1GB+ memory in our PSPs...if the only change they're making is the inclusion of the on-board storage, this is a pretty useless development indeed =|

Not quite as useless as you'd think - games manufacturers would then know that everyone had at least 1Gb of storage space to start with, which could ba used for funky stuff.

Also, if there was built-in storage and Memory Stick storage (sounds likely) then the possibility of file management arises - adding/removing files to/from the internal storage from multiple Memory Sticks without the need for a PC.

[cloud_952]

Where it could come in handy is if it acted like a cache.. however, if it DID act like a cache (think VRAM on a PC), then they'd have to lock out a certain amount of space that you couldn't use, which would mean they aren't even giving you a full GB. Things like that would really help out with the browser and possibly some games. Sony won't put a cache on the MemStick because there's the chance the user will remove it while viewing webpages, which would possibly corrupt the stick if done during writing.

1GB just isn't enough. What do they expect users to do with it? Also, game companies won't use it, since that'd cut out their ENTIRE player base of players who own the original PSP.. not a good marketing choice, unless there's an add-on for older models (and at only 1GB, highly doubtful).

^_^ Ironic thing here is that I complain about how useless 1gig is when my first PC had exactly that amount. o_O Seemed like it was decent then.

[grieverxiii]

Yes, that's why it would have been a good idea if Sony had done it from the outset. Right now though, developers won't know everyone has it - I doubt everyone who already has a PSP will buy a new one just for the extra 1GB.

It's the same problem with having 2 versions of the Xbox 360 - some people have that HDD and some don't, therefore developers can't count on every person having the storage and making those special gameplay tweaks like they did with the original Xbox.

Maybe a couple years from now when the new PSP has been on the shelves for a while and the people with the on-board storage outnumber those who have the original PSP...but by then there'd be PSP3 which is 75% smaller, has two analog sticks and 50GB of storage on an internal minidrive =/