the very least the ability to burn one' s own UMDs.

Providing the ability to burn your own UMDs would be a HUGE mistake on Sony' s part in my opinion..

If you want a gimmick look at the UMD' s that is a stupid idea. Paying twice the price for a UMD which only plays on the PSP when you can get a bigger screen portable DVD player which plays DVD' s you already own instead of having to buy a UMD that doesn' t even have the features a DVD has.

I remember when the majority of Gamefaqs were hating on the idea of UMD movies and said that it would be Dead on Arrival.. They were all wrong. They' re selling rather well, some even outperforming their DVD counterparts in total sales, so it' s turned out to be not so stupid of an idea after all

The thing about the PSP compared to the portable DVD player is that the PSP is way more portable. I mean you can' t very well fit a portable DVD player in your pocket, conveniently pull it out at practically ANY moment and continue enjoying whatever it was you were watching

And as for whatever argument I' ve heard in the past about comparing the PSP' s movie playing feature to that of a 52 inch screen TV with surround sound, well, umm You can' t very well drag that 52 inch screen TV with surround sound on a bus, plane, train and watch it can ya?

ORIGINAL: Terry Bogard

the very least the ability to burn one' s own UMDs.

Providing the ability to burn your own UMDs would be a HUGE mistake on Sony' s part in my opinion..

Well, the supported formats could still be locked, so that you wouldn' t be able to rip a dvd at umd commercial quality. Videos could still be 3gp format, thus preserving the marketability of UMD films. Piracy is a moot point, given that you can already boot up an iso image from memory stick. If push came to shove, " blank" UMDs could well be capped at 1 GB, thus preventing big games and UMD movies from being copied.

The ability to burn your own mp3/image collections on reasonably priced 1 GB discs would provide an immense boost to the psp as a media player that' s all I' m saying.

Piracy is a moot point, given that you can already boot up an iso image from memory stick. If push came to shove, " blank" UMDs could well be capped at 1 GB, thus preventing big games and UMD movies from being copied.

The problem with that is that many of the current PSP games, if not all of them are at the sub-600 meg range (Wipeout Pure is around 270 megs), which is why people can fit multiple ISO images onto a single 1 gig stick..

Providing the ability to burn your own UMD would just open up another avenue and propel piracy even further. You' d more than likely see more pirated UMD games being sold than stuff on memory sticks.

IF I were in Sony' s shoes, while the PSP is still an active platform I would NEVER make UMD burners available to consumers OR even most developers, lol..

You' re right in principle of course, but there' s lots of ways to fill up a disc so that it exceeds 1 GB of data. If Sony chose to go ahead and allow users to burn their own UMDs, I' m sure they could find lots of ways to hinder movie and game piracy, especially if the target medium can hold at least 40% less data than the source medium. After all, mem sticks can already hold 1GB of data. Using cost to limit piracy is not a very good marketing strategy and could ultimately hurt the product.

What i think is funny is that i normally go to my local game store (game zone) and i talk to a couple of guys there who both bought a PSP and were happy with it for about a month or so and when the appeal wore off and they were both struck with dead pixels and not enough fun games to play they sold it and got a DS and they tell me how much fun they are having with it and they have lots of fun games and tons more on the way and they have the list of upcoming PSP and DS games since they work ar the game store and they said there isn' t one game for the PSP they care to play or make it worth keeping but there are tons of DS games that are coming out which they want. I love my DS it' s lots of fun and i have played my friends PSP at the game store and i honestly didn' t see what the big deal about it is. Everyone says it looks sleek and sexy and that the DS is bulky. I don' t think the PSP is all that sexy espcially since it smudges and smear so fast and easy and you see tons of fingerprints.

Plus Sony seems like they care more about releasing movies on it then games. (I just read an article saying the movies to games ration is higher in favor of movies).

Also with pokemon coming out for the DS i don' t think the PSP can remotely catch it at that point seeing how they have Mario, Animal crossing, castlevania, mario kart, Square-Enix games all coming out this year before pokemon. WIthout one killer app that makes people want to buy a PSP for games i don' t think the PSP has a chance. If they are comfortable in second place i think the PSP wil go on living for that niche group that love the PSPs other features like UMDs and MP3s (although the DS can also do MP3s and Mpeg4 movie files on the play-yan on SD cards which hold more then tiwce that of a PSP card, given the 2gig SD card can be pricey just giving a point).

i think dat the psp is like way better than the ds. i mean the ds might be cheaper and some wat better but i prefer the psp. because its just so many more things u can do with that lil thing. . and yes it is expensive but hey not every one is poor so yea i think the psp is great

Note that this is my opinion. I dont think the PSP could beat the DS because it' s just a handheld PS2 and to me that isn' t a good thing. Why would you want a portable version of a crappy system? You wouldn' t, well I wouldn' t. So in the end i' d rather have a something innovative and new, than something familliar and repetitive.

i think the psp will end up beating the ds

Note that this is my opinion. I dont think the PSP could beat the DS because it' s just a handheld PS2 and to me that isn' t a good thing.

Interesting, especially since I have yet to find any of these games on the PS2: Metal Gear Ac!d, Lumines, Tenchi no Mon, Ape Academy, Coded Arms, Infected, Bounty Hounds, Mercury, ' Star Soldier' (enhanced), Rengoku, Princess Crown, Pursuit Force, Death Jr., Kollon, Intelligent License, Fired Up, Frantix, and a few others.

I agree with residentevil, the PSP will win in any cause. A gaming device AND a media center, that' s an oppenent.