Just a few months after its launch, Sony's handheld became the fastest selling console in history. I look beneath the glossy façade and discover why the PlayStation Portable is on the way to becoming the most essential lifestyle accessory of the decade…
There's probably a special word for people who pick the wrong side during a revolution; a label that has to be carried like a boulder of shame for the rest of your life, while you're shunned by the rest of society. This is the divide that the advent of the PSP has brought to the handheld console/portable device market. Anyone who owns one know they're of a different breed to those who don't. People on the train look at you differnetly, a kind of fearful respect looming in their face. Local children label you as "the bloke with the PSP" and stop keying your car in the vain hope that you'll let them touch it one day.
If you've never picked up a PSP, there could be many reasons for your decision. You might be scared of being disappointed; after all, Sony has never let us down before, and how many companies have hit three home runs in a row? Maybe you already have an iPod, or a GameBoy, or both. Perhaps you class yourself as a hardcore gamer and feel Sony overstepped its boundaries by creating such a monstrous hybrid of gaming and life style devices. Style over content? Whatever. If you're one of these people, there's something you need to know.
Technological Dream
The moment you switch on a PSP for the first time - see the screen light up and hear that now familiar twinkle of a sound - something shifts inside you. Giddiness sets in and you feel as though you've been asleep for a century. You realise technology is now moving at such a rate that in your hands you're holding something that just a few years ago would've seemed like an insane dream. Moments later, as pull your first drift in Ridge Racer, or see Spider-man thwipp across NYC for the first time, you fell like a complete fool for ever doubting it in the first place.
Anyone feeling conscripted is ordered to feel suitably smug and patriotic. Those of you still sitting on the fence, take heed as you read this feature. The gaming world has changed, and you're missing out on this…
INSIDE - If the PSP were a person, it would be like Hercules. Don't believe me? Just take a look at all the amazing feats it can achieve.
It's easy to see what Sony's objective with the PSP: the claim the lead in the handheld gaming market. And it's succeeding too, by doing for handheld gaming exactly what it did for home consoles - broadening the appeal of gaming into different avenues. No longer are handheld game consoles a standalone, niche market; now they're a poket sized media hub, able to perform the broadest range of functions.
The PSP is handheld gaming for adults. It's a portable entertainment unit. It's a photo album. It's a MP3 player. And so much more (read my other article 25 Things You Never Used Your PSP For). The PSP uses Sony's Memory Stick Duo flash memory technology (standard in other Sony products such as cameras). And you can interghange these paper-thin, thumbnail-sized cards as you wish, accumulating an impressive bank of PSP files. It doesn't take much to realise that this element alone transforms what would be a single-function machine into one that has multiple uses. The Memory Stick Duo comes in a variety of sizes from 16MB to 2GB (ever increasing in size as memory becomes cheaper), and though Sony only bundles a 32MB Memory Stick with the PSP as standard, this has changed with the release of a bigger value, 1GB-carded bundle. Building a library of files this can be expensive, but you can always save money by storing files on a PC and then swapping the you keep on your PSP.
Store MP3s (or Sony's own ARTAC music format) on a Memory Stick and your PSP will become a music player to rival Apple's iPod. MP3s weigh in roughly about 1MB per minute of music, so a 1GB card can hold around 15 hours of music. And there's no danger of the iPod battery curse coming back to haunt you - you can simply buy, and slot in yourself, a new PSP battery for a small cost. Incidentally, compare the size of the PSP's screen to the 2.5-inch effort on Aplle's new iPod (the "ooh, it does video" mondel) and the iPod looks feeble.
