is that a GOOD thing?

For me personally:

1. I play them less b/c of reason 2.

2. They aren't as immersive due to the smaller screen and lack of surround sound. Just can't compare with playing on a nice TV and home theater. Thus it's tough to get motivated to play a handheld game at home, and I travel little and have few chances to play outside the home.

3. Initial price is more important with portables as to this point there's been no greatists hits/players choice line up of cheap hit portable games. Thus the initial price is pretty much it for good games, maybe a $5-10 sale here and there.

Maybe Sony will change this, and do a GH lineup for the PSP in a year or so. That would be a wise move on their part.

Conclusion is....you shouldn't own a next gen handheld.

...or are your pixels starting to mess up?

So you don't own a PSP....

We'll see. If games don't sell like hot cakes, we'll probably see prices come down.

Hopefully Nintendo will wise up and sell all their first party games at $30 (Warioware only one above that right now).

And as I said above, hopefully sony will do a greatest hits lineup for the PSP in a year or so, and Nintendo will inturn do the same with DS and GBA games.

I'm ok with my DS purchase as there are a good deal of kick ass GBA games for under $30, so I don't regret buying that next-gen handheld.

I think a Greatest Hits lineup is a great idea for handhelds. I wonder why this hasn't happened yet. It might be the only way I'm going to afford to play more games in the future.

It means you're low on batteries. That's pretty cool.

Nooooooo....do you own a PSP?

My PSP browser turned pinkish yesterday, I thought it was because I was low on batteries, but I heard in another forum it changed because it went from March to April! Whatever the reason, I take it as a sign that I should devote every waking hour to get to level 60 on Heaven and Hell.

Yeah each month it changes colors

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet.

Get Me Coffee - you need to put some sugar in your beverage for you are BITTER!

While there is no label system, many of the GBA games have dropped over time. A lot went to $20 and could be had at that price for some time, and some games even went to $10-$15.

While price drops are certain someday, I would not be surprised to see Sony continue the Greatest Hits line on the PSP, since it has been successful on the consoles.

1.) People are not used to paying $40-50, and they won't be for some time. The nature of handhelds makes them feel like the games are worth less. This is not always true, but until that can be changed, the games will be a harder sell at higher prices. Nature of the industry right now.

2.) Developers have often treated handhelds as less and produced lesser games. The PSP could change that, but we will need to wait to see if that is the case. Until we see some long action games, in-depth RPGs, etc., we don't know how this will pan out. A good indication will be multi-platform releases. If the games get shorted somehow (whether by laziness or limitations) on the PSP, they should not cost the same as the "bigger brothers."

I have no problem paying premium prices for premium games myself. But I know others do. I hope that developers do not short change the current crop of handhelds and we do see games worthy of higher price tags. It can be done, and should be done.

One of 1up.com's features was how to change the wallpaper... got me interested in the article until I found out it was only via changing the date. they did have a list, though:
January: White
February: Soft Yellow
March: Pea Green
April: Pink
May: Green
June: Soft Purple
July: Turquoise
August: Navy Blue
September: Purple
October: Yellow
November: Brown
December: Red

I really hope that there's a way to permanently change the wallpaper. I've noticed that if you press the HOME button while viewing a picture, it'll become the background, but it seems to reset if you do something else (like view another picture, turn the unit off, etc.)

I'm not sure if they should be less money, but if 11 of the games out now are $40 and 5 are $50, I'm going to at least look at the $40 games first. I'm not saying I'll never buy a $50 PSP game, but it looks like at least some PSP publishers are testing the market to see if they can make money at a $40 MSRP. I'm all for supporting that price point.

Other than that, after spending $250 for the PSP it's easier to justify $40 game purchases than $50.

Because they use smaller game discs.

I traded in 3 games at EB today for Wipeout. I really don't need another PSP game and I already have Ridge Racer but I figure I can't be disappointed if it was basically free (the three games weren't going to see any action at my house again).

Having never played Wipeout, I'm anxious to see how I like it. I'm a bit worried that I'll hit a wall with the difficulty but it didn't cost any out of pocket money so I thought I'd give it a try.

1) I agree with this. Of course, either people get used to the new prices or the market changes. You can't honestly compare a 30 dollar GBA game and say it's the equivalent of a 40 dollar PSP game (ignoring DS and PSP comparisons for the sake of sanity in this thread) Of course, the greatest deal in my handheld collection is still the GBA's Phantasy Star Collection, which included PS 1, 2, and 3 for less than 20 bucks.

2) Well, because handhelds have always been a generation behind (and even the PSP will be), there's no way that developers could fit the same things into handhelds that they did on consoles. As much effort as they put into it, the GBC metal gear solid game would never hold a candle to the PS1 version. They had no choice but to produce lesser games. Which is why most of my favorite portable games are either based on games from the last generation of consoles, or are entirely new games made specifically for the strengths of a handheld (pick up and play games, 2-d rpgs, etc.) Of course, this may be the impetus for companies to up the price of the next generation, as we've discussed on this forum in other threads (if people will pay 50 bucks for a portable game...)

My question is... why did EA decide to price their games higher? Because they could? I mean, RR is a Namco game, not a Sony game, right? and to my knowledge (I've never seen it in stores), it's only 40.

If you change the date to September 11, you get a cool New York Skyline with twin towers wallpaper.

I have a few PS2, PS1, and GBA games I could trade in, plus maybe my 4 year old PS2. Who might give me the best trade in value towards a PSP?

I think mine is broke because on mine it shows up on 9/12.

Generation behind or not, I think a game worth at least 40 can still be made on the GBA, DS, PSP, whatever. Like you said, if made with the strengths of a handheld, quality games can be (and were) made.

I think with the PSP's power, we will hopefully see more price worthy games, but most developers will need to get out of their old way of thinking and really flesh out portable games.

Kinda distasteful... Show some respect.

what game should I get next? I have ape excape and twisted metal. I like long games becuase I do a lot of travel (going to China next week) so I want some thing I can play for hours at a time. Ape is good for that but twisted metal is not it just wears you out.

I am thinking THUG or Spiderman. I know Lumines is a favorite but I cant see playing for long times or am I wrong?

If you've read this thread at all, you'd know that more than a few of us have picked up Lumines intending to play for just a little while, and ended up, hours later, trying to beat that last score. Still, if puzzle games aren't your thing, it won't hold your interest for long.

Since there are so few games out at the moment, I'll say that Wipeout is pretty fun, and will take me a while to unlock everything. Of course, I still think TM is fun and have yet to unlock all of the cars.