PSP playstation portable

I hear there will be a new PSP in the future, where internet will be available. Would there be any future adaptations of sl so that we would be able to play it on a limited basis on the playstation portable? I would be the first person in line to buy it, if that were the case.

Ahhh.... as tempting as that may be, I wouldn't get my hopes up just yet. For example, the PSP does not have a keyboard, hard drive, or other peripherals that would be required to run Second Life.

However, the "what if SL were ported to a console" has been discussed a while back. I think the unanimous response is we should get things right for all forms of PC users (aka. Linux) first.

The PSP comes with a 32mb Pro Duo memory stick, and is able to use any size Duo or Pro Duo sticks. It can even use non-duo sticks if you have a certain kind of adapter, though it's an ugly alternative. SL Cache size would obviously be limited to space available. The only thing I'd be concerned with in this regard is read/write speed, which is probably none too fast. Also, even if the speeds were fast enough, the minimum memory stick size would probably need to be 128mb, requiring an extra purchase.

As for keyboard, the PSP has a built in keyboard function that's similarly designed to that of a cell phone, albeit completely on-screen. Not the best solution, but it works. I'd be willing to bet most people who had FFXI for the PS2 didn't have a keyboard, but they managed to get along fine with pre-made and custom-made messages, in addition to the slow and awkward on-screen keyboard.

And as most people know, the PSP has built-in support for 802.11, so getting online wouldn't be a problem, as long as you were close to an access point and said access point had a decent connection. There are several internet-playable games out currently for the portable, and more on the way. I've played some of these online just fine, and I've even used the now-well-known psp "hack" that lets you use the Wipeout game as a web browser as well, so connectivity isn't a problem.

The biggest concern, barring the memory stick speed, would be the PSP's speed itself. Its specs are often referred to as being "just under" the PS2's, though the PS2 isn't too fast, so I'm unsure of how a very CPU-intensive program like SL would react on either machine. A near-complete rewrite of the client itself would need to be made to get any kind of decently-running SL on the PSP or PS2, and even then it probably wouldn't look too pretty.

The new generation of consoles coming out, though, seem to have more than enough speed and power needed. Though, again, a rewrite of the client would be needed for SL to run correctly on any of them.

Still, if and when SL becomes a true "metaverse", there'd probably be much demand for console-based SL. I could even see SL-specific boxes being developed in the future. I really hope that day comes soon.

EEPROM-type memory (like what you get on a memory stick, flash card, smartmedia, etc) can only be rewritten so many times before degrading, and does not make a good candidate for cache files that will be rewritten and erased and overwritten all the time. It would be OK to hold the app itself but no good for cache files. You'd be far better off developing a version of SL for something that can use a microdrive, which has far higher capacity and is not prone to degradation after many write cycles.

This has been discussed before; not necessarily for handhelds, but for consoles. There are teams working on getting linux onto both the PSP and the Nintendo DS. See: http://www.psp-linux.org/

Honestly, I think that the best current game system for SL development would be the XBox. It already has an ethernet port, a hard drive and decently powerful graphics capability. It's also eminently hackable, and there is an xbox-specific distro of linux on it. Perhaps once there is a linux version of SL available, some brave soul will try intalling it on a modded Xbox?

I agree totally with Unhygienix.

The Xbox is just a PC pretending to be a console, and it's got a pretty normal nVidia GPU sitting in it. It's obviously not a power box, but it's by far the nearest thing to a regular PC available in a console format. That's got to be the best candidate.

The main fly in the ointment for SL on Xbox is that SL doesn't currently use the hardware vertex and pixel shaders on our GPUs pretty much at all. This means that the graphics power of the Xbox would be almost entirely left unused, while the rather slow CPU is made to do all the hard graphics work for which it was not intended.

This is a problem that has to be addressed pretty urgently I think, quite separately from any thoughts about consoles. SL has massive graphics requirements, yet is not using the most powerful processing units provided by our graphics cards. It's not good.

Also forgot to mention: Secondlife would have several major stumbling blocks to overcome in being mass-adopted on any consumer videogame platform, both of them corporate.

Companies like Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft put a lot of effort into quality control and certification of their games. That doesn't mean that all games that get released are good ones, but it does mean that they generally adhere to a fairly rigid certification process. Console manufacturers would NOT be likely to accept a game that is:

1. Constantly being revised. "Secondlife" and "Secondlife 2" might get approved; "Secondlife 1.6.4" would have a much harder time getting by the certification process. The console manufacturers are very aware of the need to ship finished product late rather than ship unfinished product on time, and a constantly-revising point release would chaffe against the distribution models that they're used to.

2. Secondlife is online-only. I'm not aware of any games on consoles that are online-only; most have some sort of single-player offline experience, or even if the game is designed from the ground-up to be multiplayer, it at least has some sort of splitscreen or system-link feature for players who do not play online. A cardinal rule of the videogames industry is that you do not limit your potential customer base by absolutely requiring an add-on or peripheral that isn't in the households of 100% of your user base. So, a game which absolutely requires a gun peripheral or a steering wheel, or an internet connection in order to function isn't as likely to get produced as another game that can be controlled with the default joystick.

3. Secondlife is controlled by LL, on their servers. This wouldn't be such a big problem for Sony or Nintendo, who don't have a clearcut online strategy, but would be a huge bone of contention for Microsoft, who prefer to manage all of their own servers for their XBoxLive paid service. The only company that I'm aware of who has been permitted by Microsoft to use their own servers for online gaming is EA, and that agreement took several years to come about. Basically, Microsoft did not want to let EA develop online games for their system unless the games were hosted on MS's own servers, and EA didn't want to allow that. The only reasons that the two came together (as far as I can see) was that there was just too much money to be made not to; XBox has a huge online community, and the system is apparently much more flexible to code for compared to the PS2, so it was attractive to EA, and EA is hands-down one of the largest game companies in the world; so an exeption was made for them.

4. Secondlife's multiple point releases would either require an elaborate manufacturing process to get the discs out, or a hard drive built-in to the system (ahem, Xbox )

5. Secondlife isn't really a "game". Or it is. Good luck getting a "VW experience" through the certification process, or even explaining what exactly it is.


All of this being said, there are two very good reasons for LL to start talks with console manufacturers; I think they're too late for the upcoming releases of XBox 360, PS3 or Nintendo's "Revolution", but perhaps for the next round of consoles.
-Secondlife is SUCH a compelling experience; it's much easier to experience it than describe it.
-Coding for a console system (particularly with one that is close to PC architecture) would probably streamline the project; think about it, EVERY single one of your potential customers has the same CPU, GPU, RAM, drivers, connections, etc.

I think there would be a big market for SL on a console system, and I think that the best options for LL and the manufacturer would be to:

- Develop the console version to be a separate grid, more loosely tied than the main grid that we currently use.

- Create standalone server architecture, to be run on people's home systems. Each person's home videogame system would be an on-again, off-again node on this looser grid. People could go and visit each other's nodes, assuming that they are invited, on a "friends list" or something. Hosting would be limited by bandwidth, for example I may only be able to handle 2 visitors at a time on my node.

- Offer it as a pack-in with the console; your own 3-d microverse that you can set up however you wish. subscriptions would be required to access extended services, perhaps such as being allowed to have visitors, or access a "main grid".


For now, SL on a console will be limited to hackers and coders, and the earliest example that we might see would be on an XBox.

Even without the problems of product acceptance that you mentioned, I think that there would be absolutely nothing in it for LL to partner with Sony or Microsoft for access to consoles. LL is earning little enough as it is, and that would just give it an extra headache. Those megacorps didn't make it big by being friendly and accomodating.

But a solution is on its way. A console is nothing more than an integrated computing box containing the usual PC-like components and connections to the hifi/TV, plus a controller, and these days also a network connector and small hard disk. In other words, it's pretty much the same package of bits that's in our up-market PVRs, satellite receivers, and other entertainment boxes. All that's needed is for some Taiwanese manufacturer to offer one of these units with an on-the-side capability as a Linux platform or open games console, and we're off.

We're not quite there yet, but it's coming. If SL goes open-source and is reasonably portable, LL may well discover that the community has ported it to pretty much everything with a CPU and GPU, at no cost. And that can only be good for their prospects.