PSP

"PSP: The Goliath of the portable market."

Going back half a decade, we see Sony being on top of the console video game market with the PS2. Nintendo with the Gameboy Advance was conquering the portable market. Sony of course wanting to get a share of that market decided to release the PSP, a device originally intent to compete with the GBA. Moving up to our days, we see right now that the PSP is competing with the Nintendo DS which really a monster of a portable with over 100 million sold world wide. The PSP is holding on pretty well with over 50 million (I think it has reached 60 million though) users out there. No where before in time has a portable been able to compete with a Nintendo portable without being completely destroyed. The closest any portable has gotten was the Game Gear released by Sega in the 90s which was selling at a ratio of 13:1 with the Gameboy. That means for every 13 GB sold there was 1 GG sold. While for every 2 NDS sold, there is 1 PSP sold. That is amazing, no?

Now you may be wondering if the PSP is actually as good a portable as the NDS. Well I'm going to say that really depends on your tastes. While the NDS has a heavy focus on RPGs and puzzle games, the PSP has a wide variety of game from a wide variety of genres.

Do you want a RPG? Take a pick: Star Ocean First Departure and Second Evolution, Disgaea 1 and 2, Valkyrie Profile Lenneth, Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core and many others, plus a lot coming.

A Fighting game? 2D or 3D? There's Tekken 5 Dark Resurrection, Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max and many others as well, with now games like Soul Caliber coming on the PSP, this is probably the best portable to have come out for fighting games.

Action games are here too with Resistane\ce Retribution, 2 Syphon Filter games, Warriors Orochi, Samurai Warriors, Dynasty Warrios Strikeforce, 2 Socom games and one coming soon. Is that enough? Well there's more coming too.

Also PSP is king when it comes to racing. Midnight Club games, Wipeout Pulse and Pure and Need for Speed series, with now Gran Turismo PSP coming this October (which I'm very excited about since I love the GT games).

What do you want platformers?

Here's a list:Mega Man Maverick Hunter X, Megaman Powered Up ,Hammerin' Hero, Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles, Ultimate Ghosts 'n Goblin, Daxter, Death Jr, Death Jr II.

DJ Max And Rock Band Unplugged have got the rythm department covered over here.

Also there's a set of unique games like Patapon and LoCoRoCo which I can't really fit under one genre but are extremely satisfying to play.

Also the PSP boasts a load of retro games collection with Capcom Classics Collection Reloaded and Remix, Taito Legends Power Up, Sega Genesis Collection. All ready for your retro game fetish.

Also if you're willing to go there, you can get a few nice PSone games from PSN. Classics like FFVII, Wild Arms, Metal gear Solid, Suikoden, the PSone Crash and Spyro games( i.e. the good ones) etc All readily available for you to download with rarely any of them costing more than 10USD.

Now see the variety there, the DS might beat the PSP in certain departments like puzzles and RPGs, but it is sorely lacking in Fighting games, Action games and Racing games. Why? Well it has to do with the fact that the PSP is way more powerful, it comes close to the PS2 power and in some places beats(like having a better clock speed).

The power needed to have decent games like the one mentioned above are out of reach for the DS, that's why you will mostly find them on the PSP. Games like God of War could never be done on the DS..

Now there is something to sacrifice, and that is here the battery life. The PSP battery life really depends on what brightness setting and sound volume you set them to. Putting it on the highest, it will net you about 3 hours of gaming. If you set it on the lowest, you can get as up as 8 hours(on the 3000 at least). That's not bad by any stretch, and heck the DSi's battery lasts about that time on its lowest setting.

The PSP also has multimedia features. Playing Videos and songs at your guise. Though to watch some videos you must convert them to a certain format. There's a media conversion written by Kurgan777 written on the board, you can check it out if you want.

So here we are, at the end of my review. Now you see my title, and try to understand the analogy. Well here's how I see it: The PSP(Goliath) is better and more powerful than the DS(David) in a lot of areas, but the only reason the DS is winning because of a smarter marketing strategy made by Nintendo, but now the PSP is catching up with a great selection of games coming soon, between this year and 2010.

So if you are wondering which handheld to pick and you want one that has the closest things you have to come to console gaming on the go, then get a PSP. It is the only handheld that was able to give me a console experience portabley.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/07/09, Updated 07/08/09

Game Release: PSP Hardware (US, 03/24/05)