The End Has Come. I Bought a PSP

Yeah, yeah, I know, I bought a Sony product. Crazy, huh, especially 'cause I'm a huge Xbox fan and I generally harp on Sony at every chance I get. So allow me to sum it up for you:

October and November are going to be pyscho-crazy months for me at work, and I'm fully expecting to be working many 15 and possibly even 20 hour days. This will include both weekdays _and_ weekends, and I'll likely be spending time either traveling to and fro in cabs or staying in hotel rooms.

Aside from no sleep and free pizza and beer, I'm also not going to have a lot of time for gaming. I'm going to miss the launches of Fallout 3, Fable II, and possibly even Gears of War 2, which has me the slightest bit grumpy, and what can I say, I need my gaming fix.

Since I've known this was coming for a while, I really started to think about buying a portable gaming platform, something I hadn't touched since the original Game Boy. Can't say I'm a fan of Nintendo's new kiddie-centric style, what with me being a hardcore gamer and all, so the DS certainly doesn't appeal to me, and unfortunately, Microsoft has not released an "Xbox portable," which means my only real alternative is Sony's PSP.

So I've done my research and really looked into the product, and I've decided to give it a whirl, both as a portable gaming console and also as a multimedia device. In general, I don't expect I'll own too many games for it, and I figure I'll stick to exclusive titles.

To that end, I picked up the Limited Edition God of War PSP Entertainment Pack, which at this point was very difficult to find brand-new. After looking over the PSP game library, God of War: Chains of Olympus does look rather cool and I'm hoping it'll fit my gaming style.

While I know Sony will be releasing a newer model PSP (the PSP-3000) on October 14th, which includes an improved LCD screen and a built-in microphone, I didn't have an issue with the LCD screen on the PSP-1000 models I demoed, and I don't need a built-in mic since I have no plans to play Multiplayer or use it as a communication device.

Thus, I had no issue picking up this pack with it's limited edition deep red PSP-2000 model and silk screen image of Kratos on the back. Considering this bundle is selling for about $180.00 on Kijiji used, if I find I don't like it and I made a mistake, I know I'll be able to re-sell it soon for anywhere between 50% to 75% of what I paid; the limited edition status has made sure of that (never hurts to plan ahead).

So once I finally get around to opening the box and tinkering with my new PSP, I'll let you know what I think. I'm actually excited because it does seem like a really cool little handheld.

I do still want to go on the record as saying that Sony indeed dropped the ball with their PlayStation 3 platform, my thougts on that haven't changed one bit. So blah!