March 26, 2005 - September 9, 2005
It was a good portable system. A VERY good portable system. The only one I really ever cared for and enjoyed. Near-equal in power to a PS2 but with a screen I could actually look at WITHOUT squinting my eyes!
Its backlit screen enabled me to play games in the dark or watch my Spidey 2 movie UMD. I never, never had to use a magnifying glass or tilt the screen to see the video.
The sound was CD-quality in stereo with video that looked never DVD quality.
(Yes, there are admittedly more UMD movies out there than there are games for the system, but just you wait, the good games ARE coming! In the meantime, enjoy Time Bandits, Spidey 2, Tron, Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2, or any of the overpriced movie UMDs available for the PSP. The games WILL come later this fall...)
Unfortunately, I should have known better... It was a first-generation Sony system, and anybody that's owned a first-generation, first-production run Sony system knows they're not made to last long for this gaming life!
My first-day of North American release PS1 was also not long for the world. 18 months after I bought it, I had to replace its CD-ROM drive. 3-5 months later, it failed for good. I traded that system and 10 games for a Sega Dreamcast -- which STILL works to this day!
At leastt the PSP was still under warranty. Sony's sending me a replacement system in the mail!
P.S. -- The system's symptoms indicating it was dying. A D-pad stuck in the "Up" position, malfunctioning system, boot-up, and the inability to exist from a game into the system menu options...
Yes, my PSP had an aneurysm that killed it!
