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The PSP doesn't get as much credit as it deserves. Log onto most any video game forum and when the talk falls to portables, there will be an inevitable slew of gamers discussing the various ways in which the PSP is a sub par piece of garbage deserving of nothing less than a Youtube-worthy walloping. They will tout the massive sales of the DS and the innovative play brought on by the stylus and touch screen. The library of DS games will be contrasted as gigantic in comparison to that of the PSP. Indeed, most can't think of enough compliments for Nintendo's pocket-sized money maker. Just as many can't find enough ways insult the PSP.
For instance, Nintendo has a long history of absolutely brutalizing its competition in the portable market. As of now the DS has been selling like plastic pancakes, but the PSP hasn't really been all that bad in comparison. The DS has sold nearly three times as many units worldwide, but the 30 million PSPs purchased by gamers is hardly a paltry amount. The DS may dominate, but the PSP shows no sign of fading out anytime soon.
As to the claim that the PSP has little in the way of good games, reality would suggest otherwise. Are there as many games, or good ones for that matter, on the PSP as on the DS? No, but there are more than enough high quality games to satisfy most any gamer. For RPG fans especially, the PSP is a strong system; Brave Story, Final Fantasy Tactics, Crisis Core, Jeanne D'arc, etc. To say there are no good games on the PSP would be like walking into a grizzly den with your eyes closed and proclaiming there are no bears. There are great titles on the DS, and in greater bulk than on the PSP, but that does not make the many quality titles on the PSP nonexistent.
Some criticism, however, does amount to more than just the rhetoric of system war soldiers. The PSP does not at all live up to its original goals. When it was launched, Sony hyped it to be the next "it" gadget. It was to be a device for every occasion. If you liked music, the PSP could play it. If you enjoyed movies, the PSP was there with popcorn. If you wanted to surf the web, all you needed was a wireless connection. And as an afterthought you could play games as well. The problem was that for all the things the PSP could do, the competing items already on the market could do them much better. The limited space on PSP memory sticks and the the unwiedly size of the original PSP made it an unnatural MP3 player when compared to the iPod. The assumption that people would suddenly purchase new, expensive copies of movies that they likely already owned was for lack of a better word, stupid. The internet browser worked, but it was nowhere near as useful as a plain ol' computer. Above all the battery life was indeed short; anathema for a portable. All of this added up to a flawed, expensive gaming machine weighed down by pointless features. When lined up against the much more affordable, no-frills DS, the choice was obvious for many a gamer.
But much has changed since the initial launch. The PSP Slim, despite the continued necessity of things like memory sticks, is much more compact and affordable than its older iteration. The pointless features are still there but are relatively ignorable. Furthermore, as the system matures, I can see advents like the brilliant remote play feature becoming innovative in a way that even the DS can't match. With a wireless connection and my PS3, I can now play Final Fantasy VII anywhere I want. That strikes me as much more cool than dragging a plastic stick over a touch screen.
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