I'm a nerd. Its true, don't try and deny it to make me feel better about myself. I like orcs, goblins and dragons. 20 sided dice give me the warm fuzzies. I look inside the computer that I built myself entirely from off the shelf components, and I'm proud of how I ran the power cabling under the motherboard to give the system a more streamlined look inside. I like video games, classical music, art, and literature. I've written a thesis. I am, in short, the last guy you would want to chill with and enjoy a beer while watching the game (don't bother quoting stats at me, I'm lucky I understand the basics of the game).
So I'm gonna blog. For awhile I was blogging about my political ideology, and how I feel that neither of the major American political parties truly meets the needs and ideological worldview of Biblical Christianity, but then I decided "eh, that's too divisive. People are gonna get mad about that." So instead I'm gonna blog about crap that no one cares about. Nerd stuffs!
So for my triumphant return to the internet 2.0 (ZOMG HTML.COM?!?), I decided to gripe about the state of Sony's flagship handheld gaming system, the PSP (and its more portable cousin, the PSP Go!).
First, the good. As old as the thing is (5 years for North America, longer for Japan), it still can put out some purty polygons. Its d-pad, although not as good as the DS, is functional (which is more than I can say for the 360's crappy rocker d-pad . . .). It is the only handheld with an analog thumb "stick" (more accurately called a "nub" because it isn't very big), and it works perfectly. It also has a beautiful wide screen. The screen on the current iteration of the system, the PSP-3000, glows like the freakin sun. In fact, the only complaints anyone has been able to level at it is that the screen is so clear, and the response times so fast, that you can actually see interlacing in some games.
The PSP also uses UMD disks (ok, that last "disk" was redundant, but whatever). While they are a draw on battery power, they also allow the handheld to run off very cheaply manufactured optical disks, storing as much as 1.2 gigs of data. When you consider that the largest DS title is 256 MB, you can see how much more the PSP has to work with for textures, models, etc.
Ok, now its gripe time.
1) There is no "official" homebrew platform (like the 360s XNA or the ps3's linux). So, people hacked the firmware of the psp to allow unsigned code to run on the system. The good? Now the psp has homebrew out the wazoo--possibly some of the best console homebrew ever made, in fact. The bad? Well, allowing unsigned code allows piracy. And that's always bad for the platform. But also, the firmware hacking was being done by one man, who quit the scene. Because he quit, homebrew enthusiasts who buy games legitimately are now stuck between a rock and a hard place. Do I upgrade to an official firmware to play this game legit? Or do I stay where I am for my homebrew, and download a cracked copy of the game? In the fight against piracy, true homebrew enthusiasts always get screwed, pirates always get their games for free, and the game devs don't get the money they deserve.
2) The PSP just isn't very ergonomic. When playing for extended periods, my hands go to sleep. Surely it isn't impossible to make a handheld that doesn't kill your hands!
3) One analog nub was a great idea . . . back when nintendo made the N64, and games weren't using 2 analog sticks. Guess what? Times have changed, and everyone uses 2 analog sticks now. It just makes sense: one is for moving, the other for aiming. Different schemes have been used to try and compensate for this deficiency, like Katamari using the triangle/square/circle/x buttons as the "second nub," but this just isn't the same.
4) No touch screen is a bad idea. Now before anyone gets all preachy and says "well, they didn't know it would be popular back then!," lets try and remember that the DS wasn't the first thing to ever have a touch screen. Before the DS, smartphones had touch screens. Before smartphones, palm pilots had touch screens. Before palm pilots, the freakin' apple newton had a touch screen. Now I'm not saying that touch screen controls aren't gimmicky sometimes--they're gimmicky most of the time in fact! But for the cost (very little), the potential for innovation is worth the price of admission.
5) My biggest gripe of them all: the PSP Go! The Go was the first "true" ground-up redesign (the slim is exactly the same as the phat, except it's, er, slim). And that design is really slick, actually. The Go is actually portable, has a great screen, great button layout, and even has built in flash memory. The problems are twofold: first, they STILL refused to give it an analog nub (why do you hate us Sony?!), and second, the Go doesn't have a UMD drive. That means that if you have a library of games and want to upgrade, too bad, because you have to buy them all again via digital distribution. Second, they don't even offer the entire PSP library via digital distribution! Want X-Men Legends 2? Too bad! The phat and skinny boys get it, but you don't!
The thing that really pisses me off is that the Go really could have "fixed" the psp. No one has cracked it yet, so there's no piracy on the machine (yet . . .). The form factor is perfect. The screen is great, and the button placement is sharp. And the built in flash is just pure gravy. But no second analog nub and no way to get your existing library onto the thing = epic fail.
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