Matlock said:
Here's how it stands right now--
The case against the PSP:
1. Console-style games on a handheld? I already have a console.
See, for
me, that's part of the case
for getting the PSP. If a game is truly good, then it shouldn't matter whether you're playing it on your TV or on a handheld.
PSP enables me to carry around games of similar quality to those I'm accustomed to playing at home. Virtually every handheld has
promised the ability to do this, but few have truly delivered it. Of those that did, most of them didn't have the financial backing of the manufacturer and/or the third-party support to stick around in the long run, thus perpetuating the myth among some Nintendo fanboy cliques that "no one wants to play console-style games on the go" (even though Nintendo originally marketed Game Boy on that same premise).
It's analagous to why the Walkman and iPod found success. They offered the ability to listen to high-quality music on the go, the same music you would listen to at home with the same instruments, the same vocals, and similar fidelity. It's not like condensing music into a wind-up music box and then carrying it around in your pocket so you can listen to it plinkety-plink a 20-second segment of one song. Handheld gaming with the PSP is the same way--you get a comparable experience to what you would
expect to play on a home system, except you're not tethered to the TV.
Remember what I said earlier: if a game is truly good, then it shouldn't matter whether you're playing it on your TV or on a handheld. This holds true going in both directions. Think about it from the perspective of transporting the handheld game home: If a handheld video game is of such low quality that you would never bother to play it if it were released as-is on a home console, then why would you waste your time playing that game on a handheld?
Matlock said:
2. Playing music, video, roms on it? I already have a laptop, and a standalone mp3 player.
3. I don't take public transit (it doesn't exist around here).
4. I don't like GTA.
I can't argue with these here, although the PSP does make a dandy portable video player.
Matlock said:
5. I already have a portable system.
So do I. At the time I bought the PSP, I had
seven other handheld video game systems in my home. Interestingly, there were only three distinct
platforms represented between them: 3 Lynxes, 2 Genesis Nomads, and 2 GBAs. Since getting the PSP a few months ago, it has gotten more play than all of the other handhelds
combined, and in fact gets more gaming time devoted to it than
any other system I own except for the PS2. Not counting the handhelds mentioned earlier or multiples of the same system, I can play games on 15 different home gaming platforms, so that's pretty strong praise for the PSP.
It helps if you don't think of the PSP as a mere portable. Think of it as a full-fledged video game console
that just happens to be portable.
Matlock said:
The case for:
1. Some good looking racers.
So I ask, why should I get a PSP?
Hey, I think it's a great system, but if you can't justify it for yourself with the games that are out now, then don't worry and forget about it for a while. But give it another look again in the next few months when more games are available. Heian-kyo and Matix did a nice job of compiling some screens from a lot of great looking games that are coming in the next few months. Perhaps when those games are available, you'll decide that you want your own PSP.