Word Up Sony

Yeah that PSP... Let's get STUFFS clear here.

Tyler and I loved our Playstations 1 & 2. All the 3rd party support. The decent prices. All that great Squaresoft support. I bought a PS1 for FF7. I bought a PS2 for MGS2. I have never regreted a Sony purchase, that is until they started breaking down.

Now most of you out there are probably like, "Oh that Kelley just gets all wild and crazy on his videogame hardware and that's why his Sony stuff breaks down".

That's further from the truth. I am very anal when it comes to my videogame hardware and software. I take care of my stuff when playing and when not. As you all well know this hobby is not cheap, not cheap at all and I like to take care of this hardware and software not only for my own pleasure but for archival purposes cause each generation is history. You can even ask Tyler and he'll confirm all this to you.

So it comes to a shock and surprise when you're PS1 and PS2 starts to bust down on you on normal videogame usage. Controllers wear down easy. The consoles begin to not work at all just from regular play. This is what disappoints me about SONY. We don't have a hard on to destroy SONY. We just have hard on's to criticize manufactuers of poor hardware.

My NES, SNES, SMS, GENESIS, SATURN, N64, DC, GC or X-BOX have never crapped out on me. So I'll let past, present and the obvious future speak for SONY's hardware and that's were you will feel our frustration with this company.

Continuing with the topic, yes there have been reported problems with several PSP units. Listed from the informative http://www.gamesarefun.com site are the following -

- Dead pixels, as many as 3 per screen with the problem.
- Broken UMD drives.
- Analog nubs not working / falling off.
- PSP is turned on but dosen't start up.
- Screen has air bubbles / has dust on the inside.

Great stuff isn't it? Aren't we surprised? What surprises me more is that none of this is ever confirmed or aknowledged by the big gaming press superstars IGN or GAMESPOT. Hey, launches are never easy but damn, aren't those a few problems to be concerned about? I guess it's not. What we get from these sites are bragging rights.

"Oh I got a PSP! You don't!"

"Exclusive video of Ridge Racers! You won't be playing this game until summer 2005!"

"This is the greatest portable ever! PSP will own DS!"

These so called "news" sites are more like used car salesmen. No one acknowledges the shortages, hardware problems or the load times. Isn't it like a 10 second average load time inbetween boot up of your software? Then you have load times inbetween your menus and your START game. I thought portable gaming was quick gamin' on the go? Don't get me wrong. A 45 hour Pokemon game is great but menus loading and loading just adds "in your way time" of actual gaming and that time adds up when your on a bus or getting a ride to work.

Again, don't get me wrong here. I want a PSP. I think it'll be a great portable for all it's multimedia aspects. Then again you have to consider, are you going to buy the SPIDER-MAN 2 flick for your DVD player or your PSP? Do you want 2 copies of the same movie? Do you have the money to do so? The PSP version won't have all the bells and whistles of the DVD.

You got the cash to pick up an extra battery for all this mobile usage? With all of the loading, game playing, movie watching and music listing you'll be swappin' batteries like nuts. Sure you'll put it on a constant charge cause you're not stupid but hey, that'll kill the battery packs longevity. Once they lasted 4 hours now it's 3 and then 2...

These are my thoughts on the whole PSP issue. I must sleep now from all this debate...