I would like to apologize to Matt Harris...

[ActiveAero]

for debating with him about the PSP and it's ability as a gaming device.

I gave in the other day and picked one up along with a few games. This thing is absolutely CRAZY!!!! I've never seen a screen this clear in my life and it's packed with so much cool stuff it's unreal.

I've been behind the times for a while so to everybody that already has an Ipod, PDA, and portable DVD player then I guess the PSP could seem expensive, but in my case I just knocked it all out at once so it's a pretty good deal IMO. I can't wait to move into my place so I can take advantage of the Wi-Fi all the games have (and to browse the net using the Wipe-Out hack).

If you have the money I definitely recommend it.

< pulls foot from mouth now. :P

[Adam]

Believe it or not part of my job is playing with fun toys like these :D

I've been watching executives fight over it to play with it enough that we've had to order more of them.

Great devices and aside from the lack of good onboard storage a pretty damn nice gaming platform...

And yes, I'll second the screen is utterly amazing...

[Obike]

Sony has the advantage of having great advertising, great marketing, and just great packaging... however... I think this device will ultimately fail. Why? Lemme go into some technical and not so technical ramblings...

1) Customer service... Everyone has been hearing about the dead pixel issue and Sony is claiming that less than 1% actually have more than 2 permanately dead pixels... I'm calling BS on that one. Majority of people I talked to who own a PSP said that after a week they got ~5-7 dead pixels... that is a LOT for a screen that small. Hell, I have owned this LCD for 2yrs now and not had a SINGLE dead pixel. NEC also says that if within the first 5yrs of me owning it I get a dead pixel that they will replace it for free. So Sony saying it was an "industrial standard" of not replacing products w/ dead pixels is BS. They are the only ones following that standard.

2) Programming. From a developers standpoint their system is FRICKIN HORRIBLE! Sony does not know how to develop a system that makes it easy for people to develop for their systems. Many a programmer moans in fear when it is mentioned they must write code for a Sony platform, you know why? Because you must practically write your own OS and code to interact with the hardware from scratch. It is why Middleware is so popular for all Sony platforms, people got sick of having to do that shit over and over and over and over again... not to mention you have to deal with hardware synchronizing with each other... and most programmers these days just aren't used to doing that in ASSEMBLY (a multi-threading library only recently became available for the PS2... PS1 didn't even have one. It took a couple of years to get a C++ compiler for both platforms as well.)

Adam, since you've been able to test a few of these have you run into any dead pixel issues yet? Brock, how about you?

[Adam]

Adam, since you've been able to test a few of these have you run into any dead pixel issues yet? Brock, how about you?

2 with 1 dead pixel. Although if your not looking for them (and their not in the center of the screen) it's hard to notice...

Word we've gotten is if you have 2 dead pixels you 'll get a free replacement.

[Zx RaTeD]

WTF. hell, one dead pixel is enough for me not to buy the damn thing! I would want my shit to run right 'n propa. I guess I won't be buying one.

[ActiveAero]

My screen has two dead pixels and I honestly had to look for a few days before I found them. The pixels are so extremely tiny since the screen has such insanely high resolution for being so small it's very hard to notice. Unless I'm staring at a completely white screen I can't find them.



I thought the PSP would fail as well, but trust me once you play it you'll understand. It's going to own.


BTW the playstation has been touted as being EASY to develop for compared to some other systems from what I hear. They make good ass games for it so I couldn't really give two shits about how hard it is to use. Good games = me not caring.

[Matt Harris]

Hah! Too funny. Never thought i'd see this post, Brock. ;) What games do you have? I'm thinking of picking up Tiger Woods Golf. Metal Gear Acid looks cool too, as does Spiderman 2. Going to wait until GT4 Mobile comes out until I get a racing game. A guy at work has NFS, going to try that out this week. Also, I have 1 dead pixel on my screen, kind of ticked me off at first, but now I really don't notice unless I specificall look for it. When a game is going you really don't see it.

[Anderson]

I just picked mine up today with tiger woods golf. I freakin love it, the next game I get will be GT4M. I was the best buy I have gotten in a while, no pun intended. :hitit: With the two year warranty Best Buy offers for 50 bucks, I don't have to worry about the dead pixel issue or any issue really. They will replace for it free no matter what happens to it. So in two years I will have a new one :)

[Matt Harris]

Sweet, think i'll have to go pick up Tiger Woods. :)

[ActiveAero]

I bought Ridge Racer, Darkstalkers, and WipeOut Pure.

The only reason I bought wipeout is for the web browser hack, but it seems like everyone knows about it now and the guys server is slow as crap. I'll probably take it back.


I know some people are going to flip out when I say this but I am seriously enjoying Ridge Racer better than GT4. I was in denial about it for a bit, but now I'll admit it. It's not as realistic, doesn't use real cars, and doesn't have as many of them but yet I still like it more as of right now for the following reasons;

1. I can start up my PSP and literally be racing almost instantly. To proceed in the game I don't have to spend forever looking around for the best car to enter into a certain series, modifying it, and then testing/tuning it. When you pick a race it automatically brings up only the cars that can be used for that race. I'm sorry but it just gets old after a while spending 10-20 minutes before every new race on GT4 just to fix one car.

2. The only way you get cars is by completing race series. You don't have to worry about money. You win a series another set of them open up and you'll win a car. Depending on how well you do in the series (like getting first in all of the races) determines the type of new car you'll have access to in your garage.

3. The game interface is just better. You can fly through all of the menu screens in seconds and everything just feels right. You don't spend 3 days clicking X, etc after a race to get back to the main freaking screen. I swear in GT4 I have to pound out about 20 commands to do anything.


4. The races are simply more fun, more challenging, and more intense. The entire game uses race cars seperated by class so when you enter a race you can only use a car of the class it allows. That means you aren't going to be blowing the doors off everything within the first two seconds of a race because you dumped 100k worth of mods into your car like in GT4. My races so far are only 3 laps in length and I usually don't even get a glimpse of the first place car until the 2nd lap.

The computer cars are also challenging and can tick you off. They block you, slam in to your rear on purpose and can been seen battling out fiercely with each other from behind. I watched two cars in front of me swap positions about 5 times within 20 seconds. The computer cars in GT4 are just part of the scenery IMO.

Combine this with some awesome music and some seriously bad ass tracks and you'll remember why you play racing games....for fun.





BTW GT4 is still an incredible game but it's more now for when I just want some realism and car selection and not necessarily an intense racing experience.


Edit: Darkstalkers is great as well if you're into 2D fighters. It's got some awesome animation.

[Anderson]

Right now I am just enjoying loading up photos, music, and videos to it. Still trying to learn myself if I can change the aspect ratio of the movies to fit the screen and not looked smooshed.

[ActiveAero]

Wow this PSP sounds like it's just going to keep getting better and better.

I just saw pictures of a GPS receiver add-on on Sony's forum and looks like cell phone service could possibly be in the future as well.

[ActiveAero]

Just a heads up for you guys. The firmware update that is drifting around isn't the Sony official version and can lock up your system so don't go downloading anything you see unless it's directly from Sony.


The downloadable update is going to give us a voice recognition keyboard in addition to the real web browser, for free of course :cheers: