Manufacturer: Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE)/SonyUse: Primarily Handheld Games Machine, also Multimedia DevicePrice: UK Value Pack £179.99, Giga Pack £219.99Origin: JapanReviewer: SideathNintendo has more or less dominated the handheld gaming market for more than 15 years with the Game Boy model. Affordable, portable, reliable and simple. Over 100 million Game Boys have been sold, and have beaten off competition from such big names as Sega, 3D0 and Atari. Now, nearing the new generation of videogames, Nintendo has a real challenge - a challenge with the name, the style and the power - the Sony Playstation Portable (PSP).
The PSP is a very functionable peice of kit. The four face buttons are very responsive, as is the directional buttons. However, the thumb nub/joystick on the bottom left hand corner of the PSP could be done better - only after an hour of play your thumb will become uncomfortable as a requires a certain amount of energy to move the nub about - an it is not as effortless as a console joystick, persay. The actual resposiveness of the thumb nub could be better. Since this is the major control function for certain PSP games such as
GTA: Liberty City Stories and also
Star Wars: Battlefront II, this could cause problems for PSP owners.
The PSP started off in Japan with problems. The square button was pretty unresponsive due to its distance from the PSP screen, there were many problems with dead pixels (which still troubles consumers today). Over 30% of all PSP sold in Japan in the first month of PSP sales were returned to Sony for repair or exchange. Considering Sony are alreadly making a loss on Sony PSP sales (the total cost of production was around 130% cost of the retail price in Japan), this was not good news. Sony was actually making a loss on the huge amount of PSP sales - and then all the problematic exchanges.
The Screen on the Sony PSP is quite amazing, possibly the best portable screen EVER (although Munki would disagree), although this could lead to more likely to problems with the screen (tilted screen, dead pixels etc.) being more apparent, but still, this massiveness of the screen is by far the best function of the PSP. If definetly draws attention from your fellow coworkers/students/people on the bus. Extremely clear, extremely sharp. Excellent.
The Japanese launch was quite successful, beating the Nintendo DS in the first month, and until
Nintendogs was released, was top of the hardware charts. The launch came and went, and the problems were forgotten by the media, but not by Sony. The manufacturing process was not perfected by Sony by the US launch, but still, the US lauch was indeed successful, even more so than in Japan. The chic, 'mainstream' US audience pounced on the PSP in the same way that er... Munki pounces on a new Counter-Strike update. ;-)
Of course, like any other console, however much the manufacturing process is perfected, there are still fundemental problems with the PSP. The battery life is relatively low - around 8-10 hours on a low-disc connectiong game like
Wipeout Pure, which loads the race onto the game's memory. However, with a game or UMD movie which constantly reads of the disc such as
GTA: Liberty City Stories this can go to as low as 4 hours. A spare battery is almost definetly a must [as we're talking about spare batteries, I have 2 spare batteries I want to sell - £8 each contact chimpware@gmail.com]. I say 'relatively' because it is low compared other handheld consumer items such as the Nintendo DS (15-20 hours), Game Boy Micro (25+ hours), Apple iPod (15 hours) or Mobile Phones (up to 7 days).
Meanwhile, the PSP in the world seems to be on the way up. It has a thriving underground community (whether Sony likes it or not), and all of Tristar, Universal or Columbia's new movies are also produced in UMD format as well as DVD format (partly because Sony is a majority share holder in all three companies). Also, the development of cheaper memory sticks truly make the PSP multimedia - oh did I mention? It can play MP3 music, MP4 or MPEG movies and show photos. Now 1GB memory cards are relatively affordable (on eBay, at least), hence the inclusion of the 1GB memory card in the new PSP Giga Pack.
In conclusion, the PSP, whatever its shortcomings and problems (which still exist, I must admit) is here to stay, and although it currently doesn't dominate the handheld gaming market, it is still a threat to the firm foundations of the Game Boy franchise and the Nintendo DS.
seven out of
ten
