Hardware Why you should get a PSP now.

[Rydian]

Since the PSP's in the end of life and cheap right now, I think it's a good time to pick one up before the PSP is retired. Why? Well...

• The Vita's out, pushing used PSP prices down.
• The PSP's been out for ages anyways, and they're relatively cheap used ($50-80 depending on the model).
• Can hack it in minutes now.
• Need no flash cart or modchip for hacking, it's softmods now.
• Every PSP model can be hacked (on any firmware right now, too).
• Memory Sticks are cheaper now, you can get an 8GB for $25 (versus the $60 I paid for mine).
• The current hacks give PSN access.
• The PSP's last firmware update was almost a year ago, it seems the current hack types are here to stay.

And since it seems we have a lot of people on the forum that aren't aware of all the stuff a PSP can do compared to a DS...

• The PSP can emulate many more systems than the DS, even supporting Super Mario RPG and Star Fox for the SNES.
• The PSP has a much higher screen resolution than the DS so it doesn't need to do any downsizing of the graphics to make systems like the SNES fit on-screen.
• The PSP can play PSX games natively.
• You can use WEP and WPA wireless security on a PSP, where the DS is limited to WEP with flash carts.
• The PSP has native support for playing various audio and video formats, with homebrew to support even more. No more choppy low-quality video files on the DS.
• Since it mods the base firmware, accidental firmware upgrades (by kids, for example) can be blocked.
• The PSP can have all sorts of plugins installed that do things like add cheats, in-game screenshots, in-game MP3 players, video capture to a PC, and much more.

If you can think of something good to add, post it.

 

[AlanJohn]

Spoiler

I still cant afford it.

 

[Arm73]

I saw this coming, so I went ahead of you and I bought it a year ago. Softmodded it in minutes, downloaded a lot of content, played for a couple of months, now it's a dust collector, while I still use my DSiXL everyday.
It's all true what you say, also the stuff about the higher resolution screen, but that's also a con in my experience. The resolution is weird ! I mean emulated games fit nicely, so nicely that you have to upscale it to fit the screen...and that's when the magic it's lost. Most upscaled games just look wrong on the PSP, i just can't get used to it. Either text it too small or blurry, and excuse me if I like to be able to see the pixels in old scool 2D games. That, and a luck of touch screen ( which works great just for anything, from virtual keyboard to point and click scummVM games or even to manage an MP3 player ) and not so many original PSP games that I still didn't play to death......
I don't know, I'm not a fun of the PSP screen. And if only the DSi would have been 320x240 instead of 256x192, it would have been the ultimate emulation machine.
I was looking at that Neo Geo portable system prototype, that looked good, but the PSP just feels wrong. Even PSX games on it aren't much fun without L2R2 buttons and the blurry upscaling.....
But hey, if you never had one and can get it cheap, why not ?
If only we had homebrew on the 3DS...now that would be pixel perfect awesome for emulation !

 

[emigre]

I bought a PSP last year and was left with a feeling of deep regret.

Regret at why I had not bought one earlier than I did.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I saw this coming, so I went ahead of you and I bought it a year ago. Softmodded it in minutes, downloaded a lot of content, played for a couple of months, now it's a dust collector, while I still use my DSiXL everyday.
It's all true what you say, also the stuff about the higher resolution screen, but that's also a con in my experience. The resolution is weird ! I mean emulated games fit nicely, so nicely that you have to upscale it to fit the screen...and that's when the magic it's lost. Most upscaled games just look wrong on the PSP, i just can't get used to it. Either text it too small or blurry, and excuse me if I like to be able to see the pixels in old scool 2D games. That, and a luck of touch screen ( which works great just for anything, from virtual keyboard to point and click scummVM games or even to manage an MP3 player ) and not so many original PSP games that I still didn't play to death......
I don't know, I'm not a fun of the PSP screen. And if only the DSi would have been 320x240 instead of 256x192, it would have been the ultimate emulation machine.
I was looking at that Neo Geo portable system prototype, that looked good, but the PSP just feels wrong. Even PSX games on it aren't much fun without L2R2 buttons and the blurry upscaling.....
But hey, if you never had one and can get it cheap, why not ?
If only we had homebrew on the 3DS...now that would be pixel perfect awesome for emulation !

...So you're complaining about the PSP screen upscaling but you're playing on a DSi XL?

Sure...

 

[nl255]

Yeah, I love my PSP Go (and yes, KH:BBS works perfectly).

 

[Arm73]

I saw this coming, so I went ahead of you and I bought it a year ago. Softmodded it in minutes, downloaded a lot of content, played for a couple of months, now it's a dust collector, while I still use my DSiXL everyday.
It's all true what you say, also the stuff about the higher resolution screen, but that's also a con in my experience. The resolution is weird ! I mean emulated games fit nicely, so nicely that you have to upscale it to fit the screen...and that's when the magic it's lost. Most upscaled games just look wrong on the PSP, i just can't get used to it. Either text it too small or blurry, and excuse me if I like to be able to see the pixels in old scool 2D games. That, and a luck of touch screen ( which works great just for anything, from virtual keyboard to point and click scummVM games or even to manage an MP3 player ) and not so many original PSP games that I still didn't play to death......
I don't know, I'm not a fun of the PSP screen. And if only the DSi would have been 320x240 instead of 256x192, it would have been the ultimate emulation machine.
I was looking at that Neo Geo portable system prototype, that looked good, but the PSP just feels wrong. Even PSX games on it aren't much fun without L2R2 buttons and the blurry upscaling.....
But hey, if you never had one and can get it cheap, why not ?
If only we had homebrew on the 3DS...now that would be pixel perfect awesome for emulation !

...So you're complaining about the PSP screen upscaling but you're playing on a DSi XL?

Sure...

Don't understand how you can compare an upscaled image, to a bigger image on a bigger screen.
That 1.5 / 1.7 upscaling really feels wrong. On the other hand , if the PSP resolution was even higher, and we could get at least a clean 2:1 pixel mapping, I'd also be happy, but the only emulated system that offers that on the current hardware is the GB emulator, which looks surprisingly good, and I must admit I'd rather play it on the PSP.

Don't get me frong, I love my PSP, you just love it more ( being a Sony product ), and don't see the advantages of other systems.

 

[finkmac]

Already done. It wasn't that hard to look on this forum and see all the goodies available for it.

 

[DS1]

There should be no comparisons to the DS, everyone should have both.

 

[Ace Overclocked]

I saw this coming, so I went ahead of you and I bought it a year ago. Softmodded it in minutes, downloaded a lot of content, played for a couple of months, now it's a dust collector, while I still use my DSiXL everyday.
It's all true what you say, also the stuff about the higher resolution screen, but that's also a con in my experience. The resolution is weird ! I mean emulated games fit nicely, so nicely that you have to upscale it to fit the screen...and that's when the magic it's lost. Most upscaled games just look wrong on the PSP, i just can't get used to it. Either text it too small or blurry, and excuse me if I like to be able to see the pixels in old scool 2D games. That, and a luck of touch screen ( which works great just for anything, from virtual keyboard to point and click scummVM games or even to manage an MP3 player ) and not so many original PSP games that I still didn't play to death......
I don't know, I'm not a fun of the PSP screen. And if only the DSi would have been 320x240 instead of 256x192, it would have been the ultimate emulation machine.
I was looking at that Neo Geo portable system prototype, that looked good, but the PSP just feels wrong. Even PSX games on it aren't much fun without L2R2 buttons and the blurry upscaling.....
But hey, if you never had one and can get it cheap, why not ?
If only we had homebrew on the 3DS...now that would be pixel perfect awesome for emulation !

...So you're complaining about the PSP screen upscaling but you're playing on a DSi XL?

Sure...

Don't understand how you can compare an upscaled image, to a bigger image on a bigger screen.
That 1.5 / 1.7 upscaling really feels wrong. On the other hand , if the PSP resolution was even higher, and we could get at least a clean 2:1 pixel mapping, I'd also be happy, but the only emulated system that offers that on the current hardware is the GB emulator, which looks surprisingly good, and I must admit I'd rather play it on the PSP.

Don't get me frong, I love my PSP, you just love it more ( being a Sony product ), and don't see the advantages of other systems.

I think that people should stop saying guild is a sony fanboy, he's actually right here IMO.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

Don't understand how you can compare an upscaled image, to a bigger image on a bigger screen.
That 1.5 / 1.7 upscaling really feels wrong. On the other hand , if the PSP resolution was even higher, and we could get at least a clean 2:1 pixel mapping, I'd also be happy, but the only emulated system that offers that on the current hardware is the GB emulator, which looks surprisingly good, and I must admit I'd rather play it on the PSP.

Don't get me frong, I love my PSP, you just love it more ( being a Sony product ), and don't see the advantages of other systems.

I heard people bitching and moaning so much about the DSi XL screen stretching their image. I think some people felt the same concern when the 3DS XL was announced.

Even then, the PSP is hardly just emulation. I spent much more time on the actual games for it than the emulation.

Also if you think I love the PSP because it has Sony on it then you really don't know what you're talking about. I love the PSP because it's good.

 

[Shoat]

I already played through Crisis Core and Dissidia on a borrowed PSP and I watched a full LP of the PSP Kingdom Hearts (there are no other PSP-exclusives that I give a fuck about) and all emulated games I'd only play at home anyway so there's no point putting them on a mobile device, thus the PSP has nothing to offer that I'd be willing to spend money on.


However, I still agree that it is now a really sweet deal to get a PSP and hax it.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

I already played through Crisis Core and Dissidia on a borrowed PSP and I watched a full LP of the PSP Kingdom Hearts (there are no other PSP-exclusives that I give a fuck about), so the PSP has nothing to offer that I'd be willing to spend money on.


However, I still agree that it is now a really sweet deal to get a PSP and hax it.

Unfortunately 2 out of the 3 of those games sucks. There's like a bagillion other PSP titles to care about.

 

[Shoat]

I already played through Crisis Core and Dissidia on a borrowed PSP and I watched a full LP of the PSP Kingdom Hearts (there are no other PSP-exclusives that I give a fuck about), so the PSP has nothing to offer that I'd be willing to spend money on.


However, I still agree that it is now a really sweet deal to get a PSP and hax it.

Unfortunately 2 out of the 3 of those games sucks. There's like a bagillion other PSP titles to care about.

That's what you could describe as an opinion. In thise case it differs from mine.

 

[Guild McCommunist]

That's what you could describe as an opinion. In thise case it differs from mine.

Science has proven that Crisis Core is, in fact, a bad game.

Kingdom Hearts is just kinda crap for anyone who doesn't like them. Although I find little reason to actually like them.

 

[reshx]

there is a store near here thats sells 3ds , they give you a discount in a 3DSXL if you give them your 3ds,and they give you a discount in a psvita if you give them your psp

 

[Devin]

That's what you could describe as an opinion. In thise case it differs from mine.

Science has proven that Crisis Core is, in fact, a bad game.

Kingdom Hearts is just kinda crap for anyone who doesn't like them. Although I find little reason to actually like them.

We just happen to like bad games. I should hope we don't start bickering over whether those games are good.

I bought a PSP about a week, or two ago. I've almost stopped using my Vita. (Aside from Netflix, Youtube, etc.) From a lack of games which require money for me to play them. The PSP was definitely a good purchase. Playing bad games, some good games, and all the ones in between. They are going to tide me over until I run into some money for some more Vita games.

Edit: In-game MP3 player... Must get.

 

[rehevkor]

I have one and never regreted it. I admit I don't play it much now, and there is only a andful of games left that I want to play on it before I retire it. But it's a fine system - even with its flaws.

 

[Shoat]

That's what you could describe as an opinion. In thise case it differs from mine.

Science has proven that Crisis Core is, in fact, a bad game.

Kingdom Hearts is just kinda crap for anyone who doesn't like them. Although I find little reason to actually like them.

I treated both of them like movies mainly for their story bits.
KH I literally just watched and I would not describe Crisis Core's gameplay as exceptional, but I don't think either of them are even close to "bad games" ("Bad games" are movie/sports/EA-shooter/grind&pay2winmmo's/mobilephone games and similar shovelware shit).
I never said they were critically acclaimed and scientifically proven to be good games, I just said they (and dissidia) are the only PSP-exclusives I care about and that, having already experienced them, I see no reason to spend even a single cent on a PSP. That's all.

It's not like I fanboy'd all over those three games and claimed all other PSP games ever produced were shit (which would have been a reason for you to start getting angry), I just don't care about all the other PSP games.

I don't even know why you're insisting on starting an argument over what another person does or doesn't care about.

 

[Tom Bombadildo]

Had one, it broke. Need to buy a new one...I used to play the shit out of all of the good PSP titles and I still haven't played them all. I happen to have a little bit of extra money now...hmm...