tyson

Videolamer Votes aka Should Tyson Sell His PSP?

The amount of handheld consoles I have had over the years is nutty. I’ve laid the smack down on Tetris, old school style with the original Gameboy. As I suspect color television enthralled people in the 1950s, I popped a gamer boner when the Gameboy Color rainbowed its way on to the scene in the early 90s. And no, rainbow should never be used as a verb unless I O.K it… and I just did. Come to think of it, the only Gameboy iteration I have never owned is the Gameboy Pocket. I also own a GP2X and a PSP. I like my handhelds.

Despite my undying love for pocket-sized gaming machines, I have never fully accepted the PSP into the fold. I had money to blow in Akihabara one fine Spring day last year and there was nothing else I was dying to have, so a white PSP found its way into my backpack. Since then, I have bought a handful of games and UMD movies for it and the whole system, while not being a total disappointment, has yet to really thrill me in any way, shape, or form. Lately, I have found myself going for long stretches without twiddling the knobs and buttons of my great white beast, the one made by Sony you degenerate pervs! I feel bad that my DS Lite gets most of my gaming attention but at the same time, there are not many PSP games that I am drawn to. I play Lumines 1 and 2 religiously and the occasional bout of Tekken: Dark Resurrection and Work Time Fun, but other than that, what is there to play?

In almost exactly two months, I will be returning to the United States. This means I will be selling about 85% of the stuff I have accumulated in my two years of living in the land of the rising sun and starting fresh when I hit American soil. My question to you is this: Should I keep or sell my PSP? I want a few good reasons to keep this system around and right now, I am leaning toward selling it. Are there any titles coming out that you guys are interested in? Are there any lesser known games for the system that I should pick up and try?

Also, since I am a sheep and don’t want to think for myself, I want a simple yes or no answer as to whether you think I should sell it. If I can get a good enough amount of comments to persuade me either way, I will probably go with the majority response on this. I don’t lose anything by keeping it but I do know that the money I would get for the system and games would go straight into picking up an Xbox 360 Elite and a couple of games to go along with it. So comment below and let me know what you think, make your opinion count and vote now!

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TrueTallus
TrueTallus
16 years ago

Does region encoding matter for PSP? If you have to import Japanese games and movies that’d be a significant nock against it. I’d say selling price is also a factor. If you’re only going to be able to get $70-80 dollars for everything, it doesn’t seem worth it. Also, how often do you watch movies or use it as an MP3 player? It can be a pretty good portable entertainment center, particularly if you don’t already have something more specifically designed for that purpose.

As far as games go, I can’t really come up with anything particularly obscure and super awesome. The PSP seems to get good games at a slower, Gamecube-esque rate compared to the DS, but it’s not necessarily bad for a system to have a lot of downtime between uses. I hadn’t touched my cube for a while before RE4 came out, and similarly I hadn’t given my PSP much love recently until I got hopelessly addicted to Metal Gear Acid 2.

I think I’d vote for keeping it unless you can make a real killing on the sale and you have no use for the media player stuff.

Matt
Matt
16 years ago

I would definitely vote for keeping it. Even if I rarely use a system, I never sell them. Because you never know when a really awesome game is going to come down the pipes. That would mean buying the system all over again if you sold it.

And right now, a few games have come out or will come out that look really good. Castlevania: Dracula X Chronicles, Silent Hill Origins (only $30!), Final Fantasy Tactics, and my personal favorite, WipEout Pulse. These along justify the PSP to exist. And then you have Lumines, which will never get old from my point of view. If Lumines 3 is ever announced, I plan on midnight launching that thing by myself:)

And as TrueTallus says, you could always use it as a media player. I use mine when commuting to work, and it has been invaluable for me. I love playing a game, getting a little bored with it, hitting the Home button, and popping in a video or listening to some music. It’s everything I want in a handheld electronic device, and it’s sexy to boot.

But still, if you use none of these things, have no interest in playing any game that has come out or will come out, and can get a pretty penny for it, then by all means. But you never know what the future will bring. I vote to keep it.

christian
Admin
16 years ago

You know, I bought an ipod shuffle when I got out of college, thinking it would be all I need for music playback. Now I’ve got a PSP with 2 gig memory stick, and now I’m using it far more for music playback (since it lets me pick my damn tunes from a screen). Another good idea someone told me is to use it for looking up stuff on gamefaqs when playing a game on the TV, since I have no laptop.

But yes, the games. A lot of it is going to come down to taste, as well as how many playstation classics you played in the past. Considering these two things, I have a huge list of games I want to pick up on the PSP. I’ll list a few , and maybe you’ll find something you like too:

Gradius Collection
EA Replay (its got Mutant League Football and Wing Commander)
Darkstalkers Chronicles
Parappa
Medieval
Wipeout Fusion
Silent Hill Origins
Syphon Filter: Logan’s Shadow
jeane d’arc

and a few more

James
16 years ago

The only thing I miss about owning a PSP is the ability to play Pirates! any time, anywhere. Everything else is negligible at best.

Dave
Dave
16 years ago

Meh, just sell the thing but keep the games (They don’t take up much travel space). You’ll probably be home for a while before anything interesting is released then rebuy. I was leaning toward PSP purely for a different sort of Pirates! but the DS won the war a month ago due to the unique games. One PSP/DS game I am interested in is Warhammer Squad Command – I have a feeling it will be better on PSP so that may get me on the Sony bandwagon in the new year.

jay
Admin
jay
16 years ago

After repurchasing most of what I sold to Funco Land years later at an inflated price, I learned never to sell anything ever. I mean besides your body.

zenstrabo
16 years ago

Check out the custom firmwares and homebrew. There’s a ton of shit out there once you get that set up. My fav homebrew apps include: PSX loader, SNES/ Genesis/ GBA/ N64/ Mame Emulators, Infrared remote, Youtube viewer, Comic book reader, Cuisinart, and Pocket pregnancy test.

The best use I’ve found so far: Setting up Superman 64 on Daedalus and keeping the PSP in my back pocket so that it can kiss my ass all day long.

Tyson
Tyson
14 years ago

As an extremely belated update to this article, the PSP in question was traded to a guy on Craigslist for his Wii. Problem solved!!!