[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by V12

in that case ill try to pick up a pre-owned blck on for cheap

how do u upgrade firmware..just plug it in and let it go? or do i have to do somethin complicated....

and when will white be released in america...if ever released lol

You don't even have to plug it in, just choose network update, as easy as a Mac.

[V12]

oh nice..ill try to pick up a used blk one then, game stop has them for around 200

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by screamingFit

Noticed this thread wouldn't die so I thought I'd chime in with my impressions of the PSP after owning it since launch.

I haven't turned the thing on in over a month.

Same here, other than to upgrade the firmware yesterday. In theory, I want to agree with SWG and Ronnie (and whoever else) that the PSP is a better platform than the DS. Certainly the hardware seems to be nicer and more capable, although I have significant gripes (dead pixels on nearly every unit, no clamshell to cover the screen, battery life, analog stick in a very awkward ergonomic position.)

But in practice, I just play the DS about 10 times as much. The game offerings for DS and especially GBA keep me coming back, whereas the games for PSP are thin to say the least (especially if, like me, you don't like racing games.) Lumines is fun, but I don't play it because I suck at Tetris (and it gets repetitive for me.) Metal Gear Ac!d sucked so bad that I sold the thing back after 3 weeks of trying to like it. Twisted Metal was all right, but got old surprisingly fast.

I will say that, if you could load on emulators and homebrew without krackzoring the thing to all hell, the PSP's appeal would increase significantly... but that's just because I could then play NES and SNES games on it. No flames about how I'm a Nintendo fanboy, plz.

Admittedly, I wouldn't lose much by having a GBA SP rather than a DS (I did enjoy Mario 64 because I never owned an N64, and Goldeneye is fun but not really a blockbuster.) Neither one of these expensive little machines has impressed me yet.

[lavar78]

Originally Posted by strictlyplaid

Neither one of these expensive little machines has impressed me yet.

Welcome to my camp!

[ort888]

Neither one is impressive right now. I'll get a PSP when there are three or four games I actually want for it. I have a DS but I NEVER play it. I still play my SP every day though. I would play the GBA games on the DS but it is soo freaking big and unwieldy. That said, there are 3 or 4 good looking DS games on the horizon, so it may end up getting a lot more playing time.

ADVANCE WARS DS! August 22!

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by ort888

Neither one is impressive right now. I'll get a PSP when there are three or four games I actually want for it. I have a DS but I NEVER play it. I still play my SP every day though. I would play the GBA games on the DS but it is soo freaking big and unwieldy.

Yeah, I never owned a GBA SP, so the DS was a nice way to get access to the whole library of GBA games as well as the new DS games, which is one reason I like it better. I have very large hands (get your mind out of the gutter, sickos) so actually the DS feels a lot more comfortable to me than the elfin SP. The DS's screens are also a little bit brighter/nicer than the GBA SP's, IMHO.

Originally Posted by ort888

That said, there are 3 or 4 good looking DS games on the horizon, so it may end up getting a lot more playing time.

ADVANCE WARS DS! August 22!

True dat; I'm looking forward to Grand Theft Auto for the PSP as well. I've also seen some other cool ones on the horizon (some kind of new Mario for DS, for instance) that might make the platforms worth it. The good thing is, hopefully we're a long way from a hardware upgrade, so eventually both of these things will be worth their up-front costs in the long run.

[ryaxnb]

Originally Posted by MacNStein

If you're 10 y/o...

Some people are... (11)

[ryaxnb]

I'm an 11 y/o. I'm gonna have different views than you guys.
Racing
What I really want is Mario Kart DS.
Need for Speed Underground: Rivals may look pretty, but it doesn't have the fun of Mario Kart. Not for kids anyway.
Action
I like FPSes. Here the PSP seems to dominate the DS. Although neither side has particularly interesting titles, and the touch screen opens up some interesting mapping and such possibilites, the PSP's 3D graphics will own the DS.
As for more kiddie games, I like Mario, and of course he's only on the DS. I'm also hoping great titles from GameCube and N64 will be ported, like Super Smash Bros. and such.
Sonic is also nice; the games on the DS and PSP look equally interesting.
I also am interested in games like space invaders, galaga, nanostray - classics or classic style. The games for GBA and DS include some great titles like Nanostray, Iridium II, Space Invaders EX, etc. Not much on the PSP side.
Sidescrollers
I also like sidescrollers with classic 2D action. Again, games like Super Mario Bros., Sonic 3, etc. are perfect.
Strategy
Games like Animal Crossing DS and such own the PSP versions. The touchpad opens up games like Age Of Empires: Age of Kings for the DS.
Simulation
The Sims 2 is coming out for both, and the Urbz is DS only. Sims 2 may be even better do to touch screen, and Simcity 3000 coming out is a definete possibility.
Puzzle
Puzzles are the DS's bright spot. Enough Said, other then to mention WarioWare looks to rule.
General Features
The power of the PSP is superior, but I prefer the touchscreen and microphone on the DS. The DS's GBA game playing opens up games like Lego Star Wars, Namco Museum, etc. The PSP's movie playing abilities are interesting. The audio and pic features I consider relatively worthless. The UMD opens up huge games but is much slower, so it's a mix.
For me the DS is thus slightly superior. For big FPS, Action, Adult Racing, RPG, etc. people, or folks who can't live without excellent graphics, the PSP is for you.

[ryaxnb]

Originally Posted by starman

Ah, yes, the "it doesn't have a lot of native games so let's pimp the black-and-white shite as 'games that count'.



Mike

I agree. My lego star wars and super mario bros 3 are very black and white. In fact legend of Zelda has barely any plot, and there is no game in the semi-3d - but B&W - iridium ii. Jeez. GBA games are great. And who said B&W Asteroids isn't any fun?

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by strictlyplaid

Yeah, I never owned a GBA SP, so the DS was a nice way to get access to the whole library of GBA games as well as the new DS games

Man, this DS crap is boring. Go start a thread about how great it is.

I have very large hands (get your mind out of the gutter, sickos)

Which generally means you had growth in the bones and not in the organs.

[ort888]

My hands are huge and I don't like holding the DS. The SP is much more comfortable.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Man, this DS crap is boring. Go start a thread about how great it is.

Good GOD you're a troll. I just got done saying that I'm not that impressed with either...

[RonnieoftheRose]

Originally Posted by strictlyplaid

Good GOD you're a troll. I just got done saying that I'm not that impressed with either...

Oooo, troll. Great word - welcome to 1996. We've had 22 pages of this crap already. The topic is now PSP 2.0 update.

[Sandbaggins]

Originally Posted by RonnieoftheRose

Oooo, troll. Great word - welcome to 1996. We've had 22 pages of this crap already. The topic is now PSP 2.0 update.

2.0 is sweet.

Did the 2.0 upgrade but without a way to get the thing on the internet, it's kinda pointless, right? I mean, it doesn't do any system level updates like increasing battery life, etc. does it?

[mishap]

Originally Posted by screamingFit

Did the 2.0 upgrade but without a way to get the thing on the internet, it's kinda pointless, right? I mean, it doesn't do any system level updates like increasing battery life, etc. does it?

It now has WPA support for wireless.

Other than that, it also includes support for H.264 video.

[Peter]

the web browser seems very meh, i cant see a use for it.
Nice not to have the girly colour wallpapers though.

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by Peter

the web browser seems very meh, i cant see a use for it.
Nice not to have the girly colour wallpapers though.

The lack of a quick keyboard entry function is what kills it, IMHO. Everything displays nicely and as long as you're just linking from one page to the next it's not too bad, but entering web addresses is a little painful. Maybe they'll sell a detachable keyboard at some point...

[starman]

It's not THAT bad. They have entries for things like "www.", ".com", etc. to help you out.

Mike

[strictlyplaid]

Originally Posted by starman

It's not THAT bad. They have entries for things like "www.", ".com", etc. to help you out.

Mike

Yeah, that helped, but I still found it very tedious even to type in things like http://www.forums.macnn.com. Even with the automatic prefixes and suffixes, it takes me 30-45 seconds or more to type that in. That's pretty frustrating when you're used to a keyboard, although maybe it compares favorably to PDA typing speeds?

[V12]

how do you go to websites and click other links...there is no mouse type button or pad like on the ds is there?

can you go on aim or ger mail form say gmail?

[Severed Hand of Skywalker]

Originally Posted by V12

how do you go to websites and click other links...there is no mouse type button or pad like on the ds is there?

can you go on aim or ger mail form say gmail?

The joystick turns into a mouse with a little hand icon on screen and everything.

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by V12

how do you go to websites and click other links...there is no mouse type button or pad like on the ds is there?

can you go on aim or ger mail form say gmail?

There's a cursor controlled by the analog stick. There doesn't appear to be any IM support yet, but checking web-mail (like gmail) is no different from visiting any other website

[V12]

oh ok thats pretty cool then..so i can still check my ebay, bank account, and stocks, was well as my email form my psp...?

and its still secure right..?

i also have wpa so thats great that it will work with that =]

[Wiskedjak]

Originally Posted by V12

bank account

I tend to refrain from checking my bank account over any WiFi connection

[alligator]

I hear 2.0 comes out in the US on August 12. Can someone confirm this?

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by alligator

I hear 2.0 comes out in the US on August 12. Can someone confirm this?

Yes

[Macpilot]

I already installed it. Got it off this site:

http://www.psp-hacks.com/

It is awesome. The web browser is very nice.

[11011001]

Originally Posted by Wiskedjak

I tend to refrain from checking my bank account over any WiFi connection

Depending on ones network setup, Ethernet can be just as insecure (read, broadcast, just like WiFi is broadcast). But, for bank accounts that doesn't matter. The traffic is already encrypted, and because of the beauty of public key encryption there isn't a risk of man in the middle attacks (people can look at as many packets as they like, but the data they carry is nonsense to them without your private key used for decryption, which is never broadcast). In other words, it's secure, so long as Safari has that little lock in the top corner.

Public Key Cryptography

It is theoretically possible to break the encryption used on SSL and other technologies, but one would need a computer worth far far far more than the data they might be stealing. As far as I am aware, no one has broken the encryption used in such transactions which is much stronger than RC5-64 (which took 1500 odd days, and something like 20,000 computers to break).

[ajprice]

Thanks for the link Macpilot. I just went to that website and had a look around, and found their wallpaper section. Now I'm confused, PSP screen res is 480x272, and that is the wallpaper size I've seen just about everywhere else, but the wallpapers there are 300x170, and saved as BMP files not JPG's. So which is right for PSP wallpaper, 480x272 pixel .JPG or 300x170 .BMP?

I get my PSP in September when they come to the UK.

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

UMD's are selling like hotcakes:

"Yet in the midst of the misery comes a ray of hope: Sony's half-dollar-sized Universal Media Disc, which can be used to play movies on the company's PlayStation Portable. To the surprise of tech pundits everywhere, UMD movies have been selling splendidly since the first discs came out in April—American consumers have purchased more than 500,000 so far, according to one industry estimate. The DVD, by comparison, took a full year to ship half a million units in the United States after its 1997 debut. There's not yet a formal list of UMD best-sellers, but the current chart-topper at Amazon is Sin City. How did Robert Rodriguez's* ultra-violent comic-book adaptation become this week's UMD king?"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125170/fr/rss/

[The iMac Man]

Wow, I'm surprised... there's no way I will pay more than $15 for a UMD movie.

Sin City and Kung Fu Hustle are the only ones I'm even considering, but even those are too expensive.

[JohnM15141]

I've purchased a couple movies for my PSP, I never thought I would but they are a perfect size and some are actually cheap. Plus, they're easy to trade with others. Now, I dream of a reasonably priced UMD Burner, sometime shortly after hell freezes over?

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

UMD's are selling like hotcakes:

"Yet in the midst of the misery comes a ray of hope: Sony's half-dollar-sized Universal Media Disc, which can be used to play movies on the company's PlayStation Portable. To the surprise of tech pundits everywhere, UMD movies have been selling splendidly since the first discs came out in April—American consumers have purchased more than 500,000 so far, according to one industry estimate. The DVD, by comparison, took a full year to ship half a million units in the United States after its 1997 debut. There's not yet a formal list of UMD best-sellers, but the current chart-topper at Amazon is Sin City. How did Robert Rodriguez's* ultra-violent comic-book adaptation become this week's UMD king?"

http://slate.msn.com/id/2125170/fr/rss/

[ajprice]

Do you get extras on a UMD movie, like on DVD? Commentaries, cut scenes, interviews etc?

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by ajprice

Do you get extras on a UMD movie, like on DVD? Commentaries, cut scenes, interviews etc?

No, they only have 1.7 gigs to work with.

[OwlBoy]

the title of this thread still sucks

-Owl

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

Originally Posted by OwlBoy

the title of this thread still sucks

-Owl

Your input and repetitiveness sucks more.

[ajprice]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

No, they only have 1.7 gigs to work with.

OK. I was thinking that with the resolution being for a 480 x 272 PSP screen rather than 720 x 480 DVD resolution, that the size of the film would have gone down a lot and left some space on the discs.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally Posted by ajprice

OK. I was thinking that with the resolution being for a 480 x 272 PSP screen rather than 720 x 480 DVD resolution, that the size of the film would have gone down a lot and left some space on the discs.

the problem is that the screen resolution is still two thirds of full DVD resolution, while the discs only hold 20% of a DVD's capacity.

[OwlBoy]

Originally Posted by Scandalous Ion Cannon

Your input and repetitiveness sucks more.

I'm sure in 23 pages of the Console debate other have repeated points more than me

-Owl

[ort888]

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

the problem is that the screen resolution is still two thirds of full DVD resolution, while the discs only hold 20% of a DVD's capacity.

720x480 = 345600 pixels

480x272 = 130560 pixels

The extra third actually adds up to almost 3 times as many pixels. Plus, a UMD disc doesn't need to be encoded for digital surround sound like a DVD does.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally Posted by ort888

720x480 = 345600 pixels

480x272 = 130560 pixels

The extra third actually adds up to almost 3 times as many pixels. Plus, a UMD disc doesn't need to be encoded for digital surround sound like a DVD does.

oh yeah, i guess the math portion of my brain hadn't kicked in yet when i posted that

[ajprice]

Got mine now! Charged it overnight, had a quick check over it this morning, it came with v1.5 installed, and v2.0 on the demo disk. So I installed 2.0 on it, had a quick go of internet. Will have a better look at it after work today. But so far, its impressive.

[Gee4orce]

I don't want to read all 23 pages of this topic, so forgive me for asking a direct question :

Should I buy a PSP ?

You guys in the States and Japan have had a long time now to play with this machine (literally), and come to a reasoned judgement. I've never been into hand-helds, but I just saw a PSP in town and, man, do I want one ! Some more info to let you help me decide:

* I love computer games - despite being older than the 'target demographic'. I've been playing video games since before most of you were toilet trained
* Like I said, I've never been into hand-helds before.
* my current gaming system in the X-Box, but it was a PS2 before that (I started playing Halo, and just couldn't stop)
* I like network games - when I heard the PSP has WiFi built in I almost dropped the money on one there and then. What are the games like that support this ?
* Game types - not too bothered. I like to have 1 driving game and 1 fps in my stable at any one time. I don't really like puzzle games on a console, but do like them on a computer. I'm guessing that they would be good on a hand-held
* playing the X-Box causes problems with 'her indoors' - having a PSP would mean I could indulge my gaming habit without pissing of my other half when she wants to watch TV.

What's the battery life like ? What about the game choice ? Is there an analog controller ? Do the network games do voice comms ?

Oh, one last thing - it's my birthday this week

[Scandalous Ion Cannon]

"According to Chart Track, the Sony PSP has sold more than 185,000 units since launching September 1. This makes it the most sucessful hardware launch in U.K. history, shattering the record previously held by the Nintendo DS at 87,000, which was set March 2005. Despite heavy sales, Sony Computer Entertainment Europe is apparently meeting hardware demand.

The software for the PSP is also selling well, though no singular title stood out particularly in terms of sales. Ridge Racer recorded the most sales, at 37,000 units sold. Other hit titles include Wipeout Pure, Virtua Tennis and Metal Gear Ac!d, for a total of 20 PSP titles entering in the U.K. top 40."

http://www.gamedaily.com/wireless/ar...e=00001&rp=750

[Diggory Laycock]

Gee4orce:

I'm not sure how many games have on-line play - I think so far the wi-fi's been used for LAN gaming and downloads of new assets: hi scores etc.. I could easily be wrong though, I don't have a PSP, and since it was released last week I've had to keep convincing myself that I don't really need to buy one.

[waxcrash]

I just noticed this…if you have an EyeTV, one of the options to export a saved show is PSP. I haven't tried it yet, I need to get a 1GB memory card first.

[waxcrash]

Just got an e-mail from Sega. Virtua Tennis is now available on the PSP. This was my favorite game on the Dreamcast. Woo hoo!

[moonmonkey]

Originally Posted by Diggory Laycock

Gee4orce:

I'm not sure how many games have on-line play - I think so far the wi-fi's been used for LAN gaming and downloads of new assets: hi scores etc.. I could easily be wrong though, I don't have a PSP, and since it was released last week I've had to keep convincing myself that I don't really need to buy one.

Twisted Metal has online play and works very well if you have a server on the same continent.

The game is nowhere as good as Carmagedden though.

[Cubeoid]

Wow. The PSP sure is popular around our community seeing how long this thread is going for. I hope you're all having fun with your toys.