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Leakenova's PSP Survival Guide

The PSP is coming out this Thursday and you forgot to pre-order it. Do not worry. Shameless Geeks is here to help to acquire a PSP, and once you have what you need, to make your PSP experience the best.

  1. Run out right now and pre-order the PSP. Most of the major stores are still taking pre-orders. Word of warning: all the stores will most likely take your pre-order but you might not get it till the second or third wave of PSP arrives in stores a few weeks after the launch on Thursday.
  2. Get to know the clerks at the store where you pre-order. Most clerks are underpaid, unloved and easily bribed with a free game. It is often up to the clerks who gets their PSP first, and knowing the clerk can make the difference between getting the first wave of the PSP or the fourth wave.
  3. If you were unable or decided not to pre-order the PSP, get up early, head out to one of the stores like Walmart, Kmart, Target or Meijers who do not do pre-orders. Get in the long line, and pray they do not run out before it is your turn to buy. Better yet, go to the store Wednesday night with your sleeping bag and tent and spend the night in line. That way you do not have to worry whether god exists or not.
  4. Go to the smaller vendors if the bigger vendors sell out. When a new gaming system comes out most people rush off to Walmart, Kmart, Gamespot, Target, Best Buy, Circuit City, Meijers and EBGames. People often forget about the smaller vendors like Suncoast Videos, Game Crazy and fye. Don't believe me? Well, here is an example: when Halo 2 came out the quickest place to get a copy of Halo 2 in the DC area was fye.
  5. Issues may pop up with your PSP, so make sure you fill out the warranty card that comes with it. Remember Sony's first generation video game products always seem to have issues. For example: the over-heating issues with the Playstation One, The dreaded disk reading errors on the Playstation 2, and Japanese version of the PSP having dead pixels and non working buttons. The only issue I have heard so far about the US version of the PSP is the rumored crashes from time to time during WiFi play, but that might be a software related issue.
  6. If your PSP is one of the first million sold, then you will get the Universal Mini Disk (UMD) movie Spiderman 2 for free. If you are a movie buff, pick up one of the cool movies that Lion Gate Films and Sony are releasing for the PSP and enjoy some movies on the go. Well, one movie anyway
  7. Once you get your PSP and a game that uses WiFi over the Internet, like Twisted Metal, head out to Starbucks and start abusing Starbuck's free WiFi. If you do not like coffee, then you can do what I plan to do: wander around my neighborhood hunting for the one neighbor who forgot to secure his WiFi connection.
  8. The PSP comes with a 32MB memory stick, which is great if you only plan to use it for game saves. If you want movies or music then you will need to get at least a 512MB memory stick for around $90. For an additional $60 you can get the biggest bad boy on the block, the 1GB memory stick. Get a bigger memory stick if you want to actually play music or movies that are not on UMD disks.
  9. In order to get the music and all those movies onto that 1GB memory stick you will need a memory stick reader on your computer or the (not included) USB cable. Sony also did not create a manager for music files. You will need to download a PSP file manager if you do not want to do a lot of dragging and dropping to the memory stick.
  10. In order to play movies that are not on UMD disks, they need to be in the MPEG-4 format and in a special hidden directory on the memory stick. Luckily, someone had the foresight to create PSP video 9, a program which allows you to convert regular PC video files into the MPEG-4 format. It can also manage the transfer of the movies between your PC and your PSP. PSP Video 9 is free, but the creator does appreciate donations.
  11. The battery life stinks if you are taking any long plane trips or plan to watch more then one movie on a UMD disk before having to recharge the PSP. The PSP's battery life is two to five hours at best. Either you better get lots and lots of battery packs/portable chargers or you will spend a lot of time with the PSP plugged into the wall.
  12. Lets not forget the real reason you are buying the PSP, the games. Here are all the games that I have heard a lot of cool things about: Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower , Lumines, Ridge Racer, Wipeout Pure, and Twisted Metal: Head On. My personal recommendation is the ultra cool puzzle game Lumines.

Good luck on getting a PSP and if you fail to get your PSP this week remember there is always Ebay. Alternatively, you can simply wait a month or two when there will be plenty in the stores.

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