GIANCARLO VARANINI So this was your first time getting your hands on a PSP. What do you think?

JOHN DAVISON The screen immediately made an impression. The biggest problem with handhelds is that you rarely feel fully immersed in the game, because you have all of these distractions around you and you’re hunched over peering at that tiny little screen. The PSP is different, and I found with Need for Speed especially that I was sucked in the same way I am with the PS2 version.

GV Agreed. Even though I had already seen it at Tokyo Game Show, I’m still amazed by the thing. The screen is so incredibly clear and the rest of the PSP just looks so slick that I don’t even realize that I’m using a handheld, really. But I still have some issues with the analog nub. I mean, it’s not horrible or anything, but there is a learning curve involved, as was shown by my awesome ability to run into walls in Rivals. Tiger Woods is a different story. The nub feels like it was made for that game.

JD The problem with the nub isn’t so much a game design issue as it is simply the thing itself. The fact that it slides rather than tilts comes as a complete surprise when you first use it, and it almost feels spring-loaded as it snaps back to its center point. It feels like it was designed as a navigation aid rather than a game controller. It’s perfect for snapping through menus, but it’s all wrong for games. My biggest issue is that it feels like it’s in the wrong place. For action games like Rivals, it’s too uncomfortable, because it forces you to hold the PSP differently, and you find you prod it rather than take advantage of the analog function. If that’s the way it forces you to play, you’re better off using the D-pad, which is in exactly the right place and feels wonderful. You’re right about Tiger, though. The nub makes it easier to make shots than a traditional stick.

After seeing what’s coming to PSP early on and playing with the thing for a while, I have a prediction for how things will go down. When it ships, there’ll be talk of limited supplies and I have a feeling it will be a similar predicament to the PS2 launch. We’ll see people bitching about battery life on message boards, because it’s an easy target for that, and we’ll see comments about the initial lineup of games, which while broad, is superficially quite stale. I think more cynical gamers will criticize the thing for being a device on which everyone trots out all the old chestnuts. When you hear the list of EA games, your first reaction is “Well, of course that’s what they’re going to do. The only thing missing is Madden.” Where is Madden, by the way?

GV I think we can almost guarantee there will be a shortage in North America, even if it’s not entirely real. It’ll be free advertising for Sony when you see all these mainstream news reports about the PSP supply not meeting demand, creating the “Wow, if it’s so popular, maybe I should buy one” sentiment amongst consumers who either don’t know much about it or are on the fence about buying one. It worked for Tickle Me Elmo, so why not the PSP? But yeah, I’m sure we’ll hear some valid complaints about battery life. I’m just worried that there’s going to be some kind of massive defect with the unit, whether it’s dead pixels on the screen or something about the UMD drives.

As for Madden, I think the answer is that the timing is just off. Releasing a pro-football game in March probably doesn’t make much sense to them since the average football fan expects a new Madden to hit stores in the late summer or early fall. Of course, that isn’t stopping them from releasing NFL Street. However, Street is kind of a different beast since it hasn’t quite latched on to Madden’s success yet. Still, as impressed as I was with all of these games, especially NBA Street Remix, I feel like there’s something missing.

JD The thing that always shocks me is how lousy Japanese system launches are. If you look back, the original PS1 was plagued by limited numbers, and there was only one game available at first. Then the PS2 had all sorts of problems. Sony couldn’t make the units fast enough, they couldn’t make the chips fast enough, and the launch lineup was pathetic. Now with the PSP, it seems to be happening again. Only 260,000 units hit stores in Japan in December, and of course there was talk of dud screens and broken nubs. The biggest concern was games again, though. All those poor people that lined up in the cold didn’t have much to choose from, and we saw a lot of people buying systems just for the hell of it and then sitting tight to wait for games to come out.

The U.S. launch seems like it will be quite different. Manufacturing should be up to speed, and it’s starting to look like there will be a lot of games available. There are more than 20 already on our radar for the March “launch window” [including these six from EA, plus the games already confirmed for Europe—see page 56], and we know that several publishers are working on stuff, but they won’t be making any announcements until CES in Vegas January 5. I think the launch here will be much more spectacular. I’m sure there will be shortages, just like with PS2, but I bet that by the summer it’ll be easier to get a PSP.

Copyright © 2004 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine.