Article: How the PSP became my most neglected console

When Sony first anounced that they were going to do a handheld gaming device I immediately throught "yeah, good luck with that", since Nintendo was completely dominating that market since forever. Do not get me wrong, I am no fanboy, if anything I prefer variety and since Sony had proven themselves capable of great things with the PS1 and PS2 I saw no reason as to why they would not make a great handheld. The problem is how the market is today. I just did not think they would be able to gain footing at all in times when Nintendo had completely ruled the handheld world with the Game Boy Advance SP and also had this new shiny thing called the Nintendo DS coming up. And to some extent I was right, the DS outsold the PSP with... well, let us just say there was never any fair competition. But this article is not about the DS. It is about the Playstation Portable, and why it became my most neglected console that I own. To understand my situation we are going to look both at the systems pros and cons from a general viewpoint and then from my personal one. Let us start right away.


The general pros

Graphics
First of all, the graphics. The PSP was capable of running impressive games for the time, it was almost like having a portable PS2. Miles ahead of the Nintendo DS.

Quality
Huge and impressive display together with great design and a bit of weight to it gave the console a very premium feeling.

Multimedia
Then there was the fact that you could play movies and music on it, even though no one ever did. So I guess this last point is fairly mute when I think about it.


The general cons

Battery life
The graphical powers together with the huge display meant that battery time was taking a big hit. Many of us ended up playing the PSP only at home plugged into the mains so we did not have to worry about the battery running out in the middle of a gaming session.

Loading times
Since the games come on discs there are plenty of loading times around. Something that does not really go too well with a handheld system. It should be quick to fire up, play a bit and then shut down in a second.

The memory card
The memory cards that were compatible with the PSP was not cheap. It was not as extremely bad as with the Vita, but it was much more expensive than getting an SD-card for the DS.


My personal pros

Great exclusives
The PSP had two incredibly good God of War-games (Chains of Olympus and Ghost of Sparta). It had a Little Big Planet of its own. It had LocoRoco 1 and 2. Two of the best puzzle games I have ever played (Lumines 1 and 2), Me & My Katamari, the Patapon-games, and of course the most terrifying survival horror game I know of: Silent Hill Origins. It also had that Castlevania game with Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night as hidden bonuses. The list just goes on and on. So many great exclusives that I really wanted to play.
Many of these games found their way onto the PS2 at a later date, I know, but they were exclusives from the beginning.

Pretty format on the media (UMD)
I recently heard a few people complain about the UMD discs. That they were too sensitive and drove the price of the console up way too high. Well. I love small discs. I loved them on Gamecube, I loved them in my minidisc player and I loved them in my PSP. I love to put UMD:s into my console, take them out, sort them... Mmm...


My personal cons

"Too" premium
The big pretty screen felt a bit too fancy to just be knocked around in the backpack. It was a similar feeling to getting my first smartphone and hesitating to just pop it down my pocket.

RPG's is not my thing
Although I absolutely can enjoy an RPG it is not my main interest in gaming. And the PSP had RPG's as one of its main strong points. The system was overflowing with great RPG's that made everyone go crazy - except me.

The analog stick
While the PSP actually had an analog stick I always wanted to avoid it, even in 3D-based games. Because my thumb would hurt if I played for more than half an hour, since my hands are pretty big and my thumb had to knuckle down in a very awkward angle to use the analog stick. It rested much more comfortably on the d-pad.


So, here we come to the conclusion as to why the PSP is my most neglected console. It is the most regrettable combination of "too premium" and the poor battery life. For some reason it always was out of battery when I wanted to play, so it always had to be hooked up to the mains. And I never took it anywhere since it felt too expensive to risk dropping it. And when I was home, ready to play, I figured "why not just play a regular game on one of my many stationary consoles instead?". So it just sat there, in my bedroom, hooked up always charging but never on. And then stores stopped carrying the games and people moved on.

It is a shame really, but it is also never too late to give it some attention. I am actually playing it right now, I am in the middle of Killzone: Liberation. What I think of that game? Read my upcoming review and find out!