Exactly 7 days ago, I was informed by my wife that our apartment had been broken into and a whole lot of our stuff had been STOLEN!

My PSP fat and 8 games were among the $3000 worth of goods the low life got away with

Anyway, although I was hating life by the fact that I was missing all my stuff, like my PSP, I figured it’s a good excuse to get a PSP slim! Or a PSP 2000 as they are known in Japan.

So here’s to a new beginning and a new PSP slim! I still am lacking my collection of games, so I’ll have to start again. First up might be “Everybody’s Golf 2“! Loved the first one!

Later, Stu

Opposing emotions of surprise and confusion hit us when we heard that Sony’s newly redesigned PSP ’slim’ or PSP-2000 had shipped 1 million units in Japan in just about two months.

Hang on! Wasn’t the DS everyone’s favorite, especially in Japan? Then there’s the fact that DS sales (in Japan) might actually be slowly declining, allowing the slightly thinner and sleeker PSP to almost catch up.

So we did a little research into the portable gaming space between the new PSP slim vs. the sassy DS and we came up with 8 reasons why the PSP could sneak up and overtake the selling demon machine that is Nintendo’s DS.

• 1 Million new PSPs were sold in Japan in about two months. This first point got us curious as to why the PSP was doing so well. Was it because of the redesign? …which lead to 250k sales in four days, or,  has it actually become time (thanks to various factors listed below) for the PSP to catch up?…. if not surpass, the Nintendo DS? This point alone wouldn’t make for a strong argument, but we’ve found seven more.

• Sales figures for PSPs are rising, while DS Lite’s figures dropping (in Japan). According to the Japanese sales charts Kotaku loves to drool over, the last four weeks for the DS looked like this: 76243, 78552, 78854, 76069. The last four weeks for the PSP looked like this: 59792, 59714, 58964, 65609.

DS sales seems to have plateaued (the slight dip probably means nothing), whereas the PSP sales got a nice spike this past week. Has everyone over there finished the new Zelda game already?

• PSP actually has more and better games to play. According to metacritic, the site that aggregates major game reviews, the PSP has 53 games that are rated 80 (out of 100) or higher, whereas the DS only has 44.

Although the DS has three games that score higher than any of the PSP’s (Mario Kart DS, Advance Wars: Dual Strike, Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass), on the whole it seems the PSP gets you better bang for your buck in the game selection and game play area.

• The PSP has better PS3 integration compared with the DS and Wii. The recent upgrades to both the PS3 and PSP firmware allow for much, much better compatibility between the two than compared with the DS and the Wii. Remotely starting up your PS3 may be a neat gimmick, but they’ve also got remote play, which lets you access videos, music, and even games wirelessly through your PSP whether you’re at home or outdoors at a Wi-Fi access point.

There’s been talk of using the DS as a Wii controller in many games, but the most we’ve seen is transferring Pokemon to your Wii or using the Wii to download DS demos—a function that the PS3/PSP also has.

• The PSP has better media capabilities. Ignoring the failed UMD movie initiative, you can still use the PSP’s giant screen to play back movies off of your memory stick. There’s also picture and slideshow viewing, music playback, as well as remote play off your PS3, which lets you stream content from home.

• The PSP has better add-ons. Some of these are only in Japan, but the add-on camera, GPS, TV Tuner, and LocationFree TV give you four things to do with your PSP when you’re not playing games.

• The PSP actually sold just as well as the PS2 in the first year. We dislike to bring up sales numbers again as proof that the PSP is picking up steam over the DS system, but as J Allard famously found out, the PSP sold just as well as the PS2, hitting 10 million units within a 12-month span (give or take).

• Sony’s planning a PSP Phone! Look out Apple. Whether the PSP phone will actually support PSP games is uncertain and possibly unlikely, but the mere fact that there’s a PSP phone that supports some of the PSP’s functions and has some PSP connectivity will be enough to give both platforms a boost.

So does this late domination of the PSP mean that the DS is doomed? Certainly not. If you look at our gaming distribution between DS time and PSP time this past Thanksgiving holiday, the time spent on the DS dwarfed the time spent on the PSP about 1,000 to 1. And the DS just sold 653,000 units over Thanksgiving.

We simply think this means the PSP’s time to shine has come! It is finally stepping out from behind the DS’s shadow as the uglier, fatter, less fun cousin and showing itself off as the full-featured portable media powerhouse of entertainment that it really is. It’s great to be a PSP owner and only hope it continues to improve!

The new PSP slim doesn’t look any different from the original PSP fat a distance, but the new system’s subtle and welcome updates are quickly relized when seen up close.

Details of the new PSP slim were announced: It’s a slimmer build and noticeably lighter in weight when held in your hand. There is a shiny glossy coat over the plastic paint job.

The WLAN/Wi-fi switch has moved to top of unit next to UMD drive. The UMD are you insert and remove the UMD’s has been streamlined; no more awkward push and slide button to pop it open, now just a little groove you slip your thumb under and it pops out (much better).

Sony has confirmed that increased RAM has been added to speed UMD load times in game play. The battery pack is much, much lighter (and smaller too). Plugging in an old PSP Fat battery will give you nearly double the battery life according to Sony because the new PSP is far more “power efficient”.

The speakers have moved from the bottom under the screen; they’re now closes to the top of the unit above your thumbs. The D-pad and four action buttons design has been greatly improved; they feel awesome, much more like a Sony PS3 controller.

And one excellent feature many will purchase it for is the HD video/audio out so you can play it on your big screen TV!

Thanks for reading!