The Rise and Fall of the PSP(more of a fan appreciation story/rant)

[kupomogli]

The PSP is my favorite portable system, but a recent announcement of a well known series getting a PSP release left me in disappointment. A Suikoden title was recently announced for the PSP and while, debatable, only half of the series has been any good, it's just that knowing how bad piracy is on the system it's almost certain we won't see it in the west.

So this is what got me to decide to post about the PSP. I wanted to post about how amazing of a system it is, but also rant about how piracy is what started the downfall of the system and eventually killed it. Because we need to be honest, even with the couple games coming out this year, the system itself is practically dead.

The PSP was released after the DS and being Sony's first handheld console, we knew it was going to be an uphill battle. Speaking of an uphill battle, people would bash the PSP for various reasons. Whether it was the load times, early released games being ports or multiconsole, UMD ejection, etc.

Now I'll agree with all the ports, but there were very few games that had some extremely long load times. The WWE games, especially, and you'd see multiple Youtube videos based on this. To be honest, these are the reasons it too me so long to actually pick up the system. After seeing the ad for Gundam Battle Royale, I preordered it from Play-Asia and picked up the PSP and Mega Man Powered Up once I received it(end of 2006.) During the next year I picked multiple games up for the system and some of the issues I was seeing about the PSP just weren't there. Sure there were those few games with massive loading issues, but the load times on the majority of PSP titles were fine.

Even though the PSP was downgradable at the time, games still sold very well for quite some time. Not only that, but while there may not have been as many releases as on the DS, you could practically pick up any game on the system and it'd either be a quality title, or atleast playable. Games were even getting greatest hits status, something that I haven't seen any PSP game rereleased as in a very long time.

Fast forward a few years with a ton of great releases for practically all genres , the multiple PSP releases, the Go flops, and now every PSP can run custom firmware and play ISO and CSO files, including the Go. PSP sales have had a major decline since. Because of this developers and publishers have went on record saying that they might not release games in the west for the PSP, one of which is Final Fantasy Type 0.

Piracy is bad to the point that I don't want to hear a PSP announcement of a game I might be interested in as I know we're not going to get it.

It's an amazing system, though, and if you haven't picked one up yet you should go do so unless you're planning on getting a Vita and don't mind all digital. While not all PSP games are available for digital download on the PSN, most are and as of now they're very affordable. Most $20 and $10, some on sale this week for $5.

If you already own a PSP then show your appreciation for this amazing system. What were your first games? When did you purchase it?

[TOE-NEE]

I bought a PSP on day one at the midnight release for it here in the states and I have always loved it. As of now, I own 8 PSP's, LOL. The first game I bought for it on release was Metal Dear Acid which I still have.

[Gameguy]

A Suikoden title was recently announced for the PSP and while, debatable, only half of the series has been any good, it's just that knowing how bad piracy is on the system it's almost certain we won't see it in the west.
If it doesn't get released, can't you eventually find a fan translation of it and just pirate it? :p

I remember when the system first came out, most people who wanted one just used it for emulation. Sure, now there's plenty of good games worth buying but if you're already used to using it for free software I don't think you'd be willing to start paying for software later.

I don't have one but I'm hoping to come across one at a yard sale at some point with the Castlevania Dracula X collection, besides that game I can't think of any titles I'd want except for the various RPGs which seem to get released for it yet I can't remember the names of. To me nothing really stands out as must haves.

[The 1 2 P]

I got my Psp a few weeks ago at a yard sale for $20. It was definitely worth it for that price and it was my source of entertainment when Hurricane Irene killed the power for two days straight. The battery lasted almost long enough for me to watch every episode from Aeon Flux: The Complete Collection.

I've already been collecting for it the past few years but I'm hoping once the Vita launches that stores will quickly start clearancing out their Psp games. It will make it easier for me to try out new stuff.

[sfchakan]

I've already been collecting for it the past few years but I'm hoping once the Vita launches that stores will quickly start clearancing out their Psp games. It will make it easier for me to try out new stuff.

You can already get plenty of great games for $10 or under at national chains if you look. For example, I know I got Castlevania Drac X and Jeanne d'Arc for less than $10 at Walmart and Kmart, I think. They were already in the clearance sections.

[Manhattan Sports Club]

IMHO, PSP's library is an example of quality over quantity. Sure, it may lack the variety of DS, but I have played very few, if any games on it that were so extremely cheap and abysmal as I have on the DS.

[atarikurt]

Seeing the slow death the of the PSP made me start picking up complete good condition used games as I find them. I have a feeling it is going to be like Sega Saturn stuff, one day its in every store for dirt cheap and the next day you can't find a single title. I just cracked 200 mark the other day and I plan on picking up as many as possible as long as the price is right. I think the system would be considered one of the best handhelds if it just had a 2nd analog stick. Just imagine the amount of PS2 games that could have been ported.

[gepeto]

The psp was by no means a flop. I am not sure what the issue was. I own a few and love it. I have the original launch with the original firmware. They should have release it at 200 instead of 250. The 250 price point made people take a wait and see approach. But I love mine. Once I got the Psp go I was quite surprised I really liked it.

Price is what makes me nervous for the Vita.

[misfits859]

Love the system though I don't get it out much anymore. No telling how many hundreds of hours I logged on MHFUnite. Easily my favorite handheld system ever.

[substantial_snake]

Although piracy was a problem I never felt like it was so huge that it was the only reason for the PSP's slow decline, the DS had similar issues with flash carts through its entire run. I always thought a larger problem for the console in the West were the large stretches of time with nothing notable released along with a general lack of support from Sony for a long while. I remember several large stretches where little if anything was released for the console either first or third party and I feel like that contributed much more to the general lack of interest in the console in the stats.

That being sad I love my psp for all of the great games that were released for it. It has a great mix of solid games from all generas, along with remakes/ports, and a huge selection of import only that with the console being region free are definitely worth checking out.

Some of my Favorites:

Armored Core Formula Front
Jean D'Arc
Metal Gear Acid (1 and 2)
Metal Gear Portable Ops
Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker
Initial D Street Stage
DJ Max Portable 2
Crisis Core
Star Ocean First Departure
Bleach Heat the Soul (Series)
Persona 1
Final Fantasy IV Complete
Brave Story A New Traveler
Valkyrie Profile Lenneth
Dissidia (1 and 2)
Killzone Liberation
Daisenryaku Portable 2
Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories
Daxter

I have yet to even scratch all of the macross and gundam themed import titles, which as a big fan I have to. (RX-93 FTW!) This isn't even mentioning all of the acclaimed game that I haven't played like Resistance Retribution and God of War. I always find it odd that some always say that their either isn't any games on the console or nothing to interest them.

[Gamevet]

The PSP is still going strong in Japan. It's actually outselling the DSi and the PSP's software sales still top the charts there.
http://www.the-magicbox.com/1109/game110916a.shtml

I bought my PSP about a year and a half ago. I have about 30 titles for the handheld and plan on buying at least another 20 or so titles for it and maybe a UMD or 2. It's one of the coolest handhelds I own.

[swlovinist]

The PSP is going to be remembered in a positive light. While is ended up not being the "DS killer", it ended up being a solid system with some great exclusives. I think as a portable I give it a passing rating, but as a bathroom or bedroom system...I give it an A+. This will be a fun system to collect for.

[Icarus Moonsight]

Releasing a successful non-Nintendo handheld was a pretty high achievement.

Thankfully, standards change. Good job Apple. :ass:

I enjoy my PSP, but there always seemed to be something not-quite-right about it. The obvious is that it's a handheld that reads optical... But that's not all that was off about it [dat nub]. Despite all that, it managed to do quite a few things right. I've played Super Stardust Portable more than anything else for the platform so far. The PSP really excels at those long cinematic games that just don't mesh well with a handheld. Looks good, and I'm sure it plays great too. I just can't bring myself to hang with those games on this system. The first game I played to completion was GoW Chains of Olympus that was a pack-in with my red 2000 PSP. Then it's been 90% Super Stardust since.

[retroman]

I got mine on day one with Ridge Racer

[G-Boobie]

I have no problems with the PSP. I picked one up specifically for Metal Gear Solid Portable Ops, and I've had a great time with it.

My only real issue with the system is the shady analog nub. I've always hated it.

Oddly, I've never really carried it with me except on one five hour road trip. Every hour I've played on the PSP has otherwise been on my couch at home.

[Rickstilwell1]

I hope we do get the Suikoden game. I wonder if enough people import it to the US in its Japanese form it will be considered a good enough sales figure to have it translated and released here.

[RPG_Fanatic]

I bought my first PSP from Japan at their launch with Hot shots golf & Darkstalkers. I now have a Japanese Final Fantasy 20th anniversary PSP.

[heybtbm]

Bought my PSP on launch day at Best Buy with Ridge Racer (bought Darkstalkers and Lumines at TRU a few days before). We had to line up inside the store and file into a room where Best Buy employees were setup to up-sell extended warranties, accessories, and games in a "1 on 1" setting. It was effing ridiculous. You couldn't get a PSP without running through this gauntlet of idiots trying to convince you that this brand new system was going to suddenly stop working in 90 days. So much fail going on that day.

The old 1000 still works perfectly, although I use a 3000 when playing games these days.

[Orion Pimpdaddy]

The psp was by no means a flop.

Agreed. It's the 7th best video game system of all time (73 million), above NES, Xbox 360, PS3, Genesis, and SNES. Not as much as the DS, but still quite popular.

[duffmanth]

I have always loved the PSP. I had one of the originals at launch and upgraded to the slim model a few years ago and I played the shit out of the thing up until maybe a year and a half ago when I just got bored of it cuz I had played everything that I wanted to play. I'm gonna pick up God of War: Ghost of Sparta soon when it's like $10 and that'll be the last game I pick up for it.

The 3 biggest problems that have always plagued the PSP are the lack of dual analog sticks, piracy, and the infrequent release times of AAA games. While the PSP now has a solid lineup of great games, it took too long for those games to come out and they only trickled out a few at a time. I would often wait for months for good PSP games to out, and that got very frustrating after a while and hopefully will be fixed with the Vita?!

Early on what hindered the PSP was its high price, lack of dual analog sticks and lack of original AAA games. While 2/3 of those issues have been addressed, they took too long to get addressed. It looks like these issues have been fixed with the Vita and I have high hopes for this thing and hope it does well!

[Leo_A]

It never had a spectacular game that wowed me (Although it certainly had games that did that for many people, such as the Monster Hunter franchise in Japan and the God of War franchise for many other gamers; I just never encountered something like Ocarina of Time was for me on the Nintendo 64).

But I'm glad I've owned a PSP. It had a solid library of good games that I've enjoyed playing over the years. I'll be enjoying it for years to come and might still stumble across that game that reaches the A+ mark for me personally that I've yet to encounter.

My biggest regret with the system is the lousy analog nub design that they used. If they had just gone with something better, my enjoyment of the PSP would've benefited greatly. I didn't mind the lack of double analog control nearly as much as I did that the single analog nub that was there just wasn't very good. And on my 1000, the d-pad wasn't a heck of a lot better than the analog nub (Thankfully that was remedied at least on later revisions).

My 1000 doesn't get much use these days, but my 3000 regularly is used for my UMD collection and I'm playing various PSP downloads frequently on my Go hooked up to my television with my old SixAxis PS3 controller.


I remember when the system first came out, most people who wanted one just used it for emulation.

I always felt this like was exagerrated. While I'm sure a healthy number of people purchased one with emulation in mind, I'd be shocked to find out that the percentage of PSP owners that bought it for emulation purposes came anywhere close to even approaching 1% of the systems sold.

The average PSP owner wasn't even aware that the system could be hacked, let alone that you could install emulators on it. And most of those that did hack the system did it with piracy of PSP software in mind, not because they could do something like fire up a NES emulator on it.


Agreed. It's the 7th best video game system of all time (73 million), above NES, Xbox 360, PS3, Genesis, and SNES. Not as much as the DS, but still quite popular.

It possibly might even be above the Game Boy and in 6th place. The 118.69 million figure from Nintendo that is commonly cited combined the sales of both the Game Boy and Game Boy Color.

[Leo_A]

Sorry for the double post.

[SparTonberry]

I bought a DS first because well, the PSP software library had a slow start (I thought I remembered reading that even one of Nintendo's VIPs was complaining about the lack of games O_o) and the first image many had was UMD movies.

But the first PSP game I did buy was Star Ocean: First Departure. Actually bought it before getting a system to play it on. Yeah, I think that's about the time more RPGs started to get released on it, making me more interested.

[Press_Start]

PSP = PS1 handheld, in my mind.

Being an RPG powerhouse stateside will be the PSP's most understated characteristic to the general gaming public for this gen, it already exceeds its console cousin (PSX) in numbers alone and providing double the content than PS3. Heck, news on Black Rock Shooter and Fate/Extra US debuts blindsided me cause the chance the skies rain down beer had a better shot than these two. Now the skies is the limit, who knows how far it'll go in its lifetime?

[Edmond Dantes]

If you already own a PSP then show your appreciation for this amazing system. What were your first games? When did you purchase it?

Last April, and my firsts were Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, Star Ocean: First Departure and Star Ocean: Second Evolution.

I agree the PSP is a hella underrated portable. When I got one I basically stopped playing my GBA SP (I never was interested in the DS). I'll probably still be playing PSP long after it officially dies.

[The 1 2 P]

You can already get plenty of great games for $10 or under at national chains if you look. For example, I know I got Castlevania Drac X and Jeanne d'Arc for less than $10 at Walmart and Kmart, I think. They were already in the clearance sections.

Yeah I already picked up a few for $10, including the Dracula X Chronicles. But I was more hoping for $5 or less. I bought the Aeon Flux Complete Collection at Sears for 97 cents and they had a few $5 and $6 Psp games but nothing that really interested me.

[Gameguy]

I always felt this like was exagerrated. While I'm sure a healthy number of people purchased one with emulation in mind, I'd be shocked to find out that the percentage of PSP owners that bought it for emulation purposes came anywhere close to even approaching 1% of the systems sold.

The average PSP owner wasn't even aware that the system could be hacked, let alone that you could install emulators on it. And most of those that did hack the system did it with piracy of PSP software in mind, not because they could do something like fire up a NES emulator on it.
It was more common than you think. Every review online back then basically said to get a DS if you want exclusive games, or get a PSP if you want a portable emulator. That's what I remember when I looked up various reviews at the time.

Besides online reviews, there were actually several published books that described how to hack the PSP. These books mostly came out in 2006 and I've found one from 2005, that's not long after the system came out. I can't find any published books on hacking the DS, though you could basically do the same thing with flash cards too.

http://www.amazon.com/Hacking-PSP-Customizations-SonyPlayStationPortable-ExtremeTech/dp/0470104511/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1316402371&sr=8-1
http://www.amazon.com/PSP-Hacks-Mobile-Entertainment-Handheld/dp/0596101430/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1316402371&sr=8-5
http://www.amazon.com/Hacks-Mods-Expansions-Dave-Prochnow/dp/0071469087/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1316402371&sr=8-7

If so few PSP owners were aware of the possibility of hacks how could so many books get published on the subject? It's not like everyone who wanted to hack it needed to buy a book, I would think most people just looked up everything online for free as there's tons of free guides posted. I'm also counting playing PS1 games as emulation, I think that's a bigger reason to get the system instead of playing NES games on it. Of course if you've already done that then why bother paying for PSP games when you could also download those for free just like all the other games you're emulating. For those who pirated PSP games I doubt that they never emulated games on it too, emulation was a big appeal of the system.

[kupomogli]

Yeah. Before I even bought a PSP I heard about how you could use emulators and such for it. I downgraded my PSP soon after I got my memory stick. I will say that I've never played a PSP or PSX game on the console that I don't personally own though, where NES, SNES, Genesis, Neo Geo, TG16, GBA, etc, is a whole other story.

[Lothars]

I love my PSP, It's definitely the best handheld of this generation, I feel the DS has a good library, I think the PSP is on another level.

I have two PSP's, a PSP 2000 and a PSP GO, I really like them both and slowly picking up more PSP games on PSN.

I would recommend the PSP to anyone, I just like the system that much.

[Leo_A]

I never argued that it wasn't common, I'm quite sure it was common since I also paid attention to this platform since launch. A miniscule slice of 70 million systems is still an extremely large amount of individuals. But I'd still bet that 99% of them weren't sold with emulation in mind.

Just because there was a small, thriving niche of users that utilized their systems for emulation at communities such as this one doesn't really reflect what the average person off the street that owned a PSP was doing.

I've seen plenty of PSP owners at just this forum state that they've never investigated the emulation capabilities of the thing and I imagine we'd have one of the highest rates of incidence around of users that have the necessary knowledge and the interest to bother with emulation on the PSP, outside of a forum dedicated to PSP emulation. They didn't sell millions of these things just because people wanted one to hack to play classic games on it, lol.

Which reminds me that I really should do something useful with my PSP 1000. I've always said I'd do it tomorrow, but it must be half a decade now since I decided I'd mod it for things like homebrew and emulation and I still haven't. It just sits idle while my 3000 and Go see regularly use.

[Nature Boy]

I know Piracy isn't a good thing, but I can't bring myself to simply agree with the 'piracy killed the PSP' statement.

I don't know about everybody else, but I know *way* more people with pirate DS cards than I do hacked PSPs. And it's a hell of a lot easier to find a site to sell you an R4 than it is to buy a pandora battery and memory stick and hack the firmware on your own.

I own both systems, and love the PSP personally far more than the DS too, but to me it suffers simply because (a) the biggest target market for games are kids and (b) there are *way* more games targeted at kids for the DS.

My kids (5 and 7) aren't even *interested* in a PSP, nobody they know has one, and although I don't have totally adult games for it, they're not interested even in what I have.

Again, not to understate how piracy can and does hurt, but I think the DS dominates because that's the one kids want.

Just my opinion of course.

[Zama]

I got FF7: Crisis Core as my first PSP game :)

[SpaceHarrier]

I got FF7: Crisis Core as my first PSP game :)

I bought a PSP as soon as this was announced for the US. While I think it was totally worth it to spend $170 + memory stick (separate at the time) -- I never thought I'd get my money's worth out of the system.. I tend to buy handhelds and then ignore them. My Atari Lynx is still mint from 20 years ago.

I was wrong. I've spent more time with my PSP than on some consoles I own. Dissidia is the game that made me a true PSP fan. I've also put dozens of hours into Gran Turismo (despite the lack of tuning). It's an amazing looking and playing game. I have a small collection of other titles, but there are plenty of games I'm interested in.

Unfortunately I've had to curtail my PSP gametime, as the analog nub aggravates my carpal tunnel.. (this is the only game-related controller to do so)

[goatdan]

I got my first PSP on a whim at Circuit City when they were closing for about $90ish. I honestly think that I was just interested in it, but was really surprised to find a bunch of games I liked. The problem with the PSP was that so many games were console games made like console games. However, no one mentioned the hold button was basically a long term pause, and that made it way more convenient for me to play console-like games where ever, and I ended up playing it a ton.

Got a second one shortly after the first, got it hacked just to play Mother 3 with the fan translation on it -- for the record, I do have a legit copy of Mother 3 too and would buy it in an instant if it came out in the US. I'm very glad I picked up both consoles.