Sony PSP

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.

I noticed that in all the ads the picture of the PSPs menu is blue, but when I saw the actual PSP it was a lite yellow/green color. I found out that the color changes from month to month. Which is kinda cool and weird...however, they should still have a setting where you can change it to whatever color you want. I heard April's color is pink, but not sure if that is true.....(or why for that matter.)

I just checked it is a pink, rosey color.

Well go down the non-legal route. Who's caring now?

If you want bonk did you see the really cool GCN remakes hudson did for some of their old stuff.

FWIW, $150 in 1991 can be inflation-corrected to $215 in 2005 dollars. So the PSP is still more expensive.

VAIOs do/did have colour changing wallpaper. It would change the background image depending on the time of day so at night it'd be a night time scene, morning and it'd show the same scene but at dawn etc... It did it via Active Desktop and a little script in the page.

I got adventure island I still need to get bonk. Mine is from a local videogame store that sells imports but you could get it from many places online like lik-sang or buyrite

It looks much better than the screen shots (at least adventure island does) It's like it's 2d but there are 3d objects thrown in there.

Okay, I didn't know they were only imports. I'll still check it out. And sorry, I meant Splatterhouse, not Slaughterhouse (5?)

RE: PSP

Rob bought one on the way to NABX last week and holy crap... i was impressed. Lumines is the best game since Tetris! The screen on that thing is rediculously good... any car game on it is just amazing.

Ok. After playing one of my friends PSPs, and getting $100 in Best Buy certificates from the TV, I decided I could deal with getting a PSP for $150 real cash.

Game wise, the machine is damn fun. The launch titles ensure people have at least one game to grab, if not two or three. I myself got Wipeout, Twisted Metal and Lumines. All three have been great fun, with Lumines getting most of my attention on the puzzle mode. I'd like to pick up Mercury, but without the tilt sensor, it doesn't seem as fun as it could be.

Now, media wise, I'm not so impressed. Video quality of the Spiderman 2 movie included is very nice. However, media off the Memory Stick is not so nice. Seems Sony put in a 320x240 size limitation (or 368x208 for 16:9) on movies off the memory stick. So you end up seeing the unit upscale to the native 480x272. It also limits the video format. Off UMD, it can play Mpeg4 or H.264. Off the stick, Mpeg4 only. So a high retail price, and the do it yourself media options are crippled. And of course with no UMD-R or RW format, I'm stuck to the sticks only.

The photo viewer is ok for showing off pictures. I'm not sure if I can take my duo stick right out of my camera yet or not, still need to try that.

The MP3 player, well, it plays music, much like every other device under the sun these days. It it does so with no real amazing features. I'm holding an awesome LCD, and all it does is use a tiny fraction for the song info, and has no visualizers.

While the games are fun, I do still stand by my point that $250 is too much for this machine. It's odd that it launched in Japan at an equivelent price of $180. Guess Sony wanted to milk the US market a bit more, or anticipated the dollar continuing its drop against other world currency.

Sales wise, the PSP seems to be moving slower then expected. The only numbers are 500k in the first two days, and 600k over the first week. The DS did about the same on numbers both in the US and Europe when it was first released. Numbers from Japan at the end of 2004 showed the DS at 1.8mil and the PSP at 1.0mil there. Seems the lower price is helping the DS for now. Hard to say what the future holds, especially if the DS doesn't see any decently rated games soon.

I just picked up lumines and I have been playing it for bursts of 30 minutes or so at a time. Sometimes you get focused on the puzzle and then suddenly the music and enviornment change and you want to watch it instead of play the game.

I got a PSP over the weekend along with Ridge Racer and Lumines. The hardware is impressive. The screen is the best I've seen on a portable device. It fits adult hands and the analog stick is nice. I do wish the shoulder triggers were analog for gas/brake in driving games.

Mostly I've played Lumines which is a fun game if you dig the music (which I do). You've got to play with the headphones to appreciate it. If you only listen through the crappy internal speaker it'll be just another Tetris variation. I'm not a hardcore gamer. I usually don't play for more than 30-60 minutes in one sitting. So I like games I can pick up, play for a little while and move on.

Ridge Racer is fun, too, though racing games cry out for a big screen to get the immersion factor.

No doubt, $250 is expensive. Right now it's a luxury purchase for overgrown boys with disposable income like me. The $50 "value pack" is just a way to gouge the early adoptors. I believe the price is supposed to drop to $199 with no accessories after the first million are shipped. I expect it to be $199 with a pack-in game by Christmas. Lumines would be a perfect pack-in game like Tetris was for the original Game Boy.

WOW


*edit*
warning, you'd better have about half an hour to devote to this

I've got a Japanese PSP imported by somebody I know and it is pretty nice. There are a few dead pixels on the screen which are a bit annoying but can't do too much about that unfortunately. The Japanese ones have the same region code (2) as the UK just on the off chance that I might turn insane and decide to buy UMD movies. I might get one UMD movie just to see how it looks but thats it.

The only game I've got is Ridge Racer and I'm very impressed. Annoyingly somebody I know decided to use the New Game option and then said Yes to the prompt do you want to overwrite your old one so I have to start over

There seems to be a small homebrew community for the PSP as well. The initial Japanese release PSPs running v1.0 of the firmware had a backdoor in that it would allow you to run unsigned code in ELF format. All other territories and Japan now come with v1.5+ which has plugged this hole.

I'm not sure who started the rumour about the steel wool and the screen coating but I've managed to put a very light scratch into the surface already just by using it. You can't see it unless you angle the screen but it's still there. There is also a tiny flaw in the surface as well from where they applied the coating.

I was playing some Mercury last night. It's also very cool. Think Marble Madness++.

Oh. One minor problem with getting a Japanese PSP. The meaning of the X and O buttons are reversed in XMB. O = Accept and X = Cancel unlike everywhere else.

This was the original scheme but everybody else decided to swap it around for some unknown reason. There isn't any way of changing it. It only affects XMB however, the games just use whatever convention is correct for their region.

Yeah. It's very cool. Instead of being a marble, you're a blob of mercury. Many of the levels involve splitting the blob of mercury to do two things at once. Also, there are "paint shops" that color the blob of mercury, which act like keys. And if you split the blob and color each blob differently, then recombine, you get a new color. It's really neat. There are some elements of Sokoban, too.

Cool. It does sounds like it has even more possibilities for infuriating you than Marble Madness however

Yeah, I did find it sees the photos, but will not play back the movies. Seems silly for a Sony Camera and Sony Handheld to not work togther 100%, but it seems thats the norm for any large company. The pictures are very slow to access at the 5 megapixel size, and the PSP aparently does not make any attempt to save a thumbnail or smaller image. In one way I appreciate not cluttering things up, but it also makes for a slow and ultimatly pointless feature. It's easier to just show pictures back on the 2 inch LCD on the camera, and playback movies there.

Mercury is indeed a lot of fun (beyond the long load times for no good reason). The game was supposed to come with a tilt sensor though, but that got scrapped until they see what the success of the game is.

I got a decent bit of use out of my PSP while on vacation at E3, but I'm finding it sits collecting dust most days at home. It's a shame to see, but the device to me does not live up to any of the non game hype it gets, and so it serves one purpose, to play games on the go. I was hoping to see at least some useful media purpose out of it.

I've got a copy of Mercury now and damn is it hard! The actual game looks fine but the menus and text does look very dated. Reminds me of old Amiga games. Button assignment is weird as well.

Yeah, other than the actual game itself, it feels very shareware-y. And the load times are too long for no apparent reason. Still, good game.