2006-03-23

PSP-Video Killed the NDS-Star

[Originally posted on 1Up.com]

So far I've been pretty sure that my PSP wasn't going to muscle out my DS as my primary handheld gaming machine, and it hasn't. However what I've come to realize is that it has drastically reduced the amount of time I spend playing on my DS just the same.

On my daily trips to and from work I have a number of possible choices for how to spend the 35 to 45 minutes in each direction. Use to be I was always reading, but after a day at work, sometimes I'm just so tired that even reading feels like a chore. So, I got a GameBoy Color back in '99 and was happy to vary between reading and playing.

When the GameBoy Advance came out I immediately upgraded, likewise when the SP was released and again with the DS (which I am planning to upgrade to a Lite in the near future...). All the while I would intersperse gaming with reading even if gaming slowly gained "travel time" as the games got better and more addictive (eg. Advance Wars).

Enter the PSP. Now it was not just possible to play games or read during my daily commute, I also had the possibility to watch videos, and I'm finding that more often than not I prefer watching the latest episode of Invasion, The 1UP Show or GameSpot's On the Spot than play a game. I even tend to watch video reviews of games instead of playing them, that's pretty f**ked- up!

I bought Age of Empires - Age of Kings yesterday, but this morning I chose instead to watch On the Spot on the train... Gaming isn't the only activity taking a back-seat to video though, the latest issues of my two primary gaming magazines are also lying in my bag waiting to be read, well "luckily" there won't be another episode of Invasion for about a month now....

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