Just wondering what your thoughts are about it. The games, the quality, the overall value (bang for buck).
Will the games (media) be PS3 compatible or is the media completely different format?
I believe that some games will be able to connect, like the new Daxter game (PSP) will connect to the new Jak and Daxter (PS2).
The games are so-so now, with some really standout ones like Lumines and Wipeout: Pure. They’re mainly all racing and sports games now though. As soon as the ball gets rolling a little more I think some really cool looking titles are planned for the near future.
Quality wise, it’s amazing. I have the odd bad pixels, but they’re not noticeable at all when I’m playing or watching a movie. The button problems they talked about are nonexistent on mine.
Overall value? I’d say wait on it for a bit. I was an early adopter, and I don’t regret it at all, but your best bet is to wait until some better games are released. Or wait until the homebrew crowd really gets cracking on it (they’ve gotten a Gameboy and NES emulator on the old Japanese version, but nothing really on the US released updated version). Once you can run your own code (or others), it’ll really open up the value of the system.
The media is a completely different format from PS3. PS3 is going to be blu-ray, while the PSP has its own format called UMD (Universal Media Disc). The Blu-ray holds something like 30 gigs, while the UMD holds 1.8 gigs. However, they did say that the PSP will be able to be used as a second screen/controller, a la Gameboy Advance/SP and the Gamecube, so there will be definite connectivity there.
I saw they said this at E3, very cool, IMHO. You are expected to be able to use the screen on it to act as your HUD or status info. Nifty.
Now that the PSP is no longer in rare supply, can I objectively ask how the battery life is for playing games?
I wish I could state definitively on it, but so far it’s really varied a lot with the game. If the game needs to access the disk a lot, the battery life is probably closer to 3-4 hours. If it’s more efficient in its memory usage, it’s probably closer to 5-6 hours. I watched all of Spider-man 2 on it and still had a couple of bars remaining. If you’re playing wireless, it definitely will cut into the battery life. I accidentally left the wireless on overnight and by morning it was dead.