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    PlayStation Portable

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    PlayStation Portable (PSP) is Sony's first entry into the handheld gaming market. The PSP also sports multimedia features including music and video playback, a photo viewer, and an online store. Several model revisions have been released: the PSP-2000, 3000, PSPgo and the PSP-E1000.

    Prospective PSP Buyer - Give Me Advice

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    Seppli

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    #1  Edited By Seppli

    I'm thinking of getting a PSP-1000E for dirtcheap. As a bedside table gaming device of sorts. Together with Tactics Ogre : Let's Cling Together and Final Fantasy Tactics : The War of the Lions and Valkyria Chronicles 2.

    • What accessories should I get? Is a 2GB stick large enough for savegames? How important are good earplugs? And is the PSP-1000E a good SKU?
    • What's your take on rather getting a PS Vita? Will most old PSP games by digitally available for purchase on the PSN storefront to the general audience? Or is it only for owners of the PSP origials?
    • What other games would I like? Other than the 3 games I named, I'm toying with the notion of getting the God of War games, GTA : Chinatown Wars and Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.
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    Char12

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    #2  Edited By Char12

    Get Persona 3 Portable, and I'd say get a second Gen PSP they are much better than 1st and only a tiny bit more expensive, my PSP has a 16gb memory stick which I got for around £20 dunno what that is in dollars probably $35.

    I'd say all the good PSP games are available on PSN store, so if you want a Vita you would still be able to play the PSP games.

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    mosespippy

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    #3  Edited By mosespippy

    Most PSP games are available on PSN which will be Vita compatible. The only major exceptions so far are some (but not all) SquareEnix games (Kingdom Hearts and Crisis Core: FF7 most notably). 2GB is plenty for game saves. The original PSP launched with 32mb sticks and those were big enough to hold all my saves until my collection got bigger. You could even buy some games off PSN with a 2GB stick because most of them range from 500mb to 1.2 GB.

    It seems you like strategy games. Jeanne D'arc came out around the same time as War of the Lions, has mostly the same gameplay as WotL and received almost identical reviews. I prefer it because it's an original story. If you really hate free time then Persona 1, 2 and 3 are available. You could import Valkyria Chronicles 3. It's better than Valkyria Chronicles 2, includes all the maps and takes place before VC2. So if you really need more Valkyria Chronicles after playing 3 then you could go straight to 2 and would have seen everything in chronological order. Other than those you should get Lumines: Puzzle Fusion because that's the 1 PSP game everybody needs. I'd say download it so it's on your memory card. That way you'll always have it and whatever's in your UMD drive.

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    Seppli

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    #4  Edited By Seppli

    @mosespippy said:

    Most PSP games are available on PSN which will be Vita compatible. The only major exceptions so far are some (but not all) SquareEnix games (Kingdom Hearts and Crisis Core: FF7 most notably). 2GB is plenty for game saves. The original PSP launched with 32mb sticks and those were big enough to hold all my saves until my collection got bigger. You could even buy some games off PSN with a 2GB stick because most of them range from 500mb to 1.2 GB.

    It seems you like strategy games. Jeanne D'arc came out around the same time as War of the Lions, has mostly the same gameplay as WotL and received almost identical reviews. I prefer it because it's an original story. If you really hate free time then Persona 1, 2 and 3 are available. You could import Valkyria Chronicles 3. It's better than Valkyria Chronicles 2, includes all the maps and takes place before VC2. So if you really need more Valkyria Chronicles after playing 3 then you could go straight to 2 and would have seen everything in chronological order. Other than those you should get Lumines: Puzzle Fusion because that's the 1 PSP game everybody needs. I'd say download it so it's on your memory card. That way you'll always have it and whatever's in your UMD drive.

    Thx for the tips. Valkyria Chronicles 3 is a prizey import though, so I'll just stick with VC2 and pray VC3 sees a European or American release. As for the Persona games, I'd love to get into them. Though you hit the nail on the head with your comment about time. That's the one thing still keeping me from just jumping and getting into the PSP. When the hell will I find the time to play all these beefy games? During summer hanging out in the sun, but by then the PSP will likely have disappeared from shelves. Oh boy. My mind is quite occupied with the dilemma of the PSP, and not for the first time.

    I dig the idea of it, but in practice, I'd rather spend my time on full console and pc releases. I have a lot of Nostalgia for turnbased strategy JRPGs (and 16-bit era JRPGs), though there's a reason why I don't play them anymore. The PSP is breaking my heart. I want it. Though I don't see me finding the time for sustained and meaningful play. But I really kinda want to do something like War of the Lions again. It's been too long. Stuck between a rock and hard place.

    @Char12 said:

    Get Persona 3 Portable, and I'd say get a second Gen PSP they are much better than 1st and only a tiny bit more expensive, my PSP has a 16gb memory stick which I got for around £20 dunno what that is in dollars probably $35.

    I'd say all the good PSP games are available on PSN store, so if you want a Vita you would still be able to play the PSP games.

    Where would I get such a thing as a PSP-2000? I can't even find a PSP Go or 3000. And the PSP 1000-E is the latest and last PSP hardware update. Kinda like the PS1 & 2 Slim. Apparently it has the best screen of the bunch, but some multimedia functions cut. Just found a Digital Foundry review of the SKU.

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    Buscemi

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    #5  Edited By Buscemi

    I don't know man, I didn't have much fun with my PSP. I only had three or four games, which seems like a waste, personally. I have this innate desire to have a handheld console, but I rarely find the games any fun. I could see myself buying a load of classics from the Playstation era, but new games? I don't know. I liked Ridge Racer, though, I liked it a lot!

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    mosespippy

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    #6  Edited By mosespippy

    @Seppli: The english localization of VC3 was canceled.

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    GunslingerPanda

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    #7  Edited By GunslingerPanda

    Don't get one.

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    vaiz

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    #8  Edited By vaiz
    @GunslingerPanda said:

    Don't get one.

    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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    countinhallways

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    #9  Edited By countinhallways

    @Seppli: I did exactly this just a couple of months back. I bought one of the 1000E models hoping to have it tide me over until the first Vita price drop (or even hardware revision) while I work through some of the amazing RPGs in its back catalogue.

    The three games you mentioned are ideal choices for the system, personally I would stick to mainly playing RPGs like those, 3rd person controls like in Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker or The 3rd Birthday don't work particularly well in my opinion. Also don't forget that as long as you purchase the games via PSN they will carry over to the Vita were you to eventually pick one up.

    As far as other games recommendations go, I would say check out Disgaea: Afternoon of Darkness and The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky if you are into JRPGs. Also PSN has a lot of good PS1 originals on it now for cheap. Front Mission 3 and Vagrant Story being particualarly good options.

    The 1000E hardware seems perfectly fine so far. Keep in mind it is the only PSP model I have ever used so I cannot really compare it to older versions, but for the price I think it is a solid buy. All you really lose out on is WiFi, which if you were to mainly be playing RPGs will make little difference to you, and stereo speakers. While stereo speakers would be welcome don't forget that you can still get stereo sound by using earphones. So again, not a great loss. Also, I assume you are in Europe as I think that the 1000E was only released here, and if that is the case then it can be hard to find the PSP2000 or 3000 models for anything close to the €100 you will pay for the 1000E. I guess the older models are in high demand now that they are discontinued over here.

    For a memory stick I would recommend one of these thingys and a couple of these. Then you have 16GB (about 14GB usable) of memory for a fraction of the price you would pay for one of the incredibly overpriced official memory sticks. I would recommend buying games digitally as much as possible, or at least using disk installs for when you must use UMD, as the UMD drive is incredibly slow and cumbersome, hence you will need a decent amount of memory. Although 2GB would be fine for one or two games if that is all you require.

    Hope this helps you out man! All in all, I am delighted with my PSP1000E purchase, a great selection of games which will carry over to my eventual (cheaper and hopefully second generation) Vita purchase.

    EDIT: I should mention that save games are only a few hundred kBs for most games, so if you don't want to install then a 2GB stick would be more than enough.

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    plop1920

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    #10  Edited By plop1920

    Look into custom firmware if you are into tinkering, seriously made the psp one of my favorite consoles

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    Ketchupp

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    #11  Edited By Ketchupp

    STOP!

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    Seppli

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    #12  Edited By Seppli

    Just checked the Swiss PSN store. Most the games I'm interested in are in there, mostly reasonably priced. As well as quite a lot of niche titles too. Some games are extremely overpriced though. The Persona games are like 60 bucks. Just saw my favorite FF game in there too. The PSOne version of FFVI (yeah - it's inferior to the SNES original due to loading times, but whatcha gonna do). Sadly Valkyria Chronicles 2 is missing in action. Guess I'll have to get a physical copy of it.

    Still pondering if I should not just double down and rather grab a PSV at launch. PSP & paying for a PSV after a pricecut will be the equivalent of a launch PSV anyways.

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    Animasta

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    #13  Edited By Animasta

    im thinking of getting a PSP when vita comes out, hopefully by then it'll be real real cheap

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    lead_farmer

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    #14  Edited By lead_farmer

    @Seppli: That's too bad no VC2 for download, but that just highlights one of the problems with the Sony not requiring publishers to have more than just physical copies of the game. If you can get a PSP on the cheap, than Tactics Ogre is a great game to buy for it. If you aren't looking to get a lot of games on it, P3P, Lumines and the Ys games were a lot of fun too.

    If there are enough games that you see coming out for the Vita that would make getting it this year a possibility, you might want to hold off and just wait for the Vita.

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    LordXavierBritish

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    Pirate everything.

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    Venatio

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    #16  Edited By Venatio

    Buy Persona 3 Portable, that's all I have to say on that. I did and I love it

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