Hello there

I had a conversation with someone about the Sony PSP. He brought up an interesting point about not liking it because of having to buy the same games again and in a different format. He was also sold on my argument against the PSP being essentially a CD drive. As a portable game system, I don't want the battery power wasted on moving parts and because the system is portable why should there be moving parts in the first place? And what's funny is the PSP most likely has systems and technologies in place to minimize this problem. And these systems and technologies take up space and use up more power to keep everything running.

But back to the main issue about buying the same games in different formats. I initially agreed because the guy was telling me that he owns a PlayStation and finds it ridiculous to buy the same games again but in Sony's yet another new format, UMD, if he were to buy the PSP. I next thought about my Game Boy Advance SP and recently my wife bought me a Nintendo DS for Xmas and realized I'm doing exactly what he's against. hahaha My wife says I have Advance Wars for the DS and the Game Boy Advance. I tried to defend myself that although the game title is the same name, the details are different. For one very ovious reason, the DS is dual screen. So although it seems like it, it's not quite. Also the great thing about the DS is that it has backwards compatibility with Game Boy Advance games which means not having to buy the same games I enjoyed on the Advance again.

So I think to get around this problem of buying the same games again but in different formats, the console/portable video games industry should start standardizing the media. One easy and cheap option is flash memory. And there are so many formats to choose from: Compact Flash, SD, MMC, etc and even flash memories attached to USBs. So here's a wild idea.. I think games should be distributed on the web as software like an iTunes service which are then copied to the respective flash memory format that the console/portable supports. So that brick and mortar stores can still sell games physically to customers, I think the package should be a scratch off card which gives authorization to download the game via the iTunes like service mentioned earlier. They package should also include the game manuals and necessary retail cover art. I also like this service better because if the store doesn't have it, then the customer can always find the game from the same web service. That way the customer never has to worry about finding that rare game. I can already imagine building the software to make all this happen. Sounds exciting!