Originally Posted by Dante Ameche:
“If the 9 year old has his heart set on a PSP and he gets a Nintendo DS instead, do you think he's going to be impressed that his mom or dad got him what someone else thinks is the best hand held on the market?”
The original poster didn't specify whether the 9 year old has his heart set on it or not.
My advice would be to any person about to purchase a handheld games console, would be to get a Nintendo DS Lite - its cheaper, has better games, more original games, far more innovative, far superior battery life, literally no loading times (the PSP loading times can be and often attrocious), it has touch screen, dual screen, its clam design PROTECTS the screens (the PSP screen is vunerable) etc etc.
The PSP is flawed in that its basically a compromised PS2 and tries to do all the things like movies, games and music in one box. It does none of those things very well. You can get add ons for the Nintendo DS which allows the above anyway.