I' m not even gonna entertain the blatant platform fanboyism going on in this thread, LOL.. :P
Anyways BOTH handhelds bring something to the entertainment table and both are set to provide some very memorable gameplay experiences. Now admittedly, I' ve pretty much always been a PSP man cause quite frankly, I' m a sucker for powerful handhelds, which is why the Gameboy Advance was my first Nintendo handheld, I never owned the original Gameboy or Gameboy Color. Hell, I never even owned or wanted a Game Gear, I made a beeline straight for the 16-bit Nomad and Turbo Express. So with that said, yes I' m enamoured by the technical muscle of the PSP. But even the best graphics can' t hold a candle to great gameplay experiences, which both handhelds can easily provide.
While I pretty much have a truckload of games for the PSP, I purchased a DS for one game, and that was Nanostray. A beautiful game in motion but so uninspired as a shooter. But still I don' t regret the DS purchase at all cause I always have to get my shooter fix. It' s amazing that while the PSP is graphically superior to the DS by a significant margin, Nanostray looks way better than the current 3 shooters on the PSP combined!
As far as the gaming lineup goes, to be honest, I' m digging the PSP' s current lineup more. Despite the slowness in game releases there are a lot of enjoyable titles out for it right now.
However, as for the stuff coming out the rest of the year I definitely have to give it to the DS. It' s getting the better version of Viewtiful Joe in my opinion. An actual action-platformer instead of a Smash Brothers wannabe reject. And you have Castlevania of course, as well as Nintendogs, New Super Mario Bros, Sonic Rush, Phoenix Wright, and yall are definitely gonna laugh at me but to hell with ya anyways, but the DS game I' m kinda looking forward to the most at this point is that Japanese all Male cheerleader game that Ricardo demoed on Gamespot' s ' On the Spot' show. The only PSP release I' m looking forward to later in the year is Ys The Ark of Napishtim.. I' ve never been crazy about the Grand Theft Auto series, the only one I enjoyed a bit was Vice City, and also I absolutely hate the Gran Turismo series.
On the subject of ports, watered down ports and what not, let' s not forget that the PSP isn' t the only one home to console ports, the DS is home to them as well, and when going from current-gen console to handheld GUESS which one is gonna be even more watered down? So trying to argue about the PSP getting ports and selectively forgetting about the DS getting them is pretty silly.
As for UMD movies, the naysayers at Gamefaqs were so adament that they would fail and now look at them, all the naysayers are now eating crow and I just love twisting that particular knife sometimes, LOL. UMD movies have been amazingly successful and as times even outperforming their DVD counterparts in total sales. I have a few UMD movies and I love being able to watch them on the PSP. Yes there' s the memory stick option to convert and transfer movies to but regardless of what high setting you use in converting, the visual quality of the UMD movies just blows them away! People can also argue about having some super duper surround sound setup at home with 56 inch screen TVs till they are blue in the face, AND they can argue about portable DVD players all they want, but NONE of those items are as portable as a PSP cause none of them will fit in your pocket
. When I' m on the bus, train, ferry, or just hanging out somewhere with time to kill, all I have to do is reach into my pocket and pull out the PSP for some quick entertainment.
All in all, I think what many seem to be forgetting is that the DS went through a major gaming drought early on in its life. Remember January, February, March, and April?? The lineup was really piss-poor back then. The PSP actually launched pretty strong with a solid variety of titles available and not many will deny that it had a better launch line-up than the DS did at its respective launch. But as with any new hardware, developers need time to wrap themselves around the hardware and get stuff out.
The PSP will no doubt pick-up later on just like the DS will. Let' s not forget that Capcom has a Devil May Cry game in the works, there' s a WWE game coming out, as well as a truckload of previously announced titles. 2006 is gonna be an awesome time for both DS and PSP owners.
N-Gage owners on the other hand, have my deepest condolences