Clip from the Boston Herald

[Vimes220]

Viewing a movie on PSP is all about the action

By Wesley Morris, Globe Staff | April 2, 2005

At nearly 4 inches wide, the screen on the PlayStation Portable should sort the movie fans from the cinephiles.

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</TD><TD width=5></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Nobody is watching the works of Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky on this thing. Or better yet: No one should. The PSP is only slightly more ideal for watching <ORG idsrc="NYSE" value="SNE">Sony's</ORG> ''Spider-Man 2," which is included with some players.

On the PSP, I marveled at the sharpness of the picture and the boldness of the colors. I was again impressed with Tobey Maguire's skills as a scrappy comedian as well as with the shrewdness of the writing and directing. But soon I noticed that viewing a movie on a hand-held game console makes you feel obligated to play it somehow.

Eventually, I grew frustrated with the human story -- For Pete's sake, Parker, just tell Mary Jane you love her! -- and started looking for the ''good parts." The clear plastic tab at the top corner of either side of the console makes it outrageously easy to barrel past whole scenes, until something ''exciting" happens.

The fortunate thing about ''Spider-Man 2" is that the people and the action sequences are inextricable -- each such sequence is a test of someone's character. But if you're watching this on a PSP, the last thing you probably care about is Harry Osborn's motivation. You'd rather see Peter stop that runaway train. And the PSP actually makes you want to use the control keys to stop the train yourself.

Instead, it seems to me that this is the perfect gizmo for reading comic books frame by frame. Or better, for watching a music video.

Video is a format whose potential as downloadable entertainment is still under-realized. A video lasts about four minutes, which is about as long as I could hang on to the PSP without wanting to press a button, and a decent music video is about as good as a film.

If I can be completely reductive about an art form I love, the bottom line, financially speaking, is that videos are songs with moving pictures.

Sony can you hear me? You might beat Apple on this!

[Vimes220]

I like the Idea of Downloading music videos to take on the I-pod

[alerith]

Looks like someone missed the entire point of the system. ITS A GAMING CONSOLE!

[Vimes220]

i decline to respond to that

[leggy]

I bought it for games / music / videos and whatever else it will be able to do in the future.

Oh yes, and because it looks so damn good!!

[aseddon130]

i look at it as a games console - with MP3 compatibilty and video playback - same as my NGage (but without phone capabilities) but a million times better :P

i dont see anything like that on a DS ... tut tut lol but i guess you get what you pay for, thats probably why Sony can and will ask for about £150+ for the console when its released over here... and not just because they are cheapskates !!