Sports Product Review

My kids, like most kids, love PlayStation. We only let them play on weekends, but I’m constantly shooing them out of the house on beautiful days because they’re hooked on “MLB The Show” or “Madden” or some other sports game. Yet it’s been hard for me to not feel hypocritical in my disdain for their gaming because I remember, as a kid, buying a baseball board game and playing it on the floor of my family room for hours. Thirty Christmases ago my favorite present of all time was a little handheld computer football game where I could maneuver a series of red LED blips down a field. I hardly put it down for a year. And when my neighbor got the first home video game, Pong, I thought it was the greatest thing I’d ever seen. If there had been a football, baseball or basketball video game as realistic as the ones my kids now have, I wonder if I’d have ever gotten up from the TV.

But that doesn’t mean that would have been a good thing. It’s fine that my kids enjoy video games to a point, but when it starts causing arguments or when I walk past the family room and one of them doesn’t appear to have moved for hours, that’s when I draw the line.

So when Sony announced that it was releasing a PlayStation Portable a few years back and my kids asked for one, my first thought was, “Yeah, right.” The last thing I want to do is make it even easier for them to be connected to a video game. Plus, I doubted the quality of the graphics and complexity of the games would be such that would justify the unit’s price tag.

But of course, my wife’s dad got them one for Christmas. Thanks, Grandpa. Now there was one more reason to not read a book, to not go outside and get better at sports. I shook my head, but what could I do? Trying to keep them off PlayStation was like trying to stop them from raiding the candy dish. I told myself that not everything they ever did had to be “good for them.” It wasn’t like they weren’t active kids. But deep down I wished PlayStation had never been invented.

Then, I took a look at the little thing. Imagine taking a high-res, flat-panel screen and shrinking it down to the size of a 3 x 5 index card. Then imagine a series of intuitive and ergonomically perfect buttons, and the same, “can’t stop playing them” games available in miniature. Once I tried it, all of a sudden, I was hooked. Now my kids were waiting for me to get off the PlayStation. Out of the blue, my wife got me one as an anniversary gift. I hadn’t asked for it or indicated that I even wanted it, but secretly, I was thrilled. I hadn’t felt as excited about a gift since I was a kid.

As I learned more about it, I was even more impressed. The PSP is one of the most amazing multi-purpose pieces of technology ever invented. The games every bit as good as on the big unit, but that's just the beginning. Got a wi-fi connection? You can browse the Internet on your PSP and send and receive email. Use it as an MP3 player and download songs. The PSP plays full-length movies, which came in handy on a recent flight back from New York. Soon there will be a GPS Navigation application. And, if you want to get Skype, you could even use the PSP as a phone. And maybe coolest of all? PSP is equipped with Bluetooth so that I can sit inside on a beautiful day and play an entire NBA Live tournament with my boys. Not that I’d ever do that, of course. Well, maybe just on weekends.

Source: Sony