PSP
 

Okay... My girlfriend is buying me a PSP for Christmas... I hope...

Is it even worth the money?


Who has one? What do you think? Does it work as well as it should?

I love mine, but I use it mostly for homebrew (I love SNES and GBA games on it). its a 1.50 Firmware version, which is the best for homebrew but the new ones won't be able to go back down to 1.50. I also found one laying in the middle of the street at 5 am in my neighborhood (in perfect condition!) and I put up flyers and nobody claimed it so I updated it all the way for use with games.

Speaking of games. They are fun, even though there aren't that many good ones. I haven't bought that many games though because of the prices, but supposedly Sony is trying to rework everything I think. Hopefully, connectivity to the PS3 will be cool.

Hope that helped a bit.

I've had mine for about a year, and it's great.

There aren't that many good games for it, though. Kind of a needle in a haystack type of thing. Alot of good RPGs, though.

Um, what else... The GTA games are GREAT on PSP. Both LCS, and VCS. So if you're a fan of GTA, you already got two games. The Katamari Damacy game is good, but very repetitive.

The thing about alot fo the games, is that they're designed by console designers, who don't realize that people just want to switch on the PSP and play for 5 minutes, and then switch it off. The PSP isn't really the kind of system where you sit down for hours on end and play it, you sit down on the bus for 20 minutes and play it. So theres alot of games that have long ass missions, GTAVCS being one of them. Though with VCS, you have the whole city of VC to roam around, and you aren't restricted to missions.

Let me know if you have any more questions about the PSP.

How's the WiFi stuff?

Is browsing at all easy without a mouse or keyboard?

Oh right, it goes on the internet too!

The controls are... Not so good. Text entering is that of cell phones, and I don't mean predictive text. That's right, you have to open up the text entry screen, hit the group of letters until you find the right one, and then go to the next group of letters, and repeat ad naseum until you finally type out what you want to say.

Browsing the website is a little bit easier, you use the stick as if its a mouse, and to srcoll up and down pages.

So its... alright. Setting up the connection is a cinch. But again, its not really intended for use when theres an actual computer available.

The above reaons are why I (basically) forgot it had the internet...

I'm surprised I haven't seen a keyboard add-on for it... Unless anyone knows where i could find one.

I'm actually getting it for equal game and internet use. My girlfriend doesn't like video games and beacuse we only have one TV in the house... she can watch TV while I play games. Just another way we can go through life not talking to each other. Aren't relationships great?

HA.. We do the same thing in my house.. I sit and play GTA: VCS with the sound off while my wife watches some inane show. Also great for taking long bathroom breaks at work. I highly recommend finding a way to get your PSP to firmware 1.5 and loading devhook on it. It lets you use the more recent system features (wpa and rss) but still will allow you to run images from the memory stick. Even if for moral reasons you buy the games, either rip them or download them in iso form and load them on a memory stick. It saves SO much battery life by not using the disk drive.

At least on my machine with my particular setup if I turn the PSP off, then back on hours later it is still in the game exactly where I left it. The only game I had a problem on was a wierd japanese import that would actually crash the PSP every time I shut it off.

When I actually get in hand I'll have to come back here and have you run down how to update the damn thing. I know there is many ways to do it so I wanna make sure I'm doin' it right.

Thanks for the imput. After all that I've read about it I'm definatly sure I need one.

If you pick up a sizeable memory card (2 gb at least) and download an app called pspvideo (http://www.pspvideo9.com/) you can convert quite a few hours of video to psp format (mpeg4 but sized for the screen). This is a godsend on long plane rides becuase its battery will far outlast any laptop as long as you don't use the UMD drive.

I was thinking of getting one for work, but I'm so up in the air, I dont want to buy 1 for 250 bucks for 1 or 2 games. Can you put stuff on it from the internet? Ie... Roms and what not?

If you download and install the bootloader called devhook you can download roms and homebrew applications. There is a big community writing homebrew games/applications and even some ports of PC games.
I am not sure about newer PSP's but most versions of the firmware that have been released have some form of security hole that will allow you to downgrade the firmware back to v1.5. Then you can install devhook and have at it.

This could prove to be interesting.

The last thing I wanna do is fuck up my brand new toy.

There is the chance you could destroy it messing around with all this stuff.. so do it early so if it bricks you can take it back and say it didn't work out of the box. Most of the stuff has been pretty well tested over the last couple of years so you should be pretty safe.

I've had mine since the day they came out and I'm happy with it. Since most of the good reasons to get one are posted above I'll focus on the negative:

The web browser is worthless: The PSP lacks the ram to handle most sites and the browser usually crashes or gives you the annoying message that "it lacks the memory" to display the page properly. If you visit sites with lots of text and very little pictures or video then it won't bother you much but you should be aware that most modern cellphones offer a better web experience.

As an MP3 player the psp is disappointing: While the quality of the audio is decent enough, the volume doesn't go up high enough and the 5 or so sound presets are just plain laughable. While you can set up playlists fairly easily and putting music onto the memory stick is just as painless, the psp only registers files that are one directory deep meaning that you'll have to individualy list every album in it's own folder......with mp3 players that make finding and organizing your music the exact way you want it - Sony should have stepped it up.

The included earbuds suck: They're uncomfortable, do little to block outside noise and aren't loud enough.

Memory is expensive: When I got my 2 gig stick for Christmas last year it cost my g/f about $160 (Sony brand) and while the prices have dropped - you can get a 4 gig for about the same $160, you could always pay $60 more and get a 30 gig Ipod.

There are very few good games: Most of the games available are either sloppy port jobs by lazy game makers or are just terrible. Homebrew is definetly the way to go but as stated above, you can't upgrade to play homebrew games and that eliminates the ability to play newer games.

...

It's a great game system and a good value for all that it does but you shouldn't it expect it to be the mobile entertainment solution it's marketed as. In fact, full-time use of anything other than it's gaming capabilities will lead to a bit of frustration.

Actually devhook is primarily a firmware emulator so when it is running it emulates the features and properties of the newer firmware, which means you can actually have v1.5 on and play homebrew and backed up ISO's and still plug in games that require firmware 2.0+ and have them work.

If your primary interest is having internet access, a full keyboard, small size, adequate ram, cheap memory (SD), a fuller featured browser (free opera mini mobile, or the included browser) consider this:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columni...reo-700p_x.htm
New 700p Treo takes smartphones even higher
Updated 5/24/2006 9:27 PM ET

I've used an earlier version for 2 years, and I wouldn't want to live without it, but I don't use it for games...

sprint offers the lowest monthly rate and fastest internet speeds on the widest network....there are cheaper ways to purchase one.....promotions from sprint or third parties, or....on ebay, where I got mine. Just ask the seller, before you bid, for the "ein", call sprint, verify that the number, unique to each phone, is legitimate....not stolen or on an account with overdue charges. Bid on it, get it, it is insurable by sprint's insurance/guarantee plan, because it can only be used on sprint's network. Cingular and verizon charge much more than sprint for monthly unlimited data subscriptions.

I posted this because I read downsides about PSP's posted by others....bulky size, lack of a full keyboard, expensive memory "sticks", ram limitations and poor browsers, and limitations of wifi availability. The treo is the closest thing that I've found to an "all in one", small sized, superior functioned, communication and internet device, with unlimited data download at a reasonable price.

Yeah.. the PSP is definitely not an all-in-one device. Sony buggered that up when they made everything so locked down and proprietary, thier usual bullshit. If they had left the UMD format open enough for people to be able to burn thier own UMD's it would have been far more useful, not to mention allowing people to write thier own applications without having to hack the system.

If it's gaming you want, I would recommend the Nintendo DS Lite. Great color, great games, overall good stuff.

However, no movies, no music. TV and ipod can solve that. Also, with the phoens out now a days, it's better (at least in my case) to just keep my consoles separate.

Im posting this from my new PSP. This is a pain in the ass.

lol, I think I may have to get one. Maybe a xmas present or something

Last I read, upgrading eliminated the possibility of using emulators but then again that was about the time PSP video 9 just came out - I stand corrected.

Exactly, the "extra" (as in non-gaming related) features are cool to have but they're far from perfect and once the novelty wears off you realize that they're downright inconvenient and frustrating to use.

How long did it take to make that post?

About three minutes.

It's not as bad as it could be but it could be a fuck of a lot better.


I'm still searching for a keyboard that attachs to the bottom... I know they used to make them for Palms. Why hasn't someone come out with one for PSP?


I just started Godfather Mob Wars. It's pretty cool. I just haven't played video games in about five years so I'm a little rusty.

Sony was supposedly coming out with one awhiile back and so was some other people, but i haven't heard anything about a keyboard for awhile. Hopefully someone will though.

it does.. but you run devhook on v1.5 firmware (if you can downgrade what you have) so it has all the security holes that let you run homebrew, but devhook will lie to your newer games that require newer firmware. Plus it contains all the files and other upgrades required to play those games.

Anyone had any problems with logining in to websites?

Everything worked fine here but it wouldn't let me log in to MySpace or check my email on Comcast.

In regards to my above post... there is now a custom version of firmware 2.71 which will allow you to play ISO's and other homebrew. Plus a devhook that will emulate firmware up to 3.02

man i love my PSP. Its the greatest, music, games, photos, all that good crap all in one little box.

the only down side is that they didnt put 2 joysticks on it..just one :-\. makes camera controll sketchy on alot of games.

I love my PSP, it is great for what it is...the ultimate 'keep me busy on a plane or long road trip' device.

Fun things to do with it:

1. Leech the archives of your favorite webcomics and resize them to fit the screen. Toss them into folders by year (or some other organization method) and, tada, webcomic viewer of awesome! I have every DrMcNinja, Penny Arcade, Diesel Sweeties, and Scary-Go-Round loaded...they don't even take up that much of my 1gig card.

2. Watch movies. I use PSPVideo9 a LOT. You can upload youtube videos, ( using http://www.ripzor.com/youtuberipper.html ) full movies (a full length DVD quality film is about 600 megs), tv shows, etc. I also have a bunch of UMD movies, which frees up my memory card...I bought those when I had some cash to burn, but unless you're going on a really long trip, I'd just recomend you get a 2 or 4gig card and load it up...they can be had for less than $100 these days.

3. Listen to music. This is a pretty weak function, but it is robust enough to handle a few albums. You have to look at it differently than you would an ipod, and just put the music you actually think you are going to want to listen to on it.

4. Play Lumines. Seriously, this is the PSP's killer app for me...I don't even take it out of the UMD slot anymore.

5. Play Super Metroid. And Metroid II. And Metroid. And Super Mario World. And Yoshi's Island. And F-Zero. And Super Mario Allstars. And various pokemons, final fantasy's, and chrono triggers. Emulators don't take up much space on your memory stick, and I have every NES, SNES and GB and GBA game I've ever owned, played, or wanted.

6. Play...other games. I'd love to check out Dexter, Liberty City, etc etc, but honestly, there's never been a time I've wanted to be amused that my current purchases and downloads haven't been up to the task. I'll probably be buying God of War PSP though...

Not to mention, there is a PSX emulator now. I have made ISO's of all my PSX (which I do own...if you don't own them I am sure you could find ways to get them ;)) games and with the right compression, I can get 3 or so PSX games on my 1 gig stick at a time. And the emulator uses a custom firmware of Sony's own PSX emulator so the games run beautifully at full speed. This has made the PSP a great system again IMO.

I see that you already got yours WK, but if anyone else is considering buying one Sony did just have a price drop to $169.99 for the core system.

I've heard sony is going to incorporate a camera for it for wireless Imac style video chat as well as an infared keyboard. But then again those are just rumors

The camera thing would be cool.


I used mine non-stop for a long time... But sadly I've been way too busy to sit and play. Although I've found the best pace in the world to play. The bar. Mortal Kombat and boooze...

Seems as if my PSP is due for a resurrection - any new games/peripherals worth the $?

God of War: Chains of Olympus is due out sometime this year. It's still TBA 2007 though.

Here's a link to some screenshots: http://www.thegamersassociation.com/...pic.php?t=6740

It looks damn good for a PSP title.

Well, now that they dropped the price $30 I'm guessing we aren't too far from the PSP2.


I hope. Mainly cause they have tons of problems to fix.

I'm definitely gonna pick up God of War whenever it's released - it looks pretty awesome. I just got Splinter Cell: Essentials and the first couple of missions are pretty awesome. While it's not an exact port, it's nice to see that Sony finally found a company that cares more about putting out a decent title rather than releasing a half-baked port littered with glitches.

As for the PSP2, I haven't heard anything on it other than rumors but I can't imagine that Sony could be clueless enough to release another system with the terrible PS3 sales and the joke of a library of movies/games for the PSP.

The games suck cause the system sucks. For the most part. Even though I just spent a good ten hours playing Godfather.

The PSP is beautiful, but it really needs more RPG's that don't feel like they were developed in some Taiwanese guy's basement. No offense to anybody that might be from Taiwan.

Puzzle Quest is owning my transit time to and from work. That's at least worth a mention. As well as saving me during jury duty. I picked up Capcom Puzzle Classics, so I have Super Puzzle Fighter II turbo. And I have a ton of games I haven't even started to play, plus a bunch I haven't finished. There are also multi-media options I haven't explored, such as tv shows on my memory card. Homebrew isn't even on my scope yet. I'm sure that would show me far more options than I've been exposed to so far. So worth it so far.

Quick question: Can any battery pack be used? I've been browsing and I've seen 2 types of batteries, one for regular PSP and other for slim PSP, any differences or do I need to purchase the right type?