*UPDATE 2* PSP or DS?

[KingstonU]

UPDATE 2: No chance of playing Echochrome on DS is there?

So I just buy any microSD card with the DS and load an emulator and roms onto it and just plug it in and can play NES SNES games just like on a PC?


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UPDATE: Are these easy to hack? Is there a guide somewhere? Is one harder to hack than the other? I heard that sony hates that the PSP is being hacked, did they prevent that with the new PSP?

The DS can't play SNES roms??

What is the difference between DS and DS light?

Also what is the price difference?

Thanks

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I plan on ordering either of these sometime in the next couple of weeks but I don't much about either. It will be primarily to ease the long travel times I often have. I don't see myself using these for anything other than occasional gaming, so not really looking for other features.

Pros/Cons of each? What are their prices (Canada)? What are their battery lives?

What games do you recommend for either?
Games I think I would like are simple pick up and play casually such as Echochrome (PSP) Brain Age (DS) but I am open minded.

Also I here that the PSP can be cracked to play games off a memory card instead of the mini cds that come with it, is this still possible on new ones? Does it increase battery life? Allow you to play other games?

What versions are best? DS or DS light? PSP or PSP Slim?

And anything else I am forgetting.

Thanks

 

[Yreka]

Are you more of a wii or a PS3/360 guy ?

Seems to me most people that prefer the wii and like games prefer the DS. People who like the PS3/360 games as well as media functionality tend to prefer the PSP.

Gross generalization of course, but it is a pretty open ended question..

 

[oznerol]

Get a DS Lite.

Advance Wars is a great game.

The DS is much better for pick up and play games than the PSP. If you're more interested in stronger graphics and other media functionality (and if you own a PS3), the PSP is a better choice.

The DS uses a stylus so many games can be played 1-handed. PSP has a little analog stick to make it similar to the Playstation controller.

Both can be hacked to play games off a memory card - PSP is more powerful so it can handle emulation better - mainly for SNES and the like.

Battery life is ~6 hours for the DS, ~4 for the PSP - maybe up to 6 now with the PSP slim.

DS uses flash media to run games - PSP uses a much slower loading (and a bit noisy) proprietary UMD format - similar to a mini-disc.

 

[KaOTiK]

DS is much more of a portal system by its game library then the PSP is. Basically think of the PSP has like a PS2 on the go, thats the types of games it has while the DS has much more friendly pick up and go games and friendlier portable games in general.

I own both and I prefer the DS for actual playing on the go. My PSP gets most it play time when I am gonna be in one spot for a bit of time. If you do have a PS3 though, the PSP would probably be the better buy. Setting up remote connect between them is great and you can play some PSN games on the PSP via streaming and can do the same with PS1 classics you buy on the PSN. PSP does have the advantage of being very friendly for homebrew being able to play oldschool games.

Batterly life is better for the DS out of the two.

 

[Piuc2020]

I prefer the 360/PS3 and I prefer the DS so your logic is flawed

Now seriously, the DS has an abundance of great games, just off the top of my head I can name games like Castlevania, Phoenix Wright (and Apollo Justice), Mario Kart DS (best version of Mario Kart, MK Wii is a clone of MK DS), New Super Mario Bros., Trauma Center (1 & 2), Tetris DS, Warioware, Contra 4, Final Fantasy Tactics A2, Final Fantasy 3, Final Fantasy 4, Elite Beat Agents, Zelda, Hotel Dusk, Phantom Hourglass and there are a whole bunch too.

Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow/Portrait of Ruin and Phoenix Wright 1, 2 and 3 were probably among the top 5 games (counting Castlevania and Phoenix Wright as two of course not 5 lol) I played in 2007.

If you plan to hack them though, the PSP is much better in that regards, emulation for everything, a nicer, bigger screen and overall more flexibility for media and the like but the DS still rules for games in my opinion.

 

[JF060392]

I your an FPS person DON'T get either. controls for FPS games are impossible on both system due to a lack of 2 axial control sticks. graphics on the PSP are much nicer. PSP has some serious modifications that you could do to its firmware.

once you have a modified firmware you can find an infinite number of homebrew games, emulators, utilities and programs.

(you can even load a light version of linux onto it.)

however, if you are cowardly and perfer games that dwarf your masculinity, you could go with the DS which has games, such as nintendogs.

 

[mugs]

They're both great handhelds with a good selection of games. You really can't go wrong either way. Personally, I'd take the DS for the Advance Wars series alone. Also don't forget that with the DS you can also play GBA games. Cheap used games FTW.

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: JF060392
I your an FPS person DON'T get either. controls for FPS games are impossible on both system due to a lack of 2 axial control sticks. graphics on the PSP are much nicer. PSP has some serious modifications that you could do to its firmware.

once you have a modified firmware you can find an infinite number of homebrew games, emulators, utilities and programs.

(you can even load a light version of linux onto it.)

however, if you are cowardly and perfer games that dwarf your masculinity, you could go with the DS which has games, such as nintendogs.

You must use your thumbs to play first-person shooters. The DS has adequate shooter controls (in fact I think the DS has better shooter controls than the PS3 and 360, while a little more uncomfortable it's definitely more precise and flexible), one precise method of input for aiming and another (doesn't matter if it's digital, analog or even extremely precise) for moving, if you think you need dual analog controls for shooters then you should see how people play shooters on computers

That being said, while there are a few shooters on the DS (Metroid Prime Hunters, Dementium The Ward, Call of Duty 4, Moon) and they are very fun, you really shouldn't buy a handheld for shooters, get a PC for that.

Like Mugs said, both are pretty great but I give my vote to the DS as my post above explains.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

hacked psp and FFVII ftw imo.

 

[Eeezee]

I own the DS and R4. It's great being able to play homebrew.

The Advanced Wars series is great; the story of 3 > story of 4, but the gameplay of 4 is better.

The Phoenix Wright series is impossible to pass up.

New Super Mario Bros FTW

Other than that though, the platform is pretty mediocre. On the other hand, I can't think of anything that I'd like to play on the PSP except maybe SNES roms. I heard crisis core was pretty good. Oh, I might want to play War of the Lions, since FFTactics was awesome. Metal gear maybe? I don't know, I don't own it and can't come up with a good reason to buy it.

 

[KINGGABBO]

I have both and prefer the DS. No load times, better "on the go" games.

 

[FuryofFive]

to be honest...

DS = more kiddish games, battery life. someone said 6 hours. its close to 15+ without a charge.. depending on light level, folding unit so protects screen at non-play times.

PSP = 6+ hours depending on light levels,games are geared to teen-adults.
more media functions

so u kinda gotta come to ur own conclusion there
or get them both like i did

 

[purbeast0]

i had a DS for a few years and it hardly got any play, and I recently traded someone for a PSP.

both of them were/are hacked and I prefer the PSP over the DS.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: FuryofFive
DS = more kiddish games, battery life. someone said 6 hours. its close to 15+ without a charge.. depending on light level, folding unit so protects screen at non-play times.

It does have more kiddish games than the PSP, but it still has plenty of games for older people. Hey, it's good enough for Jessica Alba.

 

[FuryofFive]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: FuryofFive
DS = more kiddish games, battery life. someone said 6 hours. its close to 15+ without a charge.. depending on light level, folding unit so protects screen at non-play times.

It does have more kiddish games than the PSP, but it still has plenty of games for older people. Hey, it's good enough for Jessica Alba.

a good selling point is the battery life
and who cares about her lol..there are plenty of other hot girls...heck goto the beach and ud see them

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: FuryofFive

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: FuryofFive
DS = more kiddish games, battery life. someone said 6 hours. its close to 15+ without a charge.. depending on light level, folding unit so protects screen at non-play times.

It does have more kiddish games than the PSP, but it still has plenty of games for older people. Hey, it's good enough for Jessica Alba.

a good selling point is the battery life
and who cares about her lol..there are plenty of other hot girls...heck goto the beach and ud see them

I'm married.

I mean I'm married.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I have a DS with an R4 and a hacked psp and honestly I haven't touched my DS since I got my psp. The main reason is I can play PS1 games on the psp and God of War.

I do like both systems though.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

getting the psp hacked is cheaper than getting an R4. I don't know how much they let us talk about it here though so I don't think I should explain.

 

[jesterb84]

I have a PSP and love it (I'm that PS3/Xbox360 kind of guy). The widescreen is amazing and getting a custom firmware flashed is no big deal (although you should research a little first). Depending on where you live, you can get someone to flash the CFW for you (think Toronto). Like what most people said, with a CFW you can run games directly off of the memory stick and use a slew of homebrew apps transforming your PSP to much more than a gaming machine, such as reading comics with PSPComic (widescreen is great for this) and running NES/SNES/PSX games among others.

I forgot to mention that if you have a compatible GPS receiver that you can use the PSP as a GPS device too (google youtube videos for that).

 

[Aikouka]

Originally posted by: bl4ckfl4g
getting the psp hacked is cheaper than getting an R4. I don't know how much they let us talk about it here though so I don't think I should explain.

Yeah, I was actually thinking about getting an R4 or similar device for my DS, but the sheer price of it was insane...! Around $50-70 for a hack and you still need to buy a card? You need to buy a card to use your PSP anyway and hacking the PSP is not very difficult. They've both got some fun games on them, but I think if you want media as well as the emulation support that others have mentioned, you may want a PSP. For some of those crazy Nintendo games, you'd obviously want a DS. I think my DS may see its largest amount of play time in recent history with FFIV coming out on the 22nd. Also, I kinda can't find the wall->brick portion of my PSP charger (I remember putting them in separate boxes and saying "I guarantee I won't be able to find one" but I did it anyway ) so I kinda can't play it.

EDIT:

To answer some of the questions mentioned:

The DS isn't difficult to hack, it's simply more costly. The newer "slim" PSPs are harder to hack, but far from impossible. It's much easier to buy what people call the "fat PSP" and hack those. Just be aware that the "fat" PSPs do not support things like Skype.

I'm not sure about the DS playing SNES roms... your best bet is just trying to find a SNES emulator for the DS and looking at the website to see compatibility.

The DS and DS Lite are like revision 1 and revision 2 of the DS hardware. They made improvements to the size and the screen brightness.

The price difference for just the handhelds is... $20 I believe? If I remember correctly, the DS is 129.99 and the PSP is 149.99, but the PSP tends to come in packs now that can cost around 199.99 that include a game and other stuff. Frankly, as I mentioned before, I'd recommend buying a fat PSP if you plan to hax0rz it up.

 

[jesterb84]

Originally posted by: Aikouka
Frankly, as I mentioned before, I'd recommend buying a fat PSP if you plan to hax0rz it up.

But the fat PSP only has 32MB of RAM (and thus cannot run Skype) while the PSP Slim has 64MB. Also, the Slim has UMD pre-caching while the fat does not...

I would just get/pay someone to flash the CFW on the slim or do it yourself. There are plenty of instructions on how to do this with a slim. If you're doing this by yourself, all you need is to make or buy a Jigkick battery (pandora's battery) along with a memory stick.

Some places can install the CFW for you upon purchase. The M33 CFW has a webupdater now so you update the firmware with a few button presses via WiFi without need to reflash the entire thing using pandora's battery.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

i did my psp slim. I bought a pandora battery for 11 dollars and then made the memory stick to flash it with files that are available around the net.

I would still reccomend the slim. Just make or buy a battery. They are cheap.

 

[FuryofFive]

Originally posted by: bl4ckfl4g
i did my psp slim. I bought a pandora battery for 11 dollars and then made the memory stick to flash it with files that are available around the net.

I would still reccomend the slim. Just make or buy a battery. They are cheap.

hey can u send me info on how...i have both a ds and psp..but the psp i try to avoid playing unless i have lenghty period of time...due to the mass amount of loading it does.. i would rather stick them on a memory card to use...
for legit purposes only i have the games i wanna copy

 

[JackBurton]

I LOVE my PSP slim. I get ~10hrs with my extended battery and mainly use it for watching movies (on the memory stick), music, TV (Location Free is AWESOME!), and playing games from time to time. I need to finally set up skype on it, but I just don't think I'll use it much. As for the DS, I have absolutely NO interest in it, same as the Wii.

 

[Piuc2020]

Originally posted by: KingstonU
UPDATE: Are these easy to hack? Is there a guide somewhere? Is one harder to hack than the other? I heard that sony hates that the PSP is being hacked, did they prevent that with the new PSP?

The DS can't play SNES roms??

What is the difference between DS and DS light?

Also what is the price difference?

Thanks

To address your new question.
1. Yes they are very easy to hack , the DS moreso than the PSP, both will cost you about the same (you need a flashcart and a microsd for the DS but you need a pandora battery and a sony memory stick for the PSP). Nintendo has done nearly nothing to prevent hacking on the DS, what litte strides they have done have been to prevent piracy but not homebrew and the like.

2. The DS does have a SNES emulator and for the most part it works quite well.

3. "Original Style" DS (as Nintendo calls it) is no longer available for sell but is bulkier, has a dimmer light, and an ackward mic position than the DS Lite.

4. A DS Lite costs $129.99 and new games cost $29.99, a good flashcart will run you anything from $20 to $80 (depending on your needs) and microSD cards are very cheap nowadays, you can get 2GB for under $20. The PSP costs $169.99/$199.99 if you get it with a bundle, games are priced the same. A Datel tool battery will cost you like $20 and a good memory stick shouldn't cost you much unless you need a lot of capacity for movies and such.

You don't need a guide for the DS, you just fill your microsd with homebrew and movies and music and you put your flashcart in your DS, it's THAT easy. PSP is a little more complicated but not so much if you just follow the steps correctly, I knew of a great guide if I find it again I'll give you a link.