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Discussion (30 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews
Also my observation is that nothing that ever appear trendy on tiktok, instagram or youtube ever translate to real life. There are just an awful lot of super niche trends happening at the same time that only those in their respective algorithmic bubble are aware of.
It was(/is) a great device for playing ps1 and snes games. It doesn't seem so special now that there are so many emulation focused handhelds, but at the time it felt really awesome to be able to play games like that on a plane.
As an aside, I really liked the brief time I got to work on PSP software. From what I remember it was a fixed function GPU and a decent enough CPU that all felt really balanced for the time. After working on things like Gameboy Advance and a little bit of Nintenod DS, it felt like an ocean of possibility compared with those two. I'm sure if I was to go back to it now it would feel claustrophobic but at the time it was pretty comfy.
I still have my original PSP 1000 which worked well until my daughter dropped it a couple weeks ago...
I recently dug mine out of storage and did a few quests in one of the Monster Hunter games, loading up an old save. It felt like I had barely put it down. My hunting log showed all the "recent" quests I had completed... 16 years ago.
A used Vita would be a good modern replacement (and not even that much more expensive) but even in their afterlife I guess it's still doomed to play second fiddle to PSP.
I recently freed mine and have been having a great time with everything it had to offer while being so much more portable than anything mainstream sold now as portable.
It even got a WPA (AES even, but unfortunately only some unusual WPA1+AES mode at that) with a firmware update, so you didn’t necessarily need a second insecure SSID like you do for the DS (which is WEP only).
A lot of people also still have a PSP just hanging around, less so with the vita.
"It's not just this, or this other thing, it's another thing."
"It’s not always about playing through a full game, it’s about the object itself, what it says, how it looks, the feeling it gives off."
"Not as a replacement, but as an alternative."
"It’s not just a handheld. It’s a self-contained beautifully designed little bubble"
"You’re not browsing a library of endless options, you’re watching something because you decided to put it there."
"It’s not just nostalgia, and it’s not just retro collecting."
I don't think these fluffy statements contribute to the overall thesis, and it could be trimmed down a bunch. Not every blog post needs to be Jony Ive waxing on about the purity of the iPod. No shade, I appreciate the attention given to the device and community, but it's just a bit padded imo.
I recently got a PSP (along with a special cable that I can use to hook it up to my TV); there is a pretty strong aftermarket ecosystem for them.
I have huge respect for the folks who spent countless hours freeing devices like the PSP from the control of the corporations that wanted them locked down. I think we'll need a lot more of that spirit in the years ahead...
Pair that with a 30-40$ controller extension like the Razer Kishi and you have a really powerful retro gaming device.
It will be missing the haptics, the original display, the small UMD drive loading noises and vibrations – all that stuff was part of the experience as well.
For example, it took me a wrong time to realize why emulated Game Boy Color games felt so “off” until I learned that the original display had such an extremely narrow color gamut that mapping the GBC display output to full RGB is completely wrong. The same applies to the DMG and its shades-of-green (not grey!) display with its absurdly slow LCD ghosting that needs to be accurately emulated to see anything at all in a few games that made very clever use of the constraint as a feature.
There are some good shaders these days that try to approximate all that, but it’s still just that: An approximation.
But there's something quite nostalgic about holding the console you had as a kid and going down a good old happy memory lane
You can of course buy that device, but from personal experience the novelty doesn't last very long and then it just becomes just another device in the drawer graveyard. Also no one's really making new PSP games anymore? so the novelty of the PSP remains in its construction and the software; which becomes limiting as time goes on.
The joystick, buttons all tend to break or stick after 20 years, replacements may or may not be easy to come by for most, so it just makes more sense into building your own retro game device that supports PSP emulation among others.