Okay maybe I missed it, but I am suprised there was no posts on the Sony PSP. Has anyone bought one yet? Or does anyone plan on buying it?

SWMBO bought a Nintendo DS recently which is quite good. She didn't want to wait until September(?) for the PSP.

I got mine. No one seemed to notice or care about psp around here though. The US launch seems like it has been mostly hype. Once there is a real web browser (not the wipeout re direction) it will be a cool device just to find an access point and search.

I gotta go buy an wireless access point so I can play on xlink-kai.

I plan to get a UK one when it appears (i like my warranties) - whenever that may be. I've heard rumours ranging between April and November.

I bought one.. so far I really like it though lots of people seem to have problems staying connection to online games (like twisted metal).. hopefully this will improve once things get going. Also mine came with 5 pixels that stay continuously white and one that stays blue, definitely made me a little angry since this thing is pretty expensive.... will be going back to bestbuy today. (don't want to have to wait for sony to replace it).

-Greg

I played with the DS and had about the same take on it you did.

A friend of mine got the PSP and it's slick. The screen looks great, much better than the DS by any stretch, and the device itself feels really good. I'd tend to agree with you about handheld gaming platforms, but I really lust after this one.

It looks pretty slick, but I won't get one. I won't get a DS either, though. I'm happy with my SP, it's a great size, and I pretty much got it only for ports of old games and new games from old franchises. I've got Link to the Past, SMB2, Mario Kart, and FF Tactics. I would buy all the old NES games if they weren't insanely priced at $20 a piece.

I'm sad that the DS came out, because I was really hoping that they'd go all out with ports of old games. I would have loved to see all my favorite SNES titles on the SP. I can picture myself playing Actraiser on the road (although it might be hard to see during the sim stuff).

I think the answer is you're not supposed to be watching both screens, the touchscreen is meant to augment the main screen by having maps and inventories and stuff like that. The touchscreen means you can also select these things really quickly by just pressing it without having to go down-down-left-left-left-down-select.

Having said that I'd like a PSP because I like the games on it more. Although I'll never buy one.... with my own money.

With the writeable gba cart and a couple programs you can play most nes roms on gba.

The thing that stops me from grabbing a PSP is the price. $250 (in the US) seems quite high for a handheld gaming device. Of course, I keep getting told it is more then that, for any extra functionality I have to spend more money. Sure, it plays MP3s off MemoryStick Duo, but only comes with a 32mb stick. It can also reconvert movies off my PC, but again it goes onto those sticks. So in order to use it for more then games, I have to spend a ton on 1gb sticks, and get an MP3 player that doesn't rival the Rio Carbon or iPod Minis in that price range. Everyone says the video is nice on it, but it's such a tiny resolution. All that video work goes to waste the second you try to play the files on anything else. And a friend commented it looks like (at least with the Spiderman 2 movie), the UMD movies are interlaced. Ick.

So that leaves the game part. I look at the shelf of consoles below my TV, and not a one was over $200 for me. All of them provide a richer experience. So why would I spend more on a handheld to get less? The DS was cheeper then them, and offers some innovative possibilities with the touch screen (Metroid on it is an FPS experience that can rival PCs due to the input, but it does take some time to get used to).

Then there are the people hacking web browsing into it. That to me seems more tedious then trying to browse on my phone. I really don't want to type out things using a control pad. If anything, a web browser would be much more useful on the DS with a touchscreen input to bring it close to a PDA experience.

The storage thing is a problem for me as well. I believe the comment that I heard on TV somewhere was "What do I need hours and hours of video for? All I need is a couple TV shows on an MSDuo and I'm good to go." That's someone who's never experienced what it's like to have a real PVP. My girlfriend and I used my Archos in Europe all the time. Over the course of several train rides, we watched 3 seasons of TV shows.

Your comments in regards to your consoles are dead-on. I paid what, $150 for my Gamecube? The value I've received from playing Mario Kart DD with four friends practically negates that expense. I see no possible way I could get that kind of experience-for-the-dollar with the PSP.

Then again, I'm beginning to realize that I'm very particular about my gaming these days

How much did you spend on your TV? Without including the price of your TV, it's not a fair comparison.

Also, try stuffing your Gamecube, a controller, a TV, a car battery, and a power inverter in your pocket. And then cooardinate amongst your friends who brings the ethernet switch. (Apologies to tman)

Comparing a handheld gaming system to a console system is silly. Your laptop is likely less powerful than your desktop, but you probably paid more for it. Of course, that assumes that you want a handheld gaming system or laptop. If you don't, though, it seems silly to argue the merits.

Personally, I think the PSP looks great and the DS looks mediocre. Part of this has to do with the physical unit itself, some of which is subjective, some of which isn't. (Again, I think that the PSP screen is much, much, better than the DS screen(s).) I don't like the concept of the stylus. I find it hard to believe that it's easy to poke at the screen quickly with one hand while holding it in the other, especially with fast games like Metroid is liable to be. I just think that it's an inapproprate controller, though I understand where they're coming from. It's an interesting innovation, I just don't think that it works.

All that being said, $250 is an exorbitant price. The DS is half the price, basically. (I can see where some of that savings came from, too.) The games are not cheap, either.

The key word in my post is "value." I think it's harder to compare the DS to the PSP than it is to compare either to the experience of a home console. Yeah, you have to factor in the TV, which also provides far more utility than the PSP. But what I'm talking about is how much enjoyment you can get out of the money you're spending. Even if I were riding the subway every day, I'd still get more fun out of playing head-to-head Mario Kart on the Gamecube with four friends. ( by the way, Say what you will, but I also have more fun doing that than I ever could if Mario Kart were online. I would honestly never do that. Nothing beats face to face interaction, so you can curse at your best friend to his face for a well-placed turtle shell at the end of a race.)

I've gotten off subject, I know, but I have all these pet peeves about video games that are bottled up

I was never arguing that the PSP isn't a better idea than the DS. I said it was. The DS looks terrible folded up, for instance. I'm just saying that I see little point in such an expense for such a device. I know why it's that expensive (I thought it would be more), but such a purchase simply isn't worth it to me.

Well, okay, I agree with almost all of that. Personally, I'm more interested in a portable system so I can play by myself anywhere, even in my house. Sometimes I just don't want to be in the middle of the house playing a game. I imagine the bachelors have a different view of this than I do.

My ultimate point is that if the PSP cost two-thirds or less of what it does, I'd already have one.

I will buy one when they make some games I want for it and add it to the collection. (GB, GB color, GBA, GBA SP, Nomad, NGPCx2)

I don't think anyone will ever make anything as good as the gameboy sp (handheld wise anyway). That is the perfect handheld I can actually fit it in a pocket even the back ones and sit on it. Also the battery lasts an unreal amount of time.

For the DS
this one looks interesting.

As a matter of curiosity, why does a bachelor acquire a tree-floor three-bathroom house?

The Game Gear was $250? I know I sold my Gameboy and all my games and accessories for one, but I didn't remember it being that much. Wow.

I will agree with you on the price point, Bitt. If Sony is really concerned about toppling Nintendo in the handheld market, $150 would do it. And I know it's been said already, but it makes absolutely no sense to me that you have to pay the same amount for GTA on the PSP as you do for San Andreas for the PS2.

*edit*
Sorry, Tom. The Game Gear was only $150.

I wish I hadn't sold mine. I had a ton of games, the TV Tuner, and an attachment that let you play old Sega Master System games.

Ah the Game Gear, I've still got mine although I can't find any games, all I've got is the TV Tuner.

Oh, yeah. I forgot about the thumb-stylus thing. That's actually not a bad idea, other than the losability factor.

Then I remember there was the Lynx and the obscenely priced TurboExpress (though it was cool to play Bonk on the go ). The TurboExpress was such a clunky handheld, like the Gameboy on steroids, but it always felt really substantial (I didn't have one, by the way). I only played a friend's Lynx a couple times, so I can't remember it too well.

I think we all know how well the TurboExpress did, and that thing could play the same games as the home console, quite a substantial feature.

The turboexpress was great, but went through batteries like crazy. I think mine still works. It was plagued with multiple delays. When the thing finally came out it was way too expensive.