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Loading ...The new PSP
Alex Watson
This year’s E3 games show was supposed to be a more serious and sober affair. Evidently no-one told Sony as they got Chewbacca on stage at the show to announce a design rejig of the PSP hardware. If only this was an actual joke.
As a long term PSP owner, I can say that the hardware is not, and never has been, the problem with Sony’s not-quite-wonderful handheld. Chewbacca can wave the new PSP around all he likes, but making it slimmer, lighter, with better battery life and quicker game loading is not going to help matters much.
Engadget has a few photos up of the new PSP, and PSP Fanboy has a more in depth comparison of the new machine with the old. It certainly looks nice, but then so did the old PSP. When I brought my imported PSP into work for the first time, everyone wanted a look at it.
The problems for a PSP user come in actually using the hardware, and boil down to three things:
1. PSP PC software is at worst rubbish and a cobbled together selection of third party apps. Given the success of the iPod is in part (a very large part) down to the slick interplay between the player and iTunes. You’d think, over two years in to the PSP experiment, somebody at Sony would have grasped this, and got on with the job of creating a decent, easy to use, good looking management software. Instead, Sony made PSP Media Manager which is not only rubbish, it’s not even free rubbish.
2. The PSP still lacks a big selection of properly portable games. There are too many PS2 ports for the system, and too may repackages of retro games. More unique titles like Loco Roco are needed. That said, the PSP is getting its own version of God of War, which is a very good thing.
3. Poor web integration. Not to harp on about this iTunes thing, but as well as enabling you to play MP3s and sync with an iPod, it can also go to an online store where you can get free podcasts (such as our own, plug, plug) and buy music. The PSP supports WiFi. Why is the PSP site only stocked with a few ropey demos? Why is there not more content? Why is there not a way of buying games and downloading them directly? Why do I need a PS3 for this?
Some days I feel Sony is getting there with the PSP, and the other 29 days in the month my PSP sits in a drawer, gathering dust.
UPDATED: GamesIndustry.Biz has snagged an interview with SCEE President David Reeves. In it, he proves how staggeringly clueless Sony can still be. Despite agreeing that £425 is “an awful lot of money” for the PlayStation 3, he says “but surprisingly, people are paying that amount of money.” He then goes on to dismiss adding a hard disk to the PSP as “too expensive”, which doesn’t make much sense to me.
In addition he claims the PSP “needed to be lighter and slimmer to make it portable” - which I would go as far as to call spectacularly wrong headed. As I mentioned earlier, and I think most PSP owners would back me up on this, the hardware is not the problem. No, it’s the software, which in fairness Reeves does admit to: “To solve the problem, if there is a problem with PSP, is to have better and more original games.”
Yes.
But, he then goes on to add…
“We’re thinking of moving some of the stuff we have on the Network on to PSP - things like Calling All Cars. We may repurpose it for PSP.” Ah, so by more original, what is actually meant is… PS3 ports rather than PS2 ones. Brilliant.
The PSP’s biggest flaw was the analogue stick, which was virtually unusable for more than 5 minutes at a time as it would give you painful hand cramps. I sold mine when GTA Liberty City Stories came out and was genuinely painful to play.
ive had my ceramic white ^_^ psp from when it came out. they said it would be limited edition but then companies like argos retailed it, which i was generally peeved about. i dont agree with gavomatic with the hand cramps thing, ive never had that. but then again that could be like going out and buying a wii and saying it hurt the day after cos you weren’t used to the exercise .. anyways, im also peeved about the fact theres going to be a new version as sony said from the start of the first psp that they wouldnt bring another out. as said the software isnt brilliant, its like using an mp3 player with the drag and drop function. and i personally dont like the constant firmware upgrades, as i continue to support dark alex, team noobz and team c&d.
The biggest problem with it is that sony are tightarses and they won’t let us put our own ps1 games on. I have a huge collection of GENUINE (yes, genuine) Ps1 games and i had to put the 3.40 OE-a firmware on it just to play Oddworld- Abe’s oddysee! like edd, i support dark alex, team noobz and team c&d. It is so funny to watch sony get red faced as they find out another firmware has beed cracked