We normally try to avoid spending this time talking about specific products, because we normally are too busy peddling uninformed and poorly copy-edited opinions.

But the PSP is just really cool.

I'm a big fan of portable gaming in general, and I've been actually pretty disappointed with it in recent years. While there has been new products (the GBA and the DS, for example) the market has been remarkably stagnant.

For example, while the Advance was lauded as a whole new generation, it was the first handheld console in a long time to significantly step-up performance in the market. The GameBoy franchise before that was pretty much incremenatal, with new products only really adding minor improvements, like smaller size, and eventually colour. They didn't actually improve the overall power of the machine at all.

Unfortunately when the Gameboy Advance came out I was actually rather disappointed. I don't know if anyone remembers Sega's GameGear, but most readers of this site are...

We normally try to avoid spending this time talking about specific products, because we normally are too busy peddling uninformed and poorly copy-edited opinions.

But the PSP is just really cool.

I'm a big fan of portable gaming in general, and I've been actually pretty disappointed with it in recent years. While there has been new products (the GBA and the DS, for example) the market has been remarkably stagnant.

For example, while the Advance was lauded as a whole new generation, it was the first handheld console in a long time to significantly step-up performance in the market. The GameBoy franchise before that was pretty much incremenatal, with new products only really adding minor improvements, like smaller size, and eventually colour. They didn't actually improve the overall power of the machine at all.

Unfortunately when the Gameboy Advance came out I was actually rather disappointed. I don't know if anyone remembers Sega's GameGear, but most readers of this site are retro enough to be down with the GG, so I won't go into too much detail, but the GameGear was a portable from Sega that was the equivalent power to a Sega MasterSystem. That made it actually a fair bit more powerful than the GameBoy of the time, and it was also colour. Naturally it chewed through batteries like Yug through cock, and this and other boring market type factors killed it off.

The point of this little stroll down Memory Lane is that the GameGear was released in 1996, and had the power of a Master System. The Gameboy Advance came out in 2001, and only managed to have achieved the power of a Super Nintendo. Why such a small jump in performance in 5 years?

The next few years bought little joy. The SP version of the Advance improved some of the design flaws of the original. Most particularly they made it possible to see the screen in any place other than camped out in the midday sun. Actually, the best place to see a Gameboy Advance screen was on the toilet. To this day I can't poo unless I hum the Golden Sun theme.

The DS is a step ahead, but Nintendo has lost focus on it. Rather than moving on and considering the DS as both the future and the bread and butter for their handheld products, N have split their product line, making the DS the more expensive and fully featured console, but without supporting it for games. They have also released yet another iteration of the Advance, this one being the GameBoy Micro, squishing the Advance into a unit so small that it will actually sell with tweezers. And a beanie. Beanies are cool.

The DS is a step ahead of the Advance, technically. The use of two screens, with one being a touch screen works better than I initially expected. The machine approximates in performance to the Nintendo 64, hopping over the Playstation standard I'd been waiting for.

The problem is, that's not enough anymore.

The PSP has changed the landscape of portable gaming. It's been changed in four major ways.

1. The PSP raises the bar for performance. A lot. While the DS is capable of N64 level graphics, the PSP approaches the PS2, still a current gen console.
   
   Though the resolution of the screen is only 480x272 [130560 pixels], or about half of a widescreen TV, that's still a fair bit up on the DS at 256x192 per screen [total: 98304 pixels]. Comparing the PSP and the PS2 is a little unreliable, because the PSP only has to draw about 1/4 of the number of pixels.
   
   Regardless, the fact that it's the most powerful portable system so far is obvious and indisputable.



2. The PSP is being supported by a company that wants to win. A quick check of DStore, for example, shows that the DS has only a single page, around 20 listings. In fact, there are so few DS listings that the "New Releases" page still lists all the launch titles. The PSP by comparison has more listings than the DS has already. Even discounting accessories, which there are a LOT of, there are probably close to the same number of games at or near launch for the PSP as the DS has in total so far. Again. Not acceptable Nintendo.



3. People want the PSP. No one knows what a DS is. You can't sell games until you can sell developers, and you can't get developers until you sell systems. Nintendo know that better than anyone.



4. The PSP stores its games on a decent sized medium. Nintendo made the mistake years ago with the N64 of having too limited a medium. While the Playstation showed fancy (but unplayable) movies that wowed the audience, the N64 couldn't even handle dialog. Cartridges have long been accepted for portables because they are "small" games, but the resolution and power of the PSP means it's capable of a new level of gaming, and consequently deserving of a brand new storage mechanism.

These factors among others make the PSP the new (or next) king of portables.

Personally, having spent a bit of time playing with one, I love it. Will it replace the DS? Well, yes and no. The DS will still be the only place for Advance Wars Dual Strike, Metroid, etc. But lately I haven't bought a DS game. Not because I'm saving for the PSP. There's just nothing good.

Nintendo have lost this one, and that's going to hurt them big time. Nintendo has had more console failures than Michael Jackson has had molestation charges, but each time the company has been able to fall back on the cash cow of the Gameboy, long unchallenged as the only handheld. With Sony taking bites of that market will Nintendo have anything to fall back on? When Nintendo inevitably foul up the Revolution, where do they go from there?

Still, it's not all doom and gloom for Nintendo. The area they've always been strongest has been Japan, and in Japan the DS is going gangbusters. Actually literally busting gangs. Several. Big gangs. With chains and pipes.

Anyway, in Japan the DS outsells everything. In fact, the weekly sales of the PSP and PS2 combined are approximately the same as the DS.

If Nintendo put some effort in, could we see a resurgence here? Is there still a market for the DS, as the cheaper and more fun handheld for the kiddies?

We hope so. We'd hate to see Nintendo floundering in their last stronghold, the market they created themselves.

Still, however you look at it, handheld consoles have finally come of age, and I for one couldn't be happier. No more puzzle games and dodgy side-scrolling beat-em-ups. The PSP is nearly here, and all is right with the world.