PSP = Pretty Shoddy Pixels

I'll admit it: I'm a Nintendo man. I've owned every Nintendo console since the original NES, including the ill-fated Virtual Boy. (Which wasn't that bad, especially seeing as how I bought it for $30 and sold it eight years later for nearly $100. It was a bit hard on the eyes though.)

I do dabble in the works of other manufacturers. The Gamecube has a good number of titles that mostly sell at top-notch prices, but who could resist the sheer multiplicity (and corresponding economy) of titles available for the PS2? I always come back to Nintendo in the end, but Sony has done a good job of pushing its way to the front of the home video game pack with a so-so console and a lot of muscle.

Now Sony has introduced its new handheld system, the PlayStation Portable, or PSP. (I wish they'd show a little more imagination in naming their consoles.) I welcome the PSP, because frankly I think Nintendo needs the competition as incentive to keep innovating. Too long they've been the king of the hill with the Gameboy systems, and while the Gameboy Advance (particularly the SP version) is a great system, I have yet to see a game for the new DS (Dual Screen) system that makes me want to run out and buy one. Maybe the PSP will inspire Nintendo to new heights of Gameboydom.

That doesn't mean, however, that I'm not happy to see Sony stumble a bit with the PSP's introduction. According to this article, the PSP has some serious problems with dying pixels on its little LCD screen. Inconsistent warranty policies between resellers and an hazy message from Sony about which units qualify for replacement have led to a significant number of unhappy users and some bad press for Sony. Not that this is anything new; Sony has long had a history of releasing shoddy first-version products and then ignoring the customers who buy them while quietly improving the next models to come off the line. Anyone who ever had to turn an original Sony Playstation upside-down to get the games to play properly can tell you that.

It is continued warning to the vidiots, however: stay away from anything by Sony marked "1.0."