Why the PSP Sucks


I really want to like and buy the PSP. But I just can’t.

I admit that I have never been a Sony fan. The brand really means “more expense while lacking innovation and style” to me (with a few notable exceptions). And I never cared for the Playstation. I always had a Nintendo growing up and now have both a Gamecube and Xbox and have rarely cared about any Playstation specific games like Grand Theft Auto.

When it comes to the PSP, I would be buying it solely for the gaming ability since EVERY OTHER function is absolutely horrible. Who is going to buy the proprietary UMD movies? Or buy the proprietary special type of Memory Stick that includes Sonys MagicGate copy protection to listen to music?

But even the gaming comes at a HUGE flaw: you get at most 6 hours of battery life. Compared with the Nintendo DS which lasted the entire 20 hour plane trip to Indonesia, that is pretty lame.

So as much as I want to love the gaming and the beautiful screen (which shows scratches and fingerprints really quick), it just isn’t good enough for me. And I don’t want to pay $100 premium over the DS that will give me 1/4 of the battery life and have features I will never use.

If Sony will get off its proprietary kick and come out with a version 2 with better battery life I would buy it in a second. Then I think they really could overtake Nintendo in the handheld wars.

[Listening to: Que Onda Guero – Beck – (3:29)]

38 responses to “Why the PSP Sucks”

  1. You couldn’t be more right. I had a chance to play the PSP last week and the screen was really cool……until the game actually started to move. If you’re playing any type of action game, the screen becomes a blur when the action starts to speed up. I don’t know if it’s a processing limitation or what, but it really sucked.

  2. THe psp really suck a** it only has 2 hours of battery lilfe and there are many other reason just loo on the internet and you see why

  3. I agree.The UMD motor and parts in the psp do not like being abused or banged.A few bangs or scratches,say goodbye to music,movies,and games.

  4. The PSP has good graphics, but it sucks over all. Buy a Nintendo DS, and if you need music, a cheap ipod shuffle. God, some people are so gullible.

  5. Oh man, it’s so great to find people who know what they’re talking about. All day long, my friends talk about the PSP, saying stuff like “Wow, the screen is so huge!” or “You can watch movies on it!” Please…with such a short battery life, you basically have to choose whether you want to watch a movie or play games; can’t have both. Buy a DS if you really want a portable gaming system, a portable DVD player if you want to watch movies, and an ipod if you have to listen to music.

    And what’s up with the $30 memory stick anyway?

  6. Dude, don’t get me started. I am all about having one gadget per purpose. I have a Nikon D70 which takes AWESOME pictures. I have an iPod which is obvious enough. The DS (as I mentioned) made a 20 hour plane flight livable. And portable movies I have my laptop, TivoToGo and Netflix.

    To try to stuff into one device is just silly. You are left with a bloated, expensive doorstop.

  7. Finally, a group of people who actually know something about the gaming industry. It’s not about good graphics (which I won’t complain about ^_^) or how much STUFF you can cram into it. It’s about the system’s potential and gameplay. From past experience with Sony, I know that their products don’t last. So just imagine what happens when they cram even MORE stuff into a smaller size! What do you get? A mess, not an entertaining system. I personally would choose a DS because it’s new, creative, and most importantly, fun.

  8. I believe the Nintendo DS will be better than the Sony PSP. The following is a list of things that support my humble opinion:

    1. Sony Product + Slight Breeze = Broken Sony Product

    2. For the price of a PSP, you could get a Nintendo DS and an iPod Shuffle. And lest we forget that a froggin’ memory stick costs $100 – $150. There’s a portable DVD player.

    3. An innovation is something that opens new doors, whereas a gimmick is something that spreads glitter on doors that are already open. Therefore, PSP = gimmicky, while DS = innovative.

    4. 1 – 3 hours. Yeesh. And remember kiddies, an extra battery won’t help you when you are five seconds away from beating that boss you’ve been stuck on for about a month.

    5. In all honesty, if you claim that you are going to use a PSP to watch UMD movies, you are a liar. Why would you want to buy a skuzzy DVD that you can only watch on a handheld, when you could buy a DVD for the same price?

    6. Gee, I can’t seem to find the slot on my PSP for GBA cartridges. I wonder where it’s at?

    7. The PSP has just as many ports and sequels(rehashes) than the DS. And none of them have touch control.

    8. Yes, the PSP is stylish, but good luck keeping it that way. I’d rather have a dull, grey DS than a scratched up PSP.

    9. Waiting for a game to load on your way to work sure is fun!

    10. The PSP analog stick is useless. It’s not pressure sensetive. Why is it even there? The whole point of an analog stick is to be pressure sensetive.

    11. Sony refuses to replace PSP’s that have less than three dead pixels. Now, that’s just naughty.

    12. You can’t carry discs around in your pockets like you can with cartridges.

    13. Graphics don’t matter. If you’re actually enjoying a game, you won’t be paying attention to the polycount. If you want good graphics, watch a movie.

    14. People have been playing the same shooting/racing/role playing/fighting games since Doom/Pole Position/Final Fantasy/Street Fighter, respectively. The industry needs a good, swift kick to the stones, bad. If not by Nintendo, by someone.

    15. The name of the Playstation Portable doesn’t make any sense. The word “Station” implies that it’s stationary. It’s either a station, or it’s portable. Pick one, and pass gradeschool before you name a product.

    Sadly, despite such reasoning, most american consumers in the market for a videogame system theese days buy whatever the rapper that is popular at the moment tells them to, as evidinced by the rest of the Playstation line. You’ve seen it before. “Wow, [generic rapper] wears Nike’s, eats at McDonald’s, drinks Mountain Dew, owns a PS[number or letter], and has a terd! I want a terd!”

  9. i bought a psp and i must say i’m quite impressed, no problems, no errors, no crap. It’s good, honestly, it’s really good, the screen is beautiful, i’m not talking in the manner that i think it’s great for a handheld, i mean beautiful, my flat screen t.v. doesn’t have this quality. The game line-up has me really jazzed, i just finished pouring hours into ridge racer and lumines, wonderful titles, ridge racer is quite an accomplished game, ported very well. And Lumines is quite refreshing. Not to mention prospective devil may cry, viewtiful joe and final fantasy titles(they make good rpg’s i’m tired of the squaresoft fanboy comparison) I’ve never had battery related problems, even when playing ridge racer, i’ve just never been anywhere longer than 5 hours where i had to continually play games without being near a wall socket or my car charger. It’s also not nearly as fragile as people say, though i did try the umd pop out trick, you have to completely twist the console. And yes of course there is also a chance i could have an accident with it , but just be careful, i mean i could just as easily drop my laptop.( and for the extra 30 bucks i bought the complete 2 year warranty, i could throw it agains the wall and they would give me a new one)Also, load times are not nearly as bad as everyone is saying, i timed ridge racer, aveage load time to start a level is 4 to 5 seconds, thats not bad at all and on average your probably playing a level for about 5 to 6 minutes. On Lumines load times are non-existent.

    Finally we come to the movie/photo/music playing this doesn’t seem to be something they planned from the get go, it almost seems like , given what they were allowing the psp to do, it’s seemed something that hackers or coders were going to try and exploit later anyhow, so why not just include it, and yes i bought a 1gig card, 67$ on zipzoomfly.com though now there sold out and the release of the 2 gig card leads me to suspect that prices will be dropping shortly, 1gig’s are normally 115, sandisk. The only feature i find to be a bit superfulous is the music, because i already own an ipod, but as for movies, i’m loving it, i was just watching some of my favorite anime earlier on top of some family guy, quality is quite nice and the software works quite seemlesly. Oh and i bought a screen protector so no scratch problems here. Well, thats all i can think to say, i love my psp and i love defending it, sony deserves every penny and maybe more that i payed them for it Please if you have any rebuts do post them, i’d love to here retorting arguments.

  10. Nah, nothing to argue. If you are willing to spend the time transferring the movies to it, and you don’t mind the battery life, it should work for you.

    I, on the other hand, don’t want to stress on having to plug it in continually, want to use it on long plane flights, and don’t want to have to go through the effort to use it for movies.

    I have still have hopes for a PSP 2.0 with a non-spinning disk, non-memory stick, 10 hr + of battery life and have it work with iTunes and TivoToGo easily.

  11. The spinning disk just seems like yet another step forward for the handheld gaming industry, same way that using cd’s for the original playstation back in 1994 was considered insane, and then ofcourse dvd use for the ps2 back in 1998, people said games were’nt going to be big enough to need the dvd space, but low and behold it becomes a standard. And as far as i can tell no one’s complaining of broken psp’s yet. Oh and if your holding out because of the supposed trickiness of transferring movies than i think you were mis-informed, converting and transferring the last samurai was a one step process, it took about 15-20 minutes to convert and 2 minutes to transfer, there were no tricky seps the app i use does it all in one quick motion, and episodes of family guy convert in about 3-4 minutes and transfer in 1. Oh and there is a program that works seamlesly with itunes, and yes you can organize your music in the psp you can put everything inside of the music folder, in other folders with artist title and album name. And i bet that give it time and it will work with TiVo to go, just start getting th idea around online and someone will make it. And i’ll stick with my 6 hours, at least until a better battery is released, so if you really want your psp 2.0 you might just want to wait like 6 months because they will be releaseing a new batteryad by then who knows about the tivo to go funcionality.

  12. Oh and most long distance flights have outlets, you can just plug your psp in. ^^

  13. well I got a Nintendo DS and I am not sure if I should be happy or not and hey PSP boy shut up with the DVD stuff caouse the ds has one coming in a few months for movies and music.

  14. the only thing that pisses me off is the graffics of the DS but still its the good originalness of the game that counts the graffics don’t have to be great for a great game like zelda the ocorina of time do you know how well that would sell on the DS even tho it has been used on the N64 already

  15. If you want proof about the movie/ music player just search “Nintendo DS move player”

  16. Tybot I think you have missed my point. I don’t want to have to “convert” movies to watch them. If I have a DVD from Netflix, I want to grab it and go. To have to “think ahead” and “plan” is just not acceptable.

    TivoToGo is *better* only because it so simple. I think it is just a right click and voila, it is sitting on my laptop. I don’t have to plug my laptop in anywhere. It works wirelessly.

    And my iPod I almost NEVER sync to my PC because I don’t like the hassle. I have 20 gigs on it and sync it at most 4 times a year to get my latest stuff. You can’t do that with the PSP because there is not built in hardrive.

    And on that subject, I find that the LONGEVITY of a gadget really shows its true usefullness.

    In one year, this is my guess of life for 80% of the PSP’s and the people that bought them:

    1. Many dead pixels which annoy the person.

    2. Many scratches that annoy the person (but this faces every gadget).

    3. Tired of having to plan ahead and transfer movies and music to a small memory stick in anticipation of what they think they will want to watch.

    4. Either stops playing it for games remotely because battery life has dwindled to under 2-3 hours or had to spend $50+ on a new battery.

    5. Pissed off that UMD movies never took off.

    6. Removes “Portable” from the name since anything they want to use it for requires them to plug it in.

    Again I will reiterate if my theme never came through: I think this is a decent first step in a great direction, but just like most version 1.0 products, I will stay away until it solves the issues I bring up.

  17. Looked at a PSP yesterday, It seems to me:

    1 Its big….

    2 Its heavy….

    3 Disks seem fragile….

    4 What the hell is the 802.11 useful for???? Is there a such thing as a web browser for this?? No browser WTF? I think it sucks that there is no practical extras to this…

    5 why does it have to cost so much?

    6 LOAD TIMES SUCK….. longer than 30 sec’s for nfl street i think was the game…

    In essence everything this does I can do better on my Pocket PC… With the exception of graphics…. If I cant get a game I am going to play more than once it is a waste of my money…. I like such things as pocket game boy emulator for ppc…. I have loads of games that i still own cartridges for loaded on my ppc phone… no carts to carry, no disks, etc… why not exploit the 802.11 and allow downloadable Memory stick games…

    you don’t get enough for your money… it will be obsolete in 2 years like everything else….

  18. Virtual Boy is the worst system in history. PSP is a very close second. tied with Dreamcast. I really think that the PSP will go the way of the Game Gear. They just look to much like each other. Nintendo has dominated the hand held market for too long. They are experts in this field. I really don’t see Sony over throwing the Nintendo hand held empire.

  19. alright i see where scott is coming from now, it makes a little more sense, my comments were more for the people calling the psp another virtual boy or..wait..dreamcast..i loved dreamcast…..well anyway, i don’t think the psp’s problems outweigh it’s usefullness, it’s portability for what it does in my opinion is unmatched,sure i could play any movie i want from my laptop with absolute ease, but it does’nt fit in my pocket and the battery life on my laptop is worse. 2 and a half hours.. Also update for all that wish to know, the next psp firmware update will include a web browser, in fact there’s one you can download right now if you’d like. And there are a few hackers right now working on a way to put old ps1 roms on your psp memory card(giving it ten times the usefulness) and have them play straight from ur psp, of course some games that make large use of the l2 and r2 buttons won’t work too well, but that won’t matter for really good games like ff7. and ofcourse sooner than that you’ll be seeing roms for gba,gb, snes, nes and genesis. and you could fit a lot of roms on the 1 gig card. It’s all quite feesible too, the ps2 and ps1 architecture is very similar to the psp and i was a big fan of the old emulators that you could put right on your ps2, i played the old zelda and final fantasies for fun. Argh i don’t have any time to proof read this my dog’s going crazy i have to take her out..arggg hopefully i’ll finish this thought later.

  20. Ok first off if you’re a Nintendo fan boy get ready for some truth.

    Lets add up what the PSP does.

    -Plays pretty much PS2 quality games

    -Plays Music

    -Holds Pictures

    -Holds Videos

    -Plays UMD Videos

    The DS on the other hand..

    -Plays at best N64 quality games.

    -has picto chat…yeah..

    -and uhhh.. that’s about it.

    Sure you could buy a DS, an IPOD, a portable DVD player, and a extra memory card for your digital camera. But for all of that it’s more than two times the cost of a PSP. Sure you have to be careful with it but it’s that way with any quality product. And as far as the dead pixels well if you have more then three you get a new screen or better a new PSP. And dead pixels only come in numbers for the most part. And the battery life mine is usually around 5 hours when doing anything, and that’s with max screen brightness and max sound. The launch titles alone out number the current list of games for the DS. And the other things coming out for the PSP makes it even more worth while such as, the keyboard, webcam, and speakers..Hmm..come on Nintendo fans DS may be innovative but PSP is ground breaking technology.

  21. tru dat….and yeah, not to mention emulators, snes,nes,gba,genesis and ps1..now thats looking hopeful.

  22. People who have enough money to buy that overpriced piece of crap can obviously afford iPods and Portable DVD players and stuff that’s better than the PSP. You people who say PSP is better than DS obviously have never played the DS before. I’ve played the PSP before, and it sucks.

  23. yeah but, why do you hate the psp, i don’t hate the ds, i feel bad for nintendo for there errors of judgement in building the ds. I have fun when i’m playing the ds, i just think that the extra cash is equal to the graphical improvement of the psp.. If the n64 came out a the same time that the ps2 did, i would buy a ps2…..i would still have te time of my life playing zelda ,mario and star fox…..but i would still get the ps2 for all it is capable, dvd, full motion video in game, and better graphics, not to mention so very nice games. You can’t say the psp sucks, i mean what did you even play? and even if the game sucked it wouldn’t make the psp suck. it has some very nice games currently and has some very nice games coming out in the future. So why do you hate?

  24. I am a Nintendo fan boy and I boght one but The PSP is better but I have to mention that the DS is gonna have WI-FI very soon and a movie and Music center. If you want to compare systems think of this too Sony has sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much money compared to Nintendo from other sales so they can afford alot more tests. Both systems are good for the amount of money you pay. Fuck tho the next nintendo system better be just as good as PS3 and Xbox 2 because Gamecube wasn’t that great I know Nintendo can do better so they should. DS has a cool line up of games further in the future. And guys I know we love Nintendo but we all have to admit the PSP is better but the money difference is very far apart both systems are good for their price. Can’t wait till DS has Wi-Fi tho! WOOT!

  25. Quote from different site:

    “Nintendo DS blows everyones breath away so you stupid SONY freaks go cry somewhere else and if you buy a PSP you’ll regret it later and say to yourself that you shoudn’t have wasted all that money on such a crap thing. YOU HEAR THAT! Now piss off Sony fans because Nintendo will rule anyday.”

    Agreed. =)

  26. Stupid kids! Nintendo always had a childish background on games and Playstation does not. Just wait and see and the people who have a psp will be enjoying GBA SNES SEGA roms all that shit in a matter of time HAHAHAHAHAAA Ya’ll have fun with your stupid ugly kid ds waste of money

    Oh yeah i cant wait for the MAME emu on the PSP!!!

  27. The PSP is a piece of shit. It breaks if a breeze comes along, there are problems with the UMD popping out, and not only is it ugly, but the games on it absolutely suck, especially when compared to the games for the DS.

    Sorry, but you can call the PSP great all you want, it sucks….period. Die hard Sony fans are turning away from it.

    Say all you want about the DS, you are just showing how ignorant you are. I think it’s funny that most of the people shooting it down don’t even own one, how dumb do you have to be to do that?

  28. Hey folks it’s me again. Check this out…

    “Say all you want about the DS, you are just showing how ignorant you are. I think it’s funny that most of the people shooting it down don’t even own one, how dumb do you have to be to do that?”-ihatepsp

    Hmm it’s funny that you said that because I think you along with everyone else were complaining about the price so I highly doubt that you bought one. And if you did you just prove that you are a hypocrite. I’m sorry that you guys bought a DS, and a better hand held came along (PSP). But you should stop whining about it, trade in your DS and save up for a PSP. Oh and as for all this extra stuff that the DS is coming out with, after you buy all the things that you need, it’ll most likely be more than if you had just bought a PSP. I will admit though Warioware Touched if fun. Well as someone on here once said. “just keep clutching your DS and play the same ten games over and over again” LOL I love that.

  29. “Hmm it’s funny that you said that because I think you along with everyone else were complaining about the DS so I highly doubt that you bought one. And if you did you just prove that you are a hypocrite. I’m sorry that you guys bought a DS, and a better hand held came along (PSP). But you should stop whining about it, trade in your DS and save up for a PSP. Oh and as for all this extra stuff that the DS is coming out with, after you buy all the things that you need, it’ll most likely be more than if you had just bought a PSP. I will admit though Warioware Touched if fun. Well as someone on here once said. “just keep clutching your DS and play the same ten games over and over again” LOL I love that. ” -Chris (a.k.a. idiot)

    Hmm, I highly doubt that you bought a DS. And if you did you just prove that you are a hypocrite. I’m sorry that you guys bought a PSP, and a better hand held was already out (DS). But you should stop whining about it, trade in your PSP and get a DS. Oh and as for all this extra stuff that the PSP is coming out with, after you buy all the things that you need, it’ll most likely be more than if you had just bought three DS’s. Well as someone once said. “just keep clutching your PSP and play the same few games over and over again” LOL I love that.

    Oh, and one more thing. You’re stupid.

  30. Thanks for everyones comments. Thats all for now. Please take your bashing to a forum more devoted to that purpose. I said how I feel regarding the two systems, and people feel otherwise, fine.

    But if you don’t have anything constructive to add I will just delete your post.

  31. Ya, i think the psp is just a huge gimmick from sony. they just wannna rob money from customers. they already have mp3 players, dvd players, playstation2, now they put it all together under a brand new name of PSP and fool customers into buying it. The DS on the other hand is totally innovative and anyways, Nintendo has always made the best portable systems, so y not continue?

    P.S. Disregard my next post

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