A couple of untimely PSP questions

There are just a crap-ton of PSP's going on Ebay, some for as low as $35. I think I'm going to keep watching and see if I can get one cheap. If not, I'll stop by a Gamestop.

Thanks for all the comments guys! I'm excited to play some old PS games as well as a few of the PSP ones.

OK, since this is the most lively PSP thread, I'll ask my question now.

I have a PSP 3000, and I'm using it with a European PSN account. The account is only for the PSP - I don't have a PS3. I did buy some games via PSN, and I keep some of them on a Memory Stick (and in MediaGo library on my laptop).

I would also like to register on the US PSN - many games are unavailable in PAL. What do I need? I suppose:

- US PSN account (got it)
- Credit Card with US Shipping Address or US PSN scratch cards (easily obtainable)
- Another Memory Stick for US games? (on my 'to-buy' list)
- Deactivate the PSP with my EU account, and activate it with US account (when I want to play the EU games, I will need to do just the opposite)

Please, let me know if this is everything, or did I miss any steps/prerequisites.

EDIT: Oh, and if I also wanted a Japanese account, do I need to do the same things?

The advantage of the phat is the pandora battery situation. It will save you from just about any brick. You kind of have to be into creating and writing software to get the most out of hacking your PSP. There is really only one other use for hacking which isn't an honest way to be a gamer. So if you're willing to pull out a years old handheld to enter contacts at your meeting, there is some interesting homebrew.

I may have been less scrupulous in my younger years. When the PSN outage awarded me content, I pulled my PSP out of neglectsville, and updated to current original firmware and was quite happy with the downloadable offerings useable from the memory stick. UMDs bugged me. Except for cheap eBay sell offs, now there is a lot of content that saves you from feeling, hearing, and waiting for the UMD drive.

Also worth noting, Sony has made it faster and easier to pay on PSN. You used to have to top up your wallet. I stopped a few impulse buys under the old system because you had to back out of the purchase, top up, then restart the transaction. Now it more or less just bills your credit card. Not sure how you feel about that after the security breach. It is convenient.

Of course if you're a PS3 owner you know all of this. But if you're just pulling your PSP out of storage, maybe you haven't been on PSN and are just considering accessing from your PC

MsbS wrote:

OK, since this is the most lively PSP thread, I'll ask my question now.

I have a PSP 3000, and I'm using it with a European PSN account. The account is only for the PSP - I don't have a PS3. I did buy some games via PSN, and I keep some of them on a Memory Stick (and in MediaGo library on my laptop).

I would also like to register on the US PSN - many games are unavailable in PAL. What do I need? I suppose:

- US PSN account (got it)
- Credit Card with US Shipping Address or US PSN scratch cards (easily obtainable)
- Another Memory Stick for US games? (on my 'to-buy' list)
- Deactivate the PSP with my EU account, and activate it with US account (when I want to play the EU games, I will need to do just the opposite)

Please, let me know if this is everything, or did I miss any steps/prerequisites.

It's not so difficult as all that. You need to set up a US PSN account with a US address, anywhere will do. Then buy US PSN codes from an online site (avoid ebay, I was scammed on a $50 card purchase). Then purchase away. Games from multiple PSP accounts US/Europe or otherwise can be dumped on the same memory card so you don't need to worry about separate memory cards unless space is an issue. It's only with the Vita that they got strict about tying a memory card to a single PSN account.

When I'm trying to access the Account Management settings or the PlayStation Store on my PSP, and sign in as the US account, I'm getting an error message:

"You cannot sign in using another user's sign-in ID (e-mail address)"

Should I just buy the games via MediaGo, and then transfer them to the PSP using a USB cable?

EDIT: Heck, just when I wanted to test this, PSN in undergoing maintenance. Just my luck...

Oh, sorry, I should have mentioned that I do all my PSP purchases via PS3. So my 3 different PSN accounts live on my PS3 and then I just transfer the games to PSP. My PSP actually isn't compatible with my wireless router so it's a long time since I've connected it to the Internet, at least a year? I guess you should be able to do the same thing with Media Go that I do with my PS3 but I've never used Media Go myself...

No probs - seems like MediaGo is the way to Go (duh!).

- I logged into the US Store using MediaGo.
- Picked a free game demo (just to see if it works).
- Connected the PSP to my PC.
- Copied the demo to the PSP. I got a warning message that this will deactivate my console with the other (PAL) account. No probs, I've got it all backed up (just in case).
- At this point, I could play the US demo from the Memory Card just fine. Other games that I have on the Card stopped working (as they were bought from the PAL account).
- To get access to PAL downloads again, I had to log into Account Management, then choose Deactivate/Activate, and activate the console using the PAL account.
- At this point, all PAL purchases work just fine, but the US one does not.

It may sound difficult, but in fact it's really easy. US Store - here I come!

Oh OK. I thought I had mixed PSP games from different regions on the same card before but guess not. I did get all the PSP freebies from the PSN outage a while back but I suppose I never got round to loading them all on. Sorry for the misleading information.

Mr GT Chris wrote:

Oh OK. I thought I had mixed PSP games from different regions on the same card before but guess not. I did get all the PSP freebies from the PSN outage a while back but I suppose I never got round to loading them all on. Sorry for the misleading information.

No, you are correct - you can have games from different regions on the same card. Though you can only play games from the region that your current account is from. If you want to play a game from a different region, you need to go to Account Management on your PSP and switch to anohter account (deactivate/activate the console).

I found a local 2001, just the PSP and charger, they want $50. No games, so if I want to test it I will need to find/purchase one and bring it along with me. It looks like its in good condition though. Seems like a fair price, just not a steal.

Edit: well I won a PSP 1001 with a couple games for $42 shipped on EBay. I hope its in good shape, it looked like it in the pics though. PSP one classics, here I come!

Congrats on winning the PSP, I'm considering getting a second one for multiplayer goodness with the kids. We just got back from a long vacation drive and having another one would have been handy. As for PS1 games, I've only bought a few -Resident Evil!- so far, but I wish they could have made them widescreen. Still, portable PS1 games. Good stuff. If you're looking for some decent & cheap games, I've been playing the hell out of Lemmings, Final Fantasy IV, and Jeanne D'Arc lately.

Running Man wrote:

... but I wish they could have made them widescreen. ...

You probably already know this - but you can mess about with the display settings quite a bit (through the PSP home menu) and stretch to full screen, zoom in and lose top/bottom etc. Not perfect but depending on the game it's helpful. The couple of games I've fired up have benefited from a bit of tweaking - the default setting didn't even seem to fill the screen vertically (come to think of it the default might be a direct pixel mapping - 240 vertical PS1 game pixels on a 272 vertical pixel PSP screen?)

Monster Hunter questions! I think there are a couple. Which is the one to get for the PSP? Freedom 2, or Unite? Are either good, or will they be kind of crappy after having played some Tri on the Wii?

Citizen86 wrote:

Monster Hunter questions! I think there are a couple. Which is the one to get for the PSP? Freedom 2, or Unite? Are either good, or will they be kind of crappy after having played some Tri on the Wii?

Unite.

I don't like the PSP games much after playing on Wii. Two sticks and online play are pretty important factors to me.

Thanks Blind_Evil. The online play isn't too important to me, but I know what you mean with the two sticks. I tried playing with the Wiimote and it was definitely difficult to maneuver the camera correctly and on the fly.

I got the PSP in today. I'm happy with it, it's in real nice condition! Screen is absolutely clean, it had a protector on it which was banged up, but taking that off makes it real pretty. And a real nice bonus I found: came with a memory card that was not listed, and 8gb one at no less!

It's always a bit of a risk buying on Ebay, since you can't examine the item beforehand. I'm happy with this one though, glad I waited out probably 200 before winning this one. It wasn't the first one I bid on though.

Now I just need to figure out how to connect it to my Wifi... I don't think my wifi is set up completely correct for it, since it is 802.11n, and I don't remember the password to login to it. D'oh

Edit: Here's a question for PSP Guru's. My PSP is currently on Version 6.39, but I see that the official one is up to 6.60, should I upgrade, even if I need to download it on my PC and bring it over to the memory card?

You might have trouble connecting to your Wifi network. Whatever hardware the PSP uses is pretty old and since I bought the latest Airport Express (which supports 802.11n), I haven't been able to connect anymore. Not a big deal since I don't usually play online but...

Yeah, I got it updated to 6.60 via memory card. Then when I loaded on Chrono Cross, it said that the wrong account is logged in on the PSP (I guess it's the previous owners), so I was expecting it not to work... but it seems to load up fine. I might not need a Wifi connection after all. I have no need to play online either

Edit: Actually, I think I reset the PSP, so maybe it's saying that because I'm not logged into PSN at all on the PSP