Well, Sony had been hyping its PSP for quite some time. Would Sony deliver? Or would it be another MiniDisc disaster (i know, some ppl do use it but is UMD another MD format that will kill a device?).

Mar 24th, Sony launches the PSP in the USA, 500,000 PSPs are sold the first week. I am one of those 500,000 people.

The key factors that drew me to the PSP or even considered it (i really was not considering any handheld gaming console at the time) was the video and audio capabilities. The screen was rumored to be of high quality and gorgeous. But was it worth the $250 for a portable gaming device??

So i went out to walmart and got my psp, also bought Twisted Metal and Lumines (two games that were considered to be 'safe' first game buys).

Loaded up the free spiderman 2 umd movie and again was impressed by the display; a true 16:9 layout and excellent quality. The Nintendo DS's screen could not compete whatsoever; i have never seen any mobile device with such a crisp and bright screen. however i did have 1 dead pixel, but it was on the bottom area and to me i can accept one..

Games are great, just like its PS2 big brother (even though the psp does have the same processing power, 333mhz cpu). UMD Load times were not too bad, but the battery time was a tad low (about 4-6 hours playing games from UMD). But thats expected w/such a nice and bright display.

the mini analog wafer/joystick is pretty cool, however your hand can get cramped if you play too long at a time w/o breaks.. (take those breaks and save your wrists! hehe..)

Decided to get some of my divx movies onto it; after converting them to psp format (mp4) using PSP Video 9; i finally have my movies on a decent screen!

The best part is the homebrew/emulators. But you can find that out for yourself and google it.

But i recommend the psp over any gaming device as of now. The DS has its classic games like nintendogs and mario and a touchscreen, but it can't do video or audio like a psp or the games will never look as good either..

Can you say GTA: Liberty Stories? ;)

Recommended: Yes