Category: Video Games

The PSP sold 620,000 handheld units and 1.1 million software units in March while the Nintendo DS has sales of only 420,000 to date since the begining of the year. The PSP launched on March 24th that means that Sony sold nearly one PSP per second in the first 8 days of the handheld’s launch. [via]

Just saw this cool thing on engadget. Its a rechargable handle pad for the Sony PSP. Basically it will add 4-5 hours over the regular battery life of the PSP for only $25. I haven’t had any battery issues myself but maybe if I was going to New York, the extra 5 hours of juice would come in handy. [Link]

Yesterday I was reading how the director of Sin City left the Directors Guild because they wouldn’t let Frank Miller (the guy behind Sin City) co-direct the movie and today I just read how Paramount went ahead and allowed EA to make The Godfather videogame and they didn’t even bother to ask Coppola’s view on it. And now Coppola is really pissed.

Luckily with Sin City, the director Robert Rodriguez was able to take a stand on the issue and make a statement. If he hadn’t left the Guild and allowed Frank Miller to co-direct, the movie would definetly have come out a lot different. With EA, well, why didn’t anyone even to think to include Frank Coppola? Didn’t anyone at EA or Paramount think the game might actually turn out better if Coppola had a say in it? Is it the bigger the company the dumber they are?

But Coppola, who says he has managed to get a preview of the game, believes the characters have been mishandled. “They use the characters everyone knows, and they hire those actors to be there, and only to introduce minor characters. And then for the next hour they shoot and kill each other,” he said.

“I had absolutely nothing to do with the game and I disapprove. I think it’s a misuse of film.”

sucks!

After I left the office yesterday I went home and picked up Nat. I told her we are going to Aramex to pick up the PSP. She was like didn’t they say 8AM tomorrow? I was like whatever, they get the packages tonight, we camp at Aramex till they get them. I was like worse case we have a bunch of magazines that arrived at Aramex last week, we pick those up and read them while we wait. So we get to Aramex at 7PM and right as I am about to open the door of the car, Aramex call me. They tell me my package arrived and I can pick it up. I was like thanks, I am right outside! We pick up the PSP, park on the side of the road and we start tearing up the boxes. Luckily our PSP came with a starter kit which included a car power adapter.

We switch on the PSP, and first thing I start looking for are dead pixels (dots on the screen which don’t change color). There was a speckle of dust on the screen I tried to remove with my finger when I realized that the tiny speckle was a dead pixel. I was like this is it? For some reason I expected it to be bigger, but because the PSP screens pixels are very fine, a dead pixel is barely noticeable even when the whole screen is black. I ended up finding 2 dead pixels, one on the first row and one in the middle right of the screen. Both not noticeable even when looking for them.

We got the Spider Man 2 movie with the PSP so that was the first thing we played. I was totally blown away, the image was extremely clear, sharp and the colors very accurate. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I am no stranger to technology but the screen was like nothing I had seen before. I then put the game WipeOut Pure and let Nataly play till we got home. Once home we were able to try out the other games and get a better feel of the PSP.

My only disappointment is in the sound department. The built in PSP speakers are not good enough. I don’t know what I was expecting but I know I wasnt expecting speakers you would find on a gameboy. With the earphones on though you get totally immersed in the game.

The good things about the PSP? The screen definetly is the coolest thing, when lying in bed at night watching SpiderMan 2, for a brief moment with all the lights off you would think you lived in the future. Its like having a plasma screen that fit into your hand. The load times of the games were unnoticeable. On paper 10 seconds feels a lot but in reality its hardly noticeable, except for the game Tony Hawk were load times were longer then 10 seconds. The battery life was high, I spent 2 hours atleast playing with the PSP and then put the system on standby and today morning I checked and it was still at 90% charge. Also incase you have a spare battery swapping them is very easy.

In conclusion, as I mentioned on Miskan, there is no PSP vs DS war. The war is over. There really wasn’t a war to begin with. While the Nintendo DS is catering for under 18s the PSP is catering for people aged over 18. They are two different machines for two different groups. I will probably definitely get a DS but like my gamecube it will probably gather dust in the cupboard. Click here for a picture of my PSP with my PDA and phone.

OK, this is like my dream room, this guy has it all!!! [Link]

My PSP has now reached Dubai. Hopefully I might get it today. If not it will be tomorrow. I hope I don’t have problems with the customs.

My PSP finally shipped from the States. According to BusyNow if the description did not contain the word “electronics” it would have less chance of getting stopped as customs. My package description says “games” so I hope I don’t have issues.

There’s a fairly simple way to achieve multi-player gaming on two PSPs using a single UMD disc, by starting the game on one console, starting an Ad Hoc Multiplayer game, then hot swapping the disc to the other device. It’s apparently working for Tony Hawk, Twisted Metal, and Ridge Racer with perhaps a few protocol tweaks here and there. More complete instructions here.

Yesterday my PSP arrived at my US mailbox. Now I am just waiting for them to ship it to Kuwait. I can’t believe I have to wait the whole weekend to get the PSP. I have two major worries. One, I will have problems with the local customs since it seems Sony, Panasonic and some other dealers in Kuwait have made a pact with the custom authorities, and any of their products are usually not allowed into Kuwait. The second worry I have is dead pixels. Dead pixels are pixels on the screen that don’t change color. This means if the whole screen is black for example the dead pixel might show as a green dot on the screen. 1 dead pixel isn’t a major problem but I have read about people getting a full row or dead pixels! The suspense is killing me.

BusyNow got his PSP yesterday. As an EX-DS owner, BusyNow believes his PSP is much more superior. Click here to see his pictures.

Back in the days of the Sega Dreamcast, the coolest thing was the fact you could connect it to the internet and download game saves directly onto your memory card. Now with the Sony PSP I will be able to do the same. If you are fed up trying to beat the game or if you have problems trying to obtain money or a car in a Need for Speed for example, this way you will be able to download a save off the web, move it to your memorystick and use it on your PSP. You can download PSP saves from PSP-Vault.com.

update: Found another site with a ton of game saves also. GameFaqs.com, just click on the game you want and then on the link for gamesaves. [Link]

My Sony PSP has shipped, it should arrive in my US mailbox on the 4th via UPS and hopefully arrive in Kuwait by Thursday.

Nibaq yesterday left his Nintendo DS over at my place.. deliberately. He is trying to get me to like the DS and convince me that its a much better system then the PSP (yeah right). I tried playing wario ware on it yesterday, I found the fact that you could blow on the DS for some of the mini games interesting and original but other then that I wasn’t impressed. I find the second screen useless as it serves really no purpose and the touch screen is so uncreative since I have had it for ages on my PDA and the only good thing its for is clicking links on and not controlling a car. If anything the two screens actually make me a bit dizzy. So since my first experience with the DS, I haven’t gone back to playing with it again, neither has nataly who is busy playing Metroid Zero Mission on the Gameboy SP. Will I crave the DS today? We will see but I doubt. So far, it really sucks.

Sony has the official PSP section of their iTunes-wannabe Connect music store up and running, its full of free video downloads, a tutorial for beginners on how to get content onto your PSP, and a help section to answer any questions you might have on making the most out of your PSP. They even have Speed Racer and its all for free! [Link]

From Engadget: Damn, it’s only been a week since the Sony dropped the PlayStation Portable on us and people already pieced together a ton of different hacks and how-tos for the new game console. We’ve thrown together this list of all the hacks and how-tos we could find, we’ve probably missed a couple, so let us know and we’ll add ‘em to the list:

How to use non-Duo Memory Sticks on your PSP
How to browse the web with your PSP
How to get TiVoToGo shows onto your PSP
How to get e-books on your PSP
How to read web comics on your PSP
How to get manga on your PSP
Creating Sony Thumbnail files
PSP dead pixel checker
How to use your Mac to play PSP games over the web
How to take apart your PSP
Reading RSS feeds on your PSP
How to get videos and DVDs onto your PSP