Today, as you may know, was the much-delayed launch of the PSP in the UK and across Europe. To be honest I didn’t see much of it since I was at work and my store saw very little PSP action (four preorders and nothing on the shelves), but I still have a couple of stories to share from what I’ve seen and heard.

The mainstream press is always reliable for a laugh at console launches, and probably the most amusing was on the radio on the way to work when I heard them trying to get their head around the acronyms (they kept calling the movies “UVDs”). They also had a random guy who queued up for one and was ranting about how excited he was to be the first one in the country to have one. That was amusing when I was in the VGC where they’ve sold literally hundreds of machines since the Japanese launch last December.

While I was there I picked up Virtua Tennis and the Transformers The Movie UMD to bolster my burgeoning PSP collection:

A couple of things worth noting about those two: Virtua Tennis contains a forced firmware upgrade to v2.0, so anyone in the US thinking of importing who is holding onto v1.5 for homebrew applications should tread carefully; also the UMD of Transformers The Movie is the cut version with the “oh shit…” line taken out, so don’t throw out those DVD versions just yet.

Unsurprisingly it pretty much sold out everywhere. Both branches of GAME in Bournemouth were already redirecting people to the VGC when I went in there at about 9:45am, and even they only had 16 machines out of their allocation of 40 remaining, so that should show you how quick it happened.

The PSP finally launches officially across Europe at midnight tonight, and there’s already a Sony press release out there engaging in a quick round of autofellatio for a job well done. What they seem to be completely blinkered to is the fact that the late and overpriced launch is a fucking insult, made worse by the fact that they thought it would be a good idea to sue people who were importing it for less than the UK price. Then to top it all off they’re only giving 150,000 units for the whole UK which will inevitably lead to stock shortages.

They’re not exactly flying off the shelves abroad so couldn’t they at least bring us a decent amount? The Xbox sold for £300 at launch and managed 250,000 machines, and if I remember correctly the N64 launched here at £250 and also managed 250,000 units, so 150,000 for a world-standard machine is pitiful – it’s not like they need to manufacture a new PAL version. What the fuck were they doing for the last few months? They certainly weren’t manufacturing them.

Continuing with the “Sony is shit” rant, I’ve just seen the planned prices of PS3 games. That’s completely ridiculous and I hope they end up handing this generation to Microsoft on a plate if they try to pull that shit.

The second annual Penny Arcade Expo came and went this weekend and after reading this writeup on Slashdot I have to say that it sounded like a lot of fun. The guys at PA have always impressed me by both being really nice guys and doing a lot for the fans (not to mention sick children), really doing their part to show that gamers aren’t all the murderous loners that some seem to think, and PAX seems to be the community-orientated thing that is a great foil to the commercialism behind the bigger shows. It may not have the sheer amount of new stuff that E3 brings, but E3 doesn’t have constant LAN parties.

In fact after reading that I’m really tempted to fly over and go to the next show, especially if they hold one on the East Coast as the rumours seem to be suggesting. The first one sounded great and this one seems to be a vast improvement that will only get better next year. It’s never going to break the hold on the industry that E3 has but as more developers see its growth and popularity this could be the perfect show for consumers to see the latest games.

I think I’m really late to the party on this one, but I’ve just discovered Mega64 (more info on their Wikipedia entry) which is absolutely worth a look. I’m a huge fan of the hidden camera stuff like Trigger Happy TV so one that involves video games is always going to grab my attention, especially when they do a hilarious Shenmue spoof, which oddly seems to downplay the “I’m looking for some sailors” line which always seems to be an easy target. You have to love the QTE and the “I’m looking for the man who killed my father”/”Wow, that’s pretty deep” exchange.

If you enjoy that by all means download the rest of their videos, but my personal favourites were Tetris, Metal Gear Solid, and Ghosts ‘n Goblins. I can’t wait for some more.

Just to confirm what I thought in my initial impressions, it does get better when you’ve played it a bit more. Now I’ve trained Poppy with a few tricks (sit, lay down, roll over, spin, and shake) and won a couple of the obedience trials I’ve got some money to play with, and that opens up more things you can do. I have enough to get a second dog but I’m not going to do that until I’ve pretty much exhausted my opportunies to do things with one.

It’s definitely still no deep and long game but I’m having fun with it. It continues to impress me with how lifelike the dogs are, both in terms of animation and in reactions to whatever you’re doing. If nothing else it’s a very impressive technical showcase for what the DS can do with what could be considered fairly limited hardware – the PSP might have power pushing that of the PS2, but it can’t make dogs that yelp if you poke them up the arse.

Not that I’d do that, of course.