• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

13+ Hour Road Trip: PSP or DS?

haunts said:
you also need the compactflash card to go with that.

basically if watching movies is THAT important to you, your only real option is the PSP. I would really decide what is worth more to you.. playing great games or watching movies.. yes the PSP has some good games for it, but not (IMHO) on the caliber of AWDS, MKDS, Castlevania, Meteos, etc... that being said, just stop trying to figure out a way to watch movies on the DS.. it isn't worth it.. if it is THAT important to you you are probably better of going with a PSP.
 
-jinx- said:
But you bought it as a gift, which makes perfect sense. I don't see how anyone else would honestly buy a spare unit to keep around as a just-in-case for ad hoc travel partners. If his companions on this trip already have a DS or PSP, that might be a factor in his decision, though.
Why not? Do you have a spare PS2 pad in case anybody ever wants to play with you?

See, if he's already willing to spend what it costs to get a PSP plus a decent sized MSDuo, why not get 2 DS units and always have an option for multiplayer? It's loaded with great multiplayer games, most of which allow single card multiplayer. And it doesn't just have to be for "travel partners" either. Got a girlfriend? Got a roomate? Play some Mario Kart. :)
 
PSP + car charger + Lumines + GTA


If you have the money

1gig mem stick + some tv shows.


13 hours will fly by
 
haunts said:
I used to own a gameboy and loved advance wars. I love Castlevania too but never tried many of them on the gameboys.

I mean, that is one thing I am considering too.. which sytem will I get use out of AFTER the trip? lol. :)
Sounds like a DS might be a better choice for you, based on your past portable history and gaming tastes. You could catch up on the Castlevanias you missed plus the new one on the DS, and the new Advance Wars as well.
 
Kung Fu Jedi said:
GTA, Hot Shots Golf, Burnout: Legends, and Untold Legends all beg to differ. I'm sure there are others as well, but those are the ones that jump to mind for me as all of which are long games, with plenty to do, that I have personally played.
compared to AWDS and MKDS, all of those play times fall short without multiple plays through. unlocking everything in MKDS alone will probably take the typical person 20-30 hours straight through. AWDS is even more than that.
 
-jinx- said:
Again, I simply don't think that's true.
Well, it's all up to taste. I'd say games like GTA, Hot Shots, Mario Kart and (especially) Advance Wars are all nearly limitlessly replayable.
 
I like the PSP much better for games, by far.

However, for movies you'll want a 1GB mem stick, or buy some UMDs. And you'll want a car charger.

DS might be more practical.
 
borghe said:
compared to AWDS and MKDS, all of those play times fall short without multiple plays through. unlocking everything in MKDS alone will probably take the typical person 20-30 hours straight through. AWDS is even more than that.

20-30 hours? I'll bet I have at least twice that in Hot Shots Golf, and I'm still not 100% complete. Have you ever played a GTA game? You do know that the GTA on PSP is as full featured, and as huge, as the console versions right?
 
borghe said:
compared to AWDS and MKDS, all of those play times fall short without multiple plays through. unlocking everything in MKDS alone will probably take the typical person 20-30 hours straight through. AWDS is even more than that.

GTA will take 20-25 hours to beat and that's only 40-50% of the game.
 
Razoric said:
GTA will take 20-25 hours to beat and that's only 40-50% of the game.
20-25 hours just to beat? that is longer than I've heard (around 17-20 hours).. I haven't played it so I don't know.. just basing on what I have heard.
 
I mean I'd rather play games, but come on, can you blame me if I can find a way to watch movies too?

I guess getting a decent memory stick and the actual movie player itself will cost close enough to jsut get a PSP. hah..
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
I like the PSP much better for games, by far.
Well, DS also allows (legal) access to the vast GBA library. If we're giving weight to UMD Video, we should probably be giving more weight to that too.... there's just a dramatically larger selection of games playable on DS.
 
borghe said:
20-25 hours just to beat? that is longer than I've heard (around 17-20 hours).. I haven't played it so I don't know.. just basing on what I have heard.
I've had it for a week and I've played regularly 1-2 hours a day and I'm at 8% complete.

But I can't stand playing that game for extended periods of time.
 
Well you could always splurge and get both. The total battery life should be right at 13 hours. Then again, I'm the one who probably won't be able to afford any more games this year after MKDS.
 
haunts said:
I guess getting a decent memory stick and the actual movie player itself will cost close enough to jsut get a PSP. hah..
no. you still need the mem stick for the PSP also.. essentially with the DS you will end up paying ~$95 to watch movies and the PSP will be about $80 to watch movies.

you can't do anything with the PSP's included memstick except save game data (only 32MB)
 
jarrod said:
Why not? Do you have a spare PS2 pad in case anybody ever wants to play with you?
A DualShock 2 is $20. A DS is $130, plus the cost of a game in certain cases. Do I need to go any farther?

See, if he's already willing to spend what it costs to get a PSP plus a decent sized MSDuo, why not get 2 DS units and always have an option for multiplayer? It's loaded with great multiplayer games, most of which allow single card multiplayer. And it doesn't just have to be for "travel partners" either. Got a girlfriend? Got a roomate? Play some Mario Kart. :)
1) The "decent sized Memory Stick Pro Duo" is a bit of a red herring. and I think people like to add it on to the cost of the PSP to make the price difference artificially greater. With the exception of Wipeout Pure and its downloadable content, you don't need large storage for gaming. I bought a 1 GB stick some time ago, and so far, it's been a waste. If you want to use it as a portable music player, then yes, you need a bigger stick...but it's still cheaper than buying two separate players in many cases.

2) I think we have different use cases for gaming. I haven't had a roommate in many years, and my GF is (unfortunately) not a gamer. When I game, it's almost always solitary...and with the PSP, I'm often in a hotel room somewhere for work. What you're saying may be more valid for haunts' situation, though.
 
borghe said:
20-25 hours just to beat? that is longer than I've heard (around 17-20 hours).. I haven't played it so I don't know.. just basing on what I have heard.

I guess it's possible to beat it in the time frame but I usually do some of the extra side missions a long the way (police, ambulance, trash truck, delivery, street races, RC car missions, used car / bike sales, etc).
 
jarrod said:
Well, it's all up to taste. I'd say games like GTA, Hot Shots, Mario Kart and (especially) Advance Wars are all nearly limitlessly replayable.
Oh, agreed. I was just pointing out that his statement about NOTHING on the PSP library offering that kind of play value was false. Both systems have some major time-killers. :)
 
borghe said:
no. you still need the mem stick for the PSP also.. essentially with the DS you will end up paying ~$95 to watch movies and the PSP will be about $80 to watch movies.

you can't do anything with the PSP's included memstick except save game data (only 32MB)
Again, I think this is overblown. If he's going to watch movies on UMD and use the Memory Stick for game saves, the 32 MB included is probably more than enough for most games out there...and a marginally larger one (256 MB) made by SanDisk (good brand) is $31 from Amazon.
 
borghe said:
no. you still need the mem stick for the PSP also.. essentially with the DS you will end up paying ~$95 to watch movies and the PSP will be about $80 to watch movies.
With the Giga Pack out, the cost differential is down to $50 for the PSP.
 
-jinx- said:
A DualShock 2 is $20. A DS is $130, plus the cost of a game in certain cases. Do I need to go any farther?
Jesus Christ, lay off. I have friends who buy multiple consoles just for LAN play, DS is so cheap it's actually not a bad option given the costs. Especially when virtually all worthwhile titles allow single card multiplayer.


-jinx- said:
1) The "decent sized Memory Stick Pro Duo" is a bit of a red herring. and I think people like to add it on to the cost of the PSP to make the price difference artificially greater. With the exception of Wipeout Pure and its downloadable content, you don't need large storage for gaming. I bought a 1 GB stick some time ago, and so far, it's been a waste. If you want to use it as a portable music player, then yes, you need a bigger stick...but it's still cheaper than buying two separate players in many cases.
He specifically wants to watch movies. I imagine he'll go for the GIGA pack then, which means $300. For that he could get 2 DS units and Mario Kart DS too.


-jinx- said:
2) I think we have different use cases for gaming. I haven't had a roommate in many years, and my GF is (unfortunately) not a gamer. When I game, it's almost always solitary...and with the PSP, I'm often in a hotel room somewhere for work. What you're saying may be more valid for haunts' situation, though.
Well true, being a primairily GBA gamer, solitary gaming actually takes up most of my time too. But that's been slowly changing thanks to DS... buying a 2nd DS was the best purchase I've made in awhile.
 
What you prefer?

- Mario Kart or WipeOut?

- Meteos or Lumminies?

- Castelvania or GTA?

- Sonic Rush or Apple Scape?

- Asphalt or Ridge Racer ( easy here! hehehe)

- Mario 64 DS or medievil?

- Advance Wars or Soccon?

- Movie Player or 1gig mem stick ?


OEDAN (import for music fans)
Jump Super Star ( import for anime/ manga fans)
Nintendogs ( for animal and girlfriends fans)
Trace Memories
Tonny Hawk online

OR

Burnout
Hot Shots Golf
Madden


Make your top 10 and be happy! :)
 
I'm tempted to disagree with some posts (such as borghes opinion on the PSP game library) but Im not sure if haunts wants his thread turned into a bickering argument or if he just wanted us to post our thoughts and piss off. :)

BDGAME Jump Super Star vs Bleach: The Heat ! :)
 
-jinx- said:
Oh, agreed. I was just pointing out that his statement about NOTHING on the PSP library offering that kind of play value was false. Both systems have some major time-killers. :)
Yeah agreed. And now both are finally getting worthwhile experiences which couldn't be replicated reasonably well on GBA (GTA LCS, Mario Kart DS). I love Hots Shots OT and Advance Wars DS... but they're both essentially prettier versions of GBA games at their core.
 
BDGAME said:
What you prefer?

- Mario Kart or WipeOut?

- Meteos or Lumminies?

- Castelvania or GTA?

- Sonic Rush or Apple Scape?

- Asphalt or Ridge Racer ( easy here! hehehe)

- Mario 64 DS or medievil?

- Advance Wars or Soccon?

- Movie Player or 1gig mem stick ?


OEDAN (import for music fans)
Jump Super Star ( import for anime/ manga fans)
Nintendogs ( for animal and girlfriends fans)
Trace Memories
Tonny Hawk online

OR

Burnout
Hot Shots Golf
Madden


Make your top 10 and be happy! :)

FTW. This is a dumb thread. Asking if you should get a PSP or DS and not wanting a VS war is like taking a fat kid to Candyland and telling him not to eat Mr. Mint. That's just not possible. The system libraries should be different enough by now for you to know what you'd prefer.
 
jarrod said:
Well, DS also allows (legal) access to the vast GBA library. If we're giving weight to UMD Video, we should probably be giving more weight to that too.... there's just a dramatically larger selection of games playable on DS.


Well, since I was giving my opinion, let me elaborate.

I prefer the PSP native library by far. And I prefer the ability to run emulators and homebrew by far over being able to run the GBA back catalogue.

As far as legality-- I own a ton of NES and SNES games. This just makes them portable.
 
Oni Jazar said:
FTW. This is a dumb thread. Asking if you should get a PSP or DS and not wanting a VS war is like taking a fat kid to Candyland and telling him not to eat Mr. Mint. That's just not possible. The system libraries should be different enough by now for you to know what you'd prefer.


Nah, it's not dumb. I was looking for specific answers to questions, and wanted to hear about peoples actual experinces with the systems in similar situations. I wanted people to understand it was a sincere post and not me just trying to start up a flame war or something. that's all.
 
haunts said:
Nah, it's not dumb. I was looking for specific answers to questions, and wanted to hear about peoples actual experinces with the systems in similar situations. I wanted people to understand it was a sincere post and not me just trying to start up a flame war or something. that's all.
so did you find the answers to your questions? Did you pick?
 
haunts, since nobody seems to be answering the questions in your original post more directly:

haunts said:
How does the whole movie thing work with PSP? Do you transfer AVI files to a memory stick or can you throw them on a UMD? Or can you only play movies that you buy from the store on UMD?
You can't record anything to UMD. UMDs are only for games and pre-recorded movies right now. All movies go on memory stick and the only format supported is MP4 and, as of version 2.0 PSP firmware, the AVC variant of that. You'd have to convert AVIs, DIVX, XVID, etc. There are a few programs out there to manage this conversion easily enough.

Are there any good RPGs for PSP or any games that would take a good 10 hrs + to complete?
There's action RPGs like Untold Legends and X-Men Legends 2. This week will add another action RPG, Kingdom of Paradise. This week also sees the release of the first traditional RPG for the PSP in the US, Legend of Heroes. Of the two action RPGs that are out now, X-Men Legends 2 has been more enjoyable, but you may have already played that on one of the consoles.

Of PSP non-RPGs that could last you past 10+ hrs on first playthrough, I'd recommend Gripshift since I know no one else is going to mention it here. :) 100+ levels, unlockable minigames and you can download additional levels from the developer or users before you go on your trip to bulk up the package even more. If you get bored with all of that, there's still the built-in track editor which can be pretty fun just to mess around with and see what kind of bizarre track designs you can come up with on your own.
 
Ignatz Mouse said:
And I prefer the ability to run emulators and homebrew by far over being able to run the GBA back catalogue.
Well, one can also run homebrew or emus on DS, including all the various GBA apps. The scene's not quite like PSP (nothing like PCE or Genesis yet) but there's a wealth of options here as well.


Ignatz Mouse said:
As far as legality-- I own a ton of NES and SNES games. This just makes them portable.
Unless you've flashed those game roms yourself from those specific hard copies you own... it isn't. You don't own the code, only your specific copy of the code which you can yourself legally backup.... but using someone else's backup is still illegal.
 
kaching said:
haunts, since nobody seems to be answering the questions in your original post more directly:

snip

Thanks man. I think everyone read the first pargraph and jumped to post. hah. :)

Date of Lies,

I'm going with the DS.
 
BY THE WAY..

Just so you guys know..

This is a 13 hour trip to play some fucking street fighter 3. is that hardcore or what?
 
haunts said:
BY THE WAY..

Just so you guys know..

This is a 13 hour trip to play some fucking street fighter 3. is that hardcore or what?
Well fuck. Then everybody in the car should have a DS and you should all play Mario Kart, Puyo Puyo, Bomberman and Advance Wars endlessly. :)
 
jarrod said:
Well fuck. Then everybody in the car should have a DS and you should all play Mario Kart, Puyo Puyo, Bomberman and Advance Wars endlessly. :)

Im actually going to bring my joystick and just practice combos with my eyes closed to improve execution. I figure this will get old after about 3 hours so I will need something else to do.

hah, kidding of course. but a good point, i wonder if anyone i am riding with has a DS. hmm..
 
haunts said:
Im actually going to bring my joystick and just practice combos with my eyes closed to improve execution. I figure this will get old after about 3 hours so I will need something else to do.
Actually, maybe a PSP with DarkSalkers would be a better option then? They're releasing SFA3 next year too.
 
Where are you people getting 13 hours of playtime for DS? Do you play on mute with the backlight off? Mine goes for maybe 5-6.
 
TheDuce22 said:
Where are you people getting 13 hours of playtime for DS? Do you play on mute with the backlight off? Mine goes for maybe 5-6.
I said 8-10... which is what I usually get actually.
 
Buy a book, and spend the saved cash in Philly on beer & women.

Then buy a DS/PSP when you know which one you want without having to resort to a thread like this.
 
If you're going to Philly you should definately hit up this restaurant in China Town called Panang. That place is the scheit!
 
Both are pretty good if you have a car adapter. PSP offers more versatility though since you can watch TV shows, movies, and listen to music on it. If you're a cheap bastard, then DS + Advance Wars + Castlevania is a lock to kill that time too (plus whatever GBA title you might also have).
 
jarrod said:
13 hour roadtrip huh?

DS: 8-10 hours playtime

PSP: 3-6 hours playtime

...guess who wins? :P

...The company selling a car power adaptor? :P

The thing to remember about getting a PSP, haunts, is that you're going to have to spend another $100 or so to get a good size memory stick duo; if you want to watch movies, you're not going to want anything less than 1gb. As for games, obviously GTA is the one to get, but don't forget about stuff like Darkstalkers Chronicle and Guilty Gear XX #Reload. Plus if you can get the right firmware, you can use all the emulators.

The DS is going to be cheaper and there are awesome games like Meteos and Castlevania available, so both systems are worth looking into.

Although if you just want something mess around with in the car for a little while, screw them both and go pick up a GBA SP or Micro and some cheap games instead. I wouldn't bother buying a DS or PSP unless you really think you're going to be playing them a lot after your trip is over.

Last time I went on a road trip, I decided to bring my PS2 and screen instead. Watched DVD movies and played some Third Strike in the back.
 
Top Bottom