For my birthday, everyone in my family gave me money to buy an Xbox 360. Although I spent a short amount of time working on Xbox Live at Microsoft, I wasn’t totally sold I wanted one. I’m disappointed that all the media sharing features are pretty much tied to Windows and the launch titles don’t appeal much to me (other than PGR3). The final straw though was the fiasco that is the Xbox 360 launch (more on that in a later post).I’ve been eyeing the Sony PSP for awhile. My brother bought one close to launch. I loved the look and feel of the hardware but didn’t care for the selection of games he had. Since I didn’t figure to have any realistic shot at getting an Xbox 360 before February or March, I decided to use my Xbox money on the PSP. I bought the new PSP Giga Pack. This is the PSP value pack with a 1GB memory stick. I also picked up FIFA 06 and Madden 06.
First Impressions
At first, I had a bit of buyer’s remorse. It seemed like a pretty frivolous purchase. But the more time I spent with it, the more I liked it. The control system is good. The graphics are very good. The screen is sensational. The PSP OS isn’t too bad. I like it much better than the blades UI used in the Xbox 360. The sound is ok from the built in speakers and great from the headphones.The biggest surprise I’ve had is that I’ve spent nearly every night for the past week playing with it. It is really nice being able to carry it around the house and play it anywhere. There is a real sense of freedom in using it. The presentation also feels very personal since it is right there in your face. The games show that they could be very deep. I’m a little disappointed on some of the short cuts that EA Sports took but I think that may be more with the developer and not the platform.It wasn’t long though before I started to experiment with getting video onto the PSP. Although it is a little complicated, I’ve managed to rip DVD’s and get them onto the memory card. It isn’t as good as a real UMD movie but it is acceptable. I’m hoping the tools will get easier to get the higher quality H.264 AVC files onto the PSP. I prematurely bought the new Toast 7 to use as a toolset for getting ripped DVD’s onto the PSP. It works but only with the larger lower quality MP4 files and not the smaller H.264 AVC.The wireless LAN support is impressive. It is pretty incredible to be able to walk around with a device like this and have full access to the internet. The browser is ok but entering data with the virtual keyboard is very tedious. It has done a good job working with my WPA B/G network at home. It is also cool that you can create an instant ad-hoc wireless network with other PSP owners. Good stuff.All in all, I’m very pleased with the purchase. I’m enjoying it much more than I thought I would. I’ve joined GameFly so I can try out a number of PSP games to find out some other titles to get. I already know I want Gran Turismo 4 when it comes out and would like to get the Formula One game if I can find it and probably Ridge Racer. There seems to be a lot of potential in Sony’s new platform. I hope that the software for it takes off. Imagine a World of Warcraft client on the PSP — now that would be cool.
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