To buy a PSP or not to buy a PSP?

JoeJC

Hi,
Ive been considering buying a psp for quite some time but anytime ive mentioned the idea to a mate who have their own one, im told not to buy one.

when i ask why, they reply by telling me that after about a couple of months you get tired of it and just stop using it, that its a waste of money and that the battery life is nothing too impressive.

Can anyone, who has a psp, tell me whether its worth getting one or not; and if so why or why not.

Cheers, and Thanks to anyone who replies to this.

Timans

I want portable Retro games. Although, I've heard the emulation is terrible.

I;m stuck.

WarZoneBrother

I wouldnt get one...I have a nds lite and it is great when i played the psp i just had to lay it down as it was crap..brother has had it since it came out in america and he has not really touched it..i would go for a ds before i would go for a psp..

McDermotX

Timans wrote:

I want portable Retro games. Although, I've heard the emulation is terrible.

I;m stuck.

GP2X is your friend then..
System that requires a fair amount of patience, but some emulation is now at an excellent level..

o1s1n

GP2X are an excellent choice alright. I was going to buy one a while back but it ended up slipping my mind and eventually away forever.

Moved onto a DS now. I absolutely love it. Have a r4 flash card coming in the post. Only cost €33 WITH a 1g micro sd
Super Nintendo and Nes emulation are now working on it. Obviously not as well as the PSP but it does have the bonus of much much longer battery life.

steviec

Couldn't recommend a PSP more, having poured far more time into mine than I have into my DS(I've owned both since their respective Japanese launches a couple of years ago). Recently I've played PS1 games on it more than I've played PSP games, but I've a ton of PSP games to get on my list, like Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Daxter and Syphon Filter but I don't have the time for them right now.

Games I do own that I would definitely recommend include Loco Roco which is easily the best 2D platform game for years, Mercury which is a fantastic marble madness type puzzle game, Exit which is a platform-based puzzle game, Sonic Rivals which is short but it's the best sonic game I've played in years, and the GTA games for their wireless multiplayer modes, it takes the gameplay to a whole new level that you don't get on PS2.

And that's just the PSP exclusives, practically every big franchise on PS2 has near perfect PSP ports, so you can play the likes of Pro Evo or Burnout or Tomb Raider if you're interested in having those games on the go.

As far as the hardware itself goes, it's not as good a multimedia device as it's made out to be. It's too bulky to be an MP3 player and while the screen is fantastic it's just too much hassle converting video files to the correct format to use it as a portable movie player I find. It's very comfortable to use and hold I find, and it's also pretty sturdy in my experience. It's bigger than the DS Lite and its not quite small enough to carry around in your pocket, but perfect to throw in your backpack for college or whatever and I find being bigger makes it much more comfortable to hold. The battery life can be an issue in some games, you can expect about 4 hours of gameplay from a full charge, I find I'm very rarely away from a socket for that long when playing it, but it can be annoying occassionally.

I'd try to get one with older firmware though, it might be better to buy second hand. Newer firmwares are more restrictive and you can't download emulators and things onto them, and having a perfect PS1 emulator is a huge value add. I've been happily using firmware 3.02OE (I think that's the full title) for quite a few months so I don't know what the latest developments are, I'm sure there'll be other people on this board with advice about that.

Conor108

I'd recommend getting one. Granted, I got bored after a few months BUT then I found out you could downgrade and run homebrew code meaning you can run games and applications of the memory stick. I can use MSN on it and its a remote control for my TV (via the infra red port at the top of it).

http://www.pspiso.com

qwertplaywert

steviec wrote:

As far as the hardware itself goes, it's not as good a multimedia device as it's made out to be. and while the screen is fantastic it's just too much hassle converting video files to the correct format to use it as a portable movie player I find.

what hassel is there?you just use psp video 9, no real hassal involved, then transfer them,and psp video 9 does it for you!imo, that ,plus the screen and the battery lenght,make it one of the best mp4 players on the market

the games are mostly meh.....a few special ones,like loco roto, but an average games console
diasaster of an mp3 player

i bricked mine by downgrading the firmware, and wont pay full price for a new one. maybe if i find one for under 100, just psp, i shall buy,but only for mp4 cabilibities[have lots of memory sticks left over from my old one]

JoeJC

thanks a million for the replies!

joe

spidermonkey

go for it, i got mine bout this time last year and went through about three mad 'into it' phases then it got put away until i was able to downgrade it and now it gets used like mad again, although with my exams coming up its another quiet time ahead for it.

thebman

Brother got a PSP and sold it about half way through last year because he wasn't using it and he was using all the homebrew stuff.

I've got a DS and everyone in the house including my parents use it. It gets used every day.

There are some emulators available for DS but not as many as for PSP. Still you can play GBA games emulated very easily and well and there are plenty of remakes of SNES games available for GBA. Also since there are a lot of DS games available and they are reasonably cheap you play DS games more than you would PSP games if you got a PSP. That's my two cents having played on my brothers PSP while he had for a while. Best thing on PSP is emulators and GTA.

rvpalldway

Hi
Im thinking of buying a psp i know alot of the new releases arent coming out on it.I can buy old games for it on ebay but im hearing bad reviews
anyone have any ideas

DARK-KNIGHT

rvpalldway wrote: »

Hi
Im thinking of buying a psp i know alot of the new releases arent coming out on it.I can buy old games for it on ebay but im hearing bad reviews
anyone have any ideas

WOW JUST WOW you pull a thread up from 5 and a half years ago?? Facepalm

rvpalldway

haha thanks what do ye mean by downgrade

F1ngers

Don't be dragging up 5 year old threads please.