How good is PSN for PSP games?

[jfrost]

My girlfriend is traveling to the US in a couple of months and I'm probably gonna ask her to smuggle some tech back home. I'll probably ask her to get a Kindle, which's got a really good price as I check it now, and I'm thinking of asking for a PSP too.

The main point of the PSP to me, though, is how good is PSN, since I won't be buying physical games.

So, is there a good selection of PSP games on PSN? I know there are a lot of games that aren't there, but will I be missing out on too many great ones?

Secondly, I know people complain about PSN prices a lot, so I need to know about sales. Obviously PSN is not Steam, but are sales good and do they happen relatively often?

[brunoafh]

A general rule is that most games that came out mid 2009 and before aren't available on PSN. Most major titles after that are on PSN. You can always check here for every single game digitally released for PSP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_do ... _PSP_games

The sales actually are pretty decent, and happen weekly. I don't do any buying off PSN when it comes to PSP games myself, but I browse the store pretty often and have noticed this.

Edit: Better yet, you can get a list of all the games digitally released straight from the horse's mouth: http://us.playstation.com/uwps/BrowseGa ... nsWith=Any

[jfrost]

Well, the selection seems to be more than satisfying for me.

Is it easy to buy Japanese games? I've read that you have to do some trickery with Japanese PSN cards and such. I don't how it works, however.

[brunoafh]

Yeah, you have to buy Japanese PSN cards, but it's pretty easy. You can do it online and just buy a redeem code. If you have a PS3 you probably know what I'm talking about with the codes. I use Gateway-to-Japan, it's very reliable, I've never had any problems. He usually e-mails your code within 24 hours too. The Japanese PSN is actually a pretty good thing about the PSP too, it regularly has demos not available on the US one, and lets you buy otherwise expensive UMD imports for standard prices.

You'll have to make a Japanese PSN account of course, but there are YouTube guides and what not if you have any problems setting it up due to not being able to read the set up pages.

It's also worth mentioning that you'll have to activate and deactivate your PSP depending on what region the content you want to use is. It's very simple to do and only takes a few seconds, but it's kind of annoying.

[noiseredux]

good info bruno, maybe you could make a guide in the GUIDES sub-forum.

[jfrost]

Thanks for the information, brunoafh. I'm already giving up on the idea, however, as I find out more about PSN.

It isn't supported in this country, so I'd have to be a bit dodgy to buy stuff from PSN USA and Japan. I'm not sure I want to deal with the hassle...

I might as well pirate.

[brunoafh]

Ouch. You could always buy US redeem codes via Internet too... but yeah, I can see why somebody wouldn't really want to be bothered to do that. If Sony isn't going to bother to support your country, why go out of your way to support them?

The PSP is so easily modded, and becomes such a gaming powerhouse once you install a cfw. Modding new models (3000 series) can be a pain though, so you might want to make it a point to get a 1000 or 2000 if you plan on hacking it. That's a different discussion all together though.

[jfrost]

Hmm, but is it at least possible to mod newer models?

It's not that I have anything against the older ones, but if I'm asking someone to go to another country and buy me stuff, I should at least make sure it is easy for them to do so. If finding models 1000 or 2000 is difficult-ish, I'd settle for a newer model that can be bought at Best Buy, even if it made my life a little more miserable (not that it isn't already so regarding the PSP).

Emulation is not a deal breaker either, I get easily bored with it. I'd be using the PSP mostly for PSP games and the occasional PS1 fix (PS1 is my favorite console ever).

It's pretty shitty of Sony to not allow me to buy stuff from their store without typing in a bogus address on their database. I buy tons of PC stuff off Steam, GOG and other places and I'd venture to guess that they're pretty happy with my business. My money is as green as the Americans', I'd guess. Just fucking allow PayPal and I'll not bother anyone, really.

[brunoafh]

I think you can mod a 3000, but I've never done it myself, nor have I done any research on it. You'll probably end up having to make some modifications to the battery. I'd look into it a bit before buying one.

With a 1000 or 2000 that's running on old firmware, someone that knows what they're doing already can have it fully modded in a matter of minutes. A 1000 or 2000 probably isn't especially easy to acquire at a store, but a GameStop could happen to have a used one lying around, but then you'd have to be able to identify them. You can always try to grab an old model from a seller online if you're looking into modding.

[Croooow!]

I by a number of games from the PSN store and have a pretty good idea of what is available and what isn't. If you are thinking about going download only you should have plenty of games to occupy your time. On the other hand, there is a number of older games for the system you'd miss out on and some of the downloads are over 1GB.