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Sony Struggles To Define the PSP
Brian Crecente has a piece over on the Rocky Mountain site talking about Sony's struggle to make the PSP stand out. The failure of the UMD format, its de-emphasis as a media player, and the lackluster stable of games leaves PSP owners wondering exactly what to use it for. From the article: "While digital media is a key focus for Sony Computer Entertainment right now, the company is also working to expand other elements of the portable as well. In November, the PlayStation 3 will launch with built in PSP support. While [PSP Marketing Manager John] Koller wouldn't discuss specifics, he did say that the PlayStation Portable will be a 'remote control device' for the next-gen console. He says more details about that connectivity will be coming out in the coming months, perhaps at the Tokyo Game Show next month."
This 99% of games suck bullshit has just about got to stop. Have you bought a game in the last 6 months? There are many fine games for the console now, even if they weren't there at launch.
My advice is to take it off of Craigslist, buy a couple of games that users have rated highly on the PSP forums and play them. It'll be fun, trust me. If it's still not fun for you then I'm not quite sure what might help. Have you considered taking up knitting?
TW
Maybe I've been lucky, but I've mainly been able to buy what are ( in my own opinion ) non-sucky games for the PSP. Lumines is fine, and can occupy plenty of time if I'm travelling or whatever. Wipeout Pure is sensational - I love it. OK, so it's not original, but it's still a damn good game, and works fantastically on the PSP. Also, the ability to expand the game by going online and getting more tracks/music/ships is a great idea, and one I'm amazed more games haven't taken advantage of.
I also play the Colin McRae 2005 rally game a lot - again, ideal for travelling - although I admit that it took a larger learning curve than usual to get to grips with some of the (ahem) "features".
As for others, both LocoRoco and Mercury are simple but addictive.
I say we take off and nuke it from orbit. It's the only way to be sure...
I was not interested in flashing the firmware of my DS Lite, so I decided to go with a SuperKey. This is the size of an official Nintendo DS game and fits flushly into the DS slot.
The next decision is the tough one. Right now, I use a SuperCard MiniSD. This has flawless playback of NDS backups, as well as decent GBA support. If you must have maximum GBA support, the M3 is the only option right now. Both cards are about the size of an original GBA game (so they will fit flushly in your DS phat/stick out approx. 1cm (the width of a finger) on your ds lite).
There are a few devices out there that fit completly inside of a DS Lite GBA slot, but they cost more/have fixed memory of 1 GB/use transflash cards which cost a lot of money.
SuperKey ($30) + SuperCard MiniSD* ($50) + 2GB MinSD card ($25) = $115 gets you
Near pefect NDS Support (99%)
Decent GBA Support (~75-80%)
Great Homebrew, Emulator, Etc support
If you want to save cash, you can go with the larger flash carts that use CF cards, however, they will make your NDS or NDSL a pain while trying to fit in your pocket. I like to game on the go; the NDSL+SC fits easily into my pocket.
* Make sure you buy from a reputable company if you get a SuperCard, some cheap chinese manufacturers have been making knock-offs. You can read more about it at the SC site.
I thought the de-facto open handheld was the GP2X http://www.gp2x.com/.
It comes with linux onboard. You can download devkits for windows and linux using sdl and c/c++, with OpenGL optional. When you are done with your game, you copy it over using secure digital cards, or usb thumb drives. Homebrew development is actively encouraged by official contests, with cash prizes for the best entries.
...a $200 controller. I guess that fits the pricing scheme of a $600 console.
A $200 controller with a 4.3" 16:9 TFT LCD screen at 480 x 272 pixel and 16.77 million colors. Not to mention built in stereo speakers and headphone jack.
I think this is one thing that consoles could use. Especially with the popularity of things like Madden football, video board / card games, or anything that has multiple players with secret information.
The Dreamcast had the ability to have a display in the controller, and I know there were at least a few games that used it. The problem with having optional features on a console is that they don't get used by the game developers. How many PS2 games actually took advantage of the USB ports, or the i.Link port? I can think of three FPS PS2 games that supported keyboard / mouse input. If the hardware producer (Sony in this case) is going to include a really cool feature / option they need to motivate the game developers to use it.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
You should get a DS Lite anyway, if only for the screen, comparing the DS Fat and the DS Lite' screens is like night and day.
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
I'm losing all respect for Slashdot's gaming section. When I come to Slashdot's game section I expect the latest industry news on all game platforms presented in an objective manner. Instead this section has become Zonk's personal anti Sony flame board. The PSP is a great gaming system. It seems lately the hot thing to do is jump on the anti Sony bandwagon with claims that are completely unfounded. The biggest being that their are no good games. If you say there are no good games that tells me you haven't looked lately or you don't know what your talking about.
Tekken: Dark Resurrection ign.com rating 9.2
Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror - 9.3
NCAA Football 07 - 8.3
Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories - 9.0
Burnout Legends - 8.5
Valkyrie Profile: Lenneth - 8.5
Daxter - 9.0
MLB 06: The Show - 8.3
Field Commander - 8.4
Ultimate Block Party - 8.0
And these are just a few of the top games and it covers all gaming categories. If you look at the line up of games scheduled for release of the next 3-4 months you'll see the PSP has a lot of very good games about to be released. The PSP library isn't as big as the DS's which I also own but considering the DS also plays gameboy advance games which has been out much longer how can it be. People need to stop this mindless bashing of one system or another.
I'll gladly give you Lumines as a great game. Even Katamari. But Tekken on a handheld with lousy controls? Hot shots golf? Wipeout? Besides, only one of the games you mentioned was actually developed for the PSP. The rest are licenses shoe-horned into a small screen with bad battery life and bad controls. Your idea of what a good game is might differ from mine, but you basically listed one game as must-have for a console that's been out for 3 years. That's not a stable, that's barely mediocre.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
How I use it: In flight entertainment. It's amazing what a flight attendant stopper it is.
Ingredients:
Options:
DVD backups (VOB files) that you save to another file server.
Converting FLV videos from YouTube or Google (a bit too much effort for the resulting crappy quality).
Basically, I take PSPVideo9, add a line to its XML configuration file to recognize a DVR-MS file (I have a Media Center), and then pick about 6 hours of Colbert Reports and Daily Show's I've missed in the past week or so. Anything with a DirectShow filter installed can be converted by PSPVideo9... it just takes an extra line of XML to recognize the file extension.
This process takes a while, so I start it the night before my trip...
In the morning, I copy the files to my Memory Stick during my shower (once a month, whether I need it or not). This can take some time depending on your card reader speed.
I then laugh my ass off on the plane all the way across country. You can do this with a DVD backup program and PSPVideo9 as well. A 30 minute TV program is about 60MB and a 2 hour movies chops down to less than 300MB. If you have a 16:9 aspect ratio movie, it fills up the screen as the director intended. If you have a 4:3 show, just zoom the PSP screen and it will fill it (you lose 10% off the top and bottom, but it isn't stretched out).
Now, here's the next part... there are 100's of ways to skin this cat, but here is how I did it...
Get TV programs remotely (extra credit):
So, on your remote computer:
I'd like to do the RSS route... that would be cool.
Everyone I've let use my PSP to watch video (even iPod users) are blown away with the quality of the playback.
Battery life for memory-stick based operations is *great*. I use 1 bar out of 3 watching movies or TV for 2 hours. iPod / iTunes video does work well.
Be sure to pick up a combination USB and PSP cable so you can charge your PSP and another USB device as well off 1 port.
Drawbacks and gripes:
1 GB Mem sticks are a small. 4GB will be great. Those can be had for $150 or so now.
You can't take a HUGE library of media with you (like a 60GB iPod)... which is fine for TV for me
File format for video has to be MP4... way lame, but you have to chop it anyway.
Volume for playing video back isn't great - it needs to get boosted during conversion
Playing audio through FM tuners is NOT good... too quiet for most cars with the road noise
But, I think it is a really nice piece of hardware... I dan't play many games, but the ones I have, I enjoy. I don't play a lot of other games on other platforms either, so I don't have a lot to compare it to...
TTFN